Seldom recycled, plastic grocery bags face bans in S.F.

from the March 29, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0329/p01s03-ussc.html

In eliminating petroleum-based bags, San Francisco city leaders hope that retailers will adopt biodegradable ones.

By Ben Arnoldy Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

SAN FRANCISCO

In a trailblazing environmental move that recognizes one of the stubborn shortfalls of traditional recycling, city leaders have approved a ban on nonbiodegradable plastic bags at supermarkets and large pharmacy checkout counters.

San Francisco currently crinkles its way through 181 million plastic bags every year. Only 1 percent of those bags get a second life in products like deck furniture and railroad ties, even after a decade of trying to boost recycling. Nationally, the picture is similar: Less than 1 percent of 100 billion plastic bags tossed each year get recycled.

By voting Tuesday to ban traditional plastic bags, made from petroleum, the city hopes to spur retailers to provide an alternative type of plastic bag – one made from starches. Customers can discard this kind of bag in their compost collection bins, which are widely used here.

San Francisco will be the first US city to prohibit petroleum-based bags, pending expected final approval. But it's in good company internationally, joining countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Environmentalists hope such bans will move into the American mainstream.

"This is groundbreaking legislation that could have a domino effect across California and eventually the country," says John Rizzo, who serves on the executive board of the Sierra Club's San Francisco Bay chapter. "We are definitely behind the curve [internationally] on this."

South Africa, Rwanda, Zanzibar, and the French island of Corsica have banned throwaway plastic bags, as have a handful of Alaskan towns. Bangladesh and the Indian state of Maharashtra, which includes the megalopolis of Mumbai, have also passed prohibitions, saying the bags clogged drains during floods. Phaseouts are planned in Paris, south Australia, and parts of western Canada.

Other countries and some companies have slapped surcharges on plastic bags. A "plastax" of 15 cents per bag in Ireland cut usage by more than 90 percent. This month, furniture retailer IKEA expanded a five-cents-per-bag fee into its US stores. The company credits the policy with curbing plastic bag use by 95 percent over 10 months in its British stores.

Box-stores like IKEA, restaurants, and mom-and-pop marts won't be affected by the San Francisco ordinance – only the large grocers and pharmacies, which are estimated to hand out more than 90 percent of the city's bags. Those affected by the law, expected to be implemented seven months from now, are still weighing their options, says Dave Heylen, a spokesman for the California Grocers Association.

"If you look at the costs [of compostable bags] and [if] they are as high as what we believe they are going to be, I think it will be a safe assumption to say that retailers will be more inclined to go back to a paper bag, which [costs] considerably less," says Mr. Heylen.

He says initial cost estimates for compostable bags run five to 10 cents per bag, considerably more than traditional plastic bags, which cost a couple of cents each. The price of corn, the raw material for compostable bags, has risen with rising demand for ethanol.

Price concerns are echoed by the lone dissenter in Tuesday's 10-1 vote, Supervisor Ed Jew. "It is a regressive tax," he says. "This will probably expand to small businesses, and that's really going to be an economic hardship that will be passed on to consumers."

Supporters, including chief sponsor Ross Mirkarimi, say that the ordinance focuses on large businesses with the expectation that, as bulk purchasers, they will drive down costs for those bags.

Beyond cost considerations, critics decry the turn away from current recycling efforts. Heylen says the biodegradable bags, if inadvertently placed in store-front recycling bins mandated by the state for petroleum-based bags, will gunk up the recycled material.

But Jared Blumenfeld, director of San Francisco's Department of the Environment, says there isn't anything to gunk up.

"After 10 years, the recycling rate for plastic bags in San Francisco – which is pointed to as a model nationwide – is 1 percent, he says. "So 99 percent failure."

By switching to the compostable bags, Mr. Blumenfeld says the city will be conserving 430,000 gallons of oil used to make traditional bags – the equivalent of keeping 140,000 cars off the street for a day.

There's harsh economics behind bag recycling: It costs $4,000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32, says Blumenfeld. Other refuse, like aluminum cans, are actually profitable.

With compostable bags, Blumenfeld says, the city should be able to reach its goal of reaching a 75 percent recycling rate – far above the national average of 32 percent.

The scarcity of space for landfills in San Francisco has forced it to be a recycling leader. Other densely populated cities face similar problems, though the nation still has significant landfill capacity, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

With more landfill and less composting, other US locales may not be quick to follow San Francisco's lead. But even if the biodegradable bags aren't fed into a composting system, they have the advantage of dissolving within a matter of months, rather than centuries.

In the meantime, consumers can always bring their own reusable bags – something roughly 1 in 7 customers already does, reckons Duncan Foley, a bagger at a downtown Safeway supermarket.

Several shoppers there expressed support for the ordinance. "If they can find something biodegradable that's easy to carry, like plastic [is], I'll use it," says Miguel Cornegio, a San Francisco resident. "It's OK if it costs a little more."

Plastic bag facts

• The US uses 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually, according to The Wall Street Journal.

• An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many bags.

• Four of 5 grocery bags in the US are now plastic.

• Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found incoastal cleanups, according to the Center for Marine Conservation.

• Plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to degrade in a landfill.

Source: Reusablebags.com (a website which sells reusable shopping bags and advocates against plastic bag use)

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Global warming threatens more than just poles and tropics

from the March 29, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0329/p12s01-wogi.html

A report expected next month is expected to detail how climate shifts are already disrupting the habitats of many species.

By Gregory M. Lamb

Some of the world's most distinctive and biologically diverse climate regions – from South America's Andes Mountains to southern and eastern Africa and the US Southwest – may be drastically altered by century's end, endangering plant and animal life there, according to a new climate-modeling report issued March 26.

The researchers built their forecast on data contained in a massive study being published in installments this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. An April 6 report by the IPCC, a follow-up to its first report released last month, is expected to detail how climate shifts caused by global warming are already disrupting the habitats of many species and will drive some to extinction.

While polar regions have been thought to show the earliest, most obvious signs of global warming, the tropics will face challenging changes, the new climate modeling shows. Because tropical regions are used to steady temperatures, even small changes of 3 or 4 degrees F. could have a stronger impact than, say, a 5- to 8-degree F. change farther from the equator, according to authors John Williams and John Kutzback, both at the University of Wisconsin, and Stephen Jackson at the University of Wyoming. Their findings appear in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The authors, quoted in the environmental website mongabay.com, identified parts of the world where climate zones would be compromised first.

"Disappearing climates are primarily concentrated in tropical mountains and the poleward sides of continents....
"Many current species [will be] disrupted or disappear entirely."

It's possible that some species could benefit from climate change, Dr. Williams said in a story by The Associated Press. "But we can't make a prediction, because it's outside our current experience and outside the experience of these species."

Williams played down possible beneficial effects of the change, when interviewed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. From "an ecological perspective, with disappearing climates, there is no real way to put a positive spin on it," he said.

The researchers concluded that if greenhouse-gas emissions keep rising at current rates as much as 39 percent of Earth's land surface could evolve new climates, especially in the tropics, as warmer temperatures spread toward the poles, reported an article in Scientific American online. Earlier studies, the article says, estimate that species such as butterflies are migrating toward the poles at a rate of about 4 miles per decade as temperatures rise.

In the same article, Professor Jackson predicted "climates that certainly are completely outside the range of modern human experience," if greenhouse-gas emissions are unabated in the future. He said:

"If [the climate of] Memphis moves to Chicago, we have a Memphis there to say what Chicago will look like. For an area where we don't have a modern analogue, there's really nothing to look at to say, this is what the environment will look like."

The climate shifts may be even more hazardous to wildlife than are first apparent, notes Britain's Guardian. Even if a compatible climate for a disrupted species exists elsewhere, it won't do a disrupted species any good unless that species can migrate quickly to the new compatible climate. A study in 2004, the newspaper says, forecasted that 15 to 37 percent of all species could become extinct by 2050, assuming global climates warm even moderately – a loss of more than 1 million species altogether.

Williams told Reuters news service that some species may become trapped in a hostile climate:

"What we've shown is these climates disappear, not just regionally, but they're disappearing from the global set of climates, and the species that live in these climates really have nowhere to go as the system changes."

While not referring directly to the new climate- modeling study, a March 27 article in The New York Times examined the effects of consistently warmer temperatures in the "sky islands," the high-altitude regions of southern Arizona. During the past decade there, winter snows are melting earlier, forest fires have become more frequent and severe, and the trees are being eaten by beetles that used to be confined to lower, warmer altitudes. Said one resident:

"Nature is confused. We used to have four seasons. Now we have two. I love this place dearly, and this is very hard for me to watch."

The American West has warmed more than anyplace in the US outside of Alaska, one climate researcher told The New York Times. Added another, Thomas Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson:

"The Chamber of Commerce doesn't like people like me saying things like this, but large parts of the arid Southwest are not going to be very nice places to live."

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Moves to save the not-so-blue Danube

from the March 30, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0330/p07s02-woeu.html

An environmental group has listed the opaque, brown river as one of the world's 10 most threatened.

By Colin Woodard Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

When Johann Strauss gazed upon Europe's grandest waterway 140 years ago, it inspired him to compose the Blue Danube Waltz, went on to become an unofficial anthem of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Today, the river that flows beneath the bridges of the Hungarian capital is anything but blue. Befouled with sewage, fertilizers, and industrial waste, the opaque, brown Danube has become a drainage canal for half a continent, so poisonous that it has devastated life in the Black Sea, which lies at the end of the 1,800-mile long river.

Last week, the Switzerland-based environmental group WWF-International (a branch of the World Wildlife Fund) named the Danube one of the world's 10 most threatened rivers, along withthe Yangtze, Nile, Ganges, and Rio Grande.

"Some of the rivers on the list are so damaged that they may really be lost, but others are in a better state and could still be saved if correct action is taken," says Christine Bratrich of WWF's Vienna-based Danube-Carpathian Programme. "The Danube still has the potential to be preserved."

More than 80 percent of the Danube's floodplains and wetlands have been lost to development and navigational projects, exterminatingthe river's sturgeon stocks and lowering water quality in the main channel. Extensive sewage and agricultural pollution – particularly in the former Communist nations of the middle and lower basin – triggered algae blooms that snuffed out much of the life in the Black Sea in the early 1990s.

Solving these problems is complicated by the fact that the Danube basin is shared by 19 countries. Cooperation on environmental issues was all but impossible during the cold war, which divided the basin in two, and little better in the 1990s, when the Yugsolav wars turned swaths of it into a battleground.

The past five years have seen considerable progress, however, as the European Union – with its strict environmental regulations – has expanded to include Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and other nations located in the middle and lower basin.

"When these countries joined the EU, they also had to adopt new environmental policies and regulations, which has had the benefit of improving the overall water quality situation in the Danube basin," says Ivan Zavadsky, director of the Danube/Black Sea Regional Program in Vienna, a joint project of the United Nations and World Bank that has pumped $70 million into cleanup projects in the region.

New sewage treatment plants have been built in recent years, while many of the most polluting factories and agricultural enterprises collapsed in the early 1990s. As a result, Mr. Zavadsky notes, concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen – the nutrients that ravaged the Black Sea – have gone down 50 percent and 20 percent respectively since 1989.

"We're witnessing the first signs of a recovery of the Black Sea ecosystem," Zavadsky says. "But the situation remains on a knife's edge."

János Zlinszky of the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe is concerned that the gains could be lost if the region's economic recovery outpaces its environmental investments. "Romania and Bulgaria have just joined the EU," he says – which means they no longer face the EU's tough agricultural trade barriers. "If they decide to focus on intensive agriculture rather than the organic market, we could see great increases in fertilizer and pesticide use."

WWF's primary concern is an EU plan to improve navigation on the middle and lower Danube, an effort they say will destroy some of the last ecologically sound portions of the river. "They want to make the Danube into a 'highway to the sea' but they are not taking into account how it will affect the ecological status of the river," Ms. Bratrich says. "We shouldn't make the same mistakes in the lower Danube that we [Western European nations] made in the upper stretch."

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Fast-growing Phoenix, beset by dirty air, targets construction in cleanup plan

from the March 30, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0330/p02s01-ussc.html

Maricopa County has proposed 41 air-clearing measures – from banning leaf blowers to requiring 'dust managers' on job sites.

By Faye Bowers Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

PHOENIX

A new plan to clear the skies in the Phoenix area, which has some of the dirtiest air in the nation, calls for major shifts in the way people here live and do business.

Cozy wood-burning fires? Not a good idea, because of the soot.

Leaf blowers? Verboten, at least on "bad air" days. They kick up dust.

And on construction sites where more than 50 acres of land will be disturbed, someone there must be the designated "dust manager."

Those are three on a list of 41 measures that may soon be required of businesses and residents in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, and other communities within America's fastest-growing county.

More measures may be added in the months ahead, but that's the blueprint as of Wednesday evening, when the regional Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) approved the cleanup plan.

Maricopa County is only the second locale in the US to have the dubious distinction of being listed on the US Environmental Protection Agency's Five Percent Plan – a move that triggered the need for a cleanup plan. The EPA tagged the county at the end of 2006, after pollution from particulates – known to experts as "fugitive dust" – exceeded the emissions standard for two years running. In 2005, the area had 19 days over the federal limit; in 2006, it broke that record with 27 days over the limit.

Under the Five Percent Plan, Maricopa County must cut its particulate emissions by 5 percent a year, until it reaches the federal standard of 150 micrograms of fugitive dust per cubic meter of air, as measured within a 24-hour period. That means 4,594 fewer tons of airborne dust each year until at least 2009.

The plan MAG has put forward concentrates on construction-related activities – for good reason, experts say.

"Construction sites contribute most of the particles into the atmosphere," says Joe Fernando, a professor at Arizona State University in Tempe who works on particle dispersion problems. "It is realistic [and] possible to reduce those."

The good news is that California's San Joaquin Valley, the other region to fall under the Five Percent Plan because of particulate matter, has shown that dust-reduction measures can work. Moreover, the topography there resembles that of metropolitan Phoenix – a valley surrounded by mountains that trap the dirty air within.

In 2002, the San Joaquin Valley was required to submit to the EPA a plan to reduce airborne particulates by 5 percent a year, says Jaime Holt, public information administrator in Fresno for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. After finding that the San Joaquin Valley reached its goals in 2003, 2004, and 2005, the EPA in October 2006 said the valley attained standards for particulates.

The district's cleanup program included an intensive public-education campaign through the media, says Ms. Holt. "One of our initial strategies was to regulate fugitive dust – dust kicked up during agricultural or construction operations – like, 30 various things," she says. "On the individual level ... on certain days in winter when the air-quality index is over 150, we prohibit residential wood-burning."

MAG's measures appear to be similar. The top two involve public education and training programs. Some address unpaved roads, unpaved parking lots, and vacant lots where, when the earth is disturbed, dust particles can be carried aloft by the wind. Others address equipment used to move sand and gravel, and how they should operate. Still others deal with the use of all terrain vehicles, leaf blowers, and wood-burning stoves. Moreover, Maricopa County has hired an official involved in San Joaquin Valley's pollution-abatement effort.

A key, though, will be enforcement of any new measures, says Joe Anderson of Arizona State University, an expert on air-quality issues. "One of the biggest problems in [Maricopa] county has been a complete lack of enforcement. It's mostly about the political will to do what's needed."

The area's air-quality plan is still a work in progress. Maricopa County needs to submit to the EPA a comprehensive plan to reduce fugitive dust by the end of the year, and the EPA would have to sign off on it before measures would go into effect.

The stakes are significant. If the county doesn't meet these requirements, it faces sanctions – potentially losing some $1.1 billion in federal highway grants.

The measures MAG approved on Wednesday will now be distributed to local governments within the regional council, such as the cities of Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, and others. Those governments have until June 15 to agree to the measures or offer changes.

"Once they approve it, it becomes legally binding," says Kelly Taft, MAG spokeswoman.

If the cities or other local governments offer changes, those will be incorporated by MAG's air-quality technical advisory team, which runs computer models to determine if the measures will decrease airborne particulates to the required level, says Ms. Taft. The bottom line is that the plan MAG offers the EPA in December 2007 must guarantee a 5 percent reduction in particles per year, beginning in 2008.

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Does the prospect of arranged marriage and abuse warrant asylum in the US?

from the March 23, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0323/p01s02-usju.html

An immigration judge said no, but an appeals court panel found a valid fear of persecution.

By Warren Richey Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON

When Hong Ying Gao arrived in the US from China in 2001, she pleaded with authorities for asylum, expressing fear that if deported, she'd face abuse and even torture.

But what separates Ms. Gao's case from thousands of other asylum seekers is that her fear of abuse is not tied to iron-fisted tactics of the Chinese government. Rather, it stems from anticipated mistreatment at the hands of her future husband.

At age 19, Gao was sold by her mother for the equivalent of $2,200 to become the wife of a man in her home village who, Gao says, will physically abuse her. Instead of facing that prospect, she fled China.

Is Gao a legitimate refugee deserving US protection? Or should she be returned to China and a future husband who has already paid for her? An immigration judge said that Gao had no claim to asylum in the US. But an appeals court panel reversed that judgment, ruling that the woman had a valid fear of persecution and was entitled to remain in the US.

Now, the Bush administration is asking the US Supreme Court to examine Gao's case. In a brief filed last Friday, US Solicitor General Paul Clement urges the high court to reverse the appeals court decision and send Gao back to China.

Mr. Clement says the decision by the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York threatens to transform American asylum law into a worldwide haven for women trapped in potentially abusive relationships after being sold into forced marriages. Lawyers supporting Gao retort: What's wrong with that?

"We went over to Iraq to try to bring democracy to people, and we can't even offer a woman being sold into slavery asylum?" asks Carole Neville, a New York lawyer preparing Gao's reply brief to the Supreme Court.

Clement says such policy decisions should be made by the executive branch, not unelected members of the judiciary.

"The court of appeals' error is especially significant because it reached out to identify a broad new category of aliens (women in arranged marriages) entitled to seek asylum," Clement writes in his brief. The appeals court decision "has far-reaching ramifications for immigration policy in light of the fact that approximately 60 percent of marriages worldwide are arranged," he says.

In the case at hand, Gao is from a part of China where it is common in arranged marriages for a would-be husband to offer a cash payment to the future bride's family. In exchange, Gao was to become the man's wife after her 21st birthday.

Gao's mother spent the money to pay family bills and debts. Gao has said that at first she had no objection to her future husband. But she later discovered that he had a bad temperament and gambled, and she says he beat her.

When the relationship soured, the potential husband tried to get his money back, but it had already been spent. Gao moved to a different city in China to get away. But the man continued to harass her family. Finally, Gao and her mother decided she should go to the US. They made arrangements with a smuggler and obtained a fake passport.

Under US immigration law, anyone deemed a "refugee" may be granted asylum. To qualify, an individual must show a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

In most cases, the persecution is meted out by a government. But the Second Circuit said in the Gao case that persecution could also stem from a personal relationship in combination with government-enforced customs.

The appeals court said that women who had been sold into marriage and who live in a part of China where forced marriages are considered valid and enforceable could qualify for refugee protection in the US. The appeals court found that, under such circumstances, Gao "might well be persecuted in China – in the form of lifelong, involuntary marriage."

In contrast, the immigration judge viewed the case as a civil dispute between Gao's family, which had taken $2,200 in exchange for turning their daughter over for marriage, and the would-be husband who paid $2,200 for a bride. "This is clearly a dispute between two families and does not establish that [Gao] is a refugee," the immigration judge ruled.

Others disagree. "This is not just a civil case to pay this man off," says Stephen Knight, deputy director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. "We see this as a civil rights case of someone who has been sold into marriage."

In China, the crucial component in an arranged marriage is the exchange of money, not the wishes of the prospective bride. A Chinese court would probably order the marriage to go forward over Gao's objections, Mr. Knight says.

"She should have the right to choose her husband," he says. "If she can't because she has been sold to someone who can bring down the power of the Chinese state to enforce the marriage, then she is a refugee."

The Bush administration suggests in its brief that if the Second Circuit decision stands, it might trigger a flood of women from around the globe fleeing unhappy arranged marriages. Knight says he's seen no flood since the appeals court decision was handed down in March 2006.

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Britain's ban on the slave trade: moral lessons for today

from the March 22, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0322/p09s02-coop.html

Britain's bicentenary of the slave trade's abolition should remind us how easy it is to become comfortable with distant atrocities.

By Beth Kowaleski Wallace

BOSTON

"I thought it was the Yanks that had the slave trade." I overheard this comment in 2002 in Liverpool, once one of England's three largest slave- trading ports.

Until very recently, Britain rarely gave public acknowledgment of its own involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. But this year, the country is commemorating the bicentenary of the slave trade's abolition.

After nationwide ceremonies and activities, all Britons should better understand their ancestors' connection to the slave trade and its sad legacies. And hopefully, the commemoration will help Britons and others around the world see how easy it can be to slip into the mentality that made slavery possible in the first place.

Though slavery itself was not abolished in the British Isles until 1838, in March 1807, the British Parliament passed a measure that halted the transatlantic trade of human beings.

Across Britain today, the bicentenary events will acknowledge the human atrocities resulting from the slave trade, honor the efforts of those who opposed it, and institute a new phase in a more inclusive, multicultural public history.

Most notably, Liverpool awaits the opening this summer of a new International Slavery Museum that promises to become a global center for the study of slavery. The city of Hull will reopen the refurbished Wilberforce House Museum, the birthplace and residence of the 19th- century abolitionist-parliamentarian William Wilberforce, who lobbied hard to end slave trading.
The Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery is preparing a major exhibit on the life of Olaudah Equiano, an enslaved African who bought his own freedom and became a famous abolitionist in Britain. And a London-based group, "Churches Together in England," has established a national project called "Set all Free" to examine slavery, racism, and the present-date trafficking of human beings.

With so many public events, the commemoration will undoubtedly bring together individuals with differing agendas. For some, the activities signify a time to highlight the historical trauma of slavery. Others may prefer to mark an emerging humanism that first made abolition a matter of social justice. And some who see the bicentenary commemoration as polarizing may eschew the events altogether. It's important, then, for event planners to present their exhibits and activities in proper context.

For example, while celebrating the work of white abolitionists, it would be a mistake to convey the idea that enslaved Africans never rebelled on their own behalf or that their freedom was "a gift" given to them by white liberals. Yet traditional abolitionist imagery depicts enchained Africans as submissive or suppliant.

Activity planners could contextualize these images by showing how the efforts of white abolitionists were matched by slaves who fought for their own freedom. Though slavery was an utterly degenerate and debilitating social condition, those subjected to it struggled to preserve their human dignity and agency, and this fact – not slaves' dehumanized status – should be emphasized.

One of the most important lessons that the bicentenary commemoration can impart is that none of us should smugly claim that we are more morally advanced than our predecessors. Though it is possible to come away feeling superior to those who carried on the slave trade for so long (surely we would all have been abolitionists), the regrettable fact is that many Britons lived quite comfortably with the slave trade.

And many more were touched by the trade in Britain, whether they sold copper pipe to be traded on the Guinea Coast, invested in the ships that took the pipe to Africa, or outfitted the sailors who manned the ships. With the true horrors of slavery far away off the coast of Africa or in the Caribbean, it was relatively easy for many Britons to convince themselves that the slave trade was benign.

The unfortunate truth is that a profound and widespread evil such as slavery doesn't necessarily unfold in the moment as a story of human suffering. The worst kind of evil is often invisible to most as they carry out their mundane daily business.

From this bicentenary, all of us the world over can learn to ask – and answer – these types of questions: Where are we similarly complicit with invisible or hidden social or commercial injustices? Where might our descendants look back and find us to have been culpable? If through these queries we discover unjust situations, we can begin taking steps to right the wrongs.

In the end, there are many salutary lessons in the history of British transatlantic slavery. From the commemoration of its abolition, we all stand to learn the moral courage to question what consequences our own actions have on the communities around us, and around the world.
• Beth Kowaleski Wallace is an associate professor of English at Boston College.

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Schools 4 free thinkers

from the March 22, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0322/p09s01-coop.html

In the Supreme Court case over 'Bong hits 4 Jesus,' both sides are wrong.

By Jonathan Zimmerman

NEW YORK

Can a high school student display a banner that says "Bong Hits 4 Jesus"? That's the question the Supreme Court debated this week in a case pitting the free-speech rights of the student against the duty of his school to warn against the dangers of drugs.

But in this case, both sides are wrong. The banner was a foolish vulgarity, unworthy of court-affirmed protection for politically meaningful speech. Under the school's theory, meanwhile, educators could censor any speech that contradicted their goals or ideas. And that might be the scariest idea of all.

This strange saga began five years ago in Juneau, Alaska. The school let students leave the building to see the Olympic torch en route to the 2002 Winter Games. As the torch passed by, senior Joseph Frederick unfurled his banner. Principal Deborah Morse ordered Mr. Frederick to take it down; when he refused, she tore it down. Later, she suspended Frederick for 10 days.

Frederick sued, citing the Supreme Court's 1969 warning – in Tinker v. Des Moines – that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

Technically, Frederick was outside the "schoolhouse gate." But no matter where he was, Frederick insists, he had the right to display his banner.

That's where he's wrong. In the Tinker case, a school tried to stop students from wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. Ruling in favor of the students, the Supreme Court took pains to distinguish their "pure speech" – that is, speech of a political nature – from other forms.

Only political speech merited protection, the court said, noting the special purpose of education in a democracy: to develop free and independent minds. Public schools "may not be enclaves of totalitarianism," the court admonished. Instead, schools should promote "a robust exchange of ideas."

So what "exchange of ideas" did Frederick aim to provoke?

None. As Frederick later testified, he chose his slogan "to be meaningless and funny" and "to get on television." He recently admitted that the phrase was irrelevant. "I wasn't trying to say anything about religion. I wasn't trying to say anything about drugs," Frederick said. "I was just trying to say something."

But students do not have the right to "say something" – or anything – just because they feel like it. That's why they're not allowed to shout obscenities in class. Such behavior doesn't add anything to a school's "robust exchange of ideas."

But under a theory put forth by the White House, which sides with Ms. Morse, the principal could have censored Frederick even if his speech did promote intellectual exchange. Under the 1994 Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act, the Bush administration argues, schools receiving federal money must "convey a clear and consistent message" that illegal drug use is "wrong and harmful." So Fredericks's banner would have to go. But so would any student critique of drug policies.

Drugs are particularly controversial in Alaska, where adults may legally possess a small amount of marijuana. Under the White House theory, though, even a banner that said "Legalize Pot" – a clear political statement – might be censored.

Schools might even be allowed to muzzle student criticism of "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB), the Bush administration's signature education reform. In a brief written by Kenneth Starr, (yes, that Kenneth Starr), Morse argued that officials may censor any student speech that interferes with their "educational mission." For good or ill, NCLB now lies at the heart of every public school's mission. Under Mr. Starr's theory, then, students might be barred from speaking ill of it.

Yet both sides of this dispute have lost sight of schools' true educational purpose: to foster critical and independent thought.

Frederick sought nothing of the kind, so the Supreme Court should dismiss his juvenile banner out of hand. But it should also reject Morse's appalling argument, which would let administrators censor criticism of any kind. If we really want schools to teach democracy, we must not insulate them from democratic dissent.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus? I have a better idea: Schools 4 Free Thinkers. Now there's a slogan we should all display.

• Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University.

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Less carbon, more community building

from the March 28, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0328/p09s02-coop.html

America's polluting push for 'more' has left us with less of what really matters.

By Bill McKibben

MIDDLEBURY, VT.

Earlier this month, a draft White House report was leaked to news outlets. The report, a year overdue to the United Nations, said that the United States would be producing almost 20 percent more greenhouse gases in 2020 than it had in 2000 and that the US contribution to global warming would be going up steadily, not sharply and steadily down, as scientists have made clear it must.

That's a pretty stunning piece of information – a hundred times more important than, say, the jittery Dow Jones Industrial Average that garnered a hundred times the attention. How is it even possible? How, faced with the largest crisis humans have yet created for themselves, have we simply continued with business as usual?

The answer is, in a sense, all in our minds. For the past century, American society's basic drive has been toward more – toward a bigger national economy, toward more stuff for consumers.
And it's worked. Our economy is enormous; our houses are enormous. We are (many of us quite literally) living large. All that "more" is created using cheap energy and hence built on carbon dioxide – which makes up 72 percent of all greenhouse gases.

Some pollutants, such as smog, decrease as we get richer and can afford things such as catalytic converters for cars. But carbon dioxide consistently tracks economic growth. As Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman concluded last year, CO2 is "the one major environmental contaminant for which no study has ever found any indication of improvement as living standards rise." Which means that if we're going to cope with global warming, we may also have to cope with the end of infinite, unrestrained economic expansion.

That sounds gloomy, but maybe not. New data suggest that we've been flying blind for many decades. We made an assumption – as a society and as individuals – that more was better. It seemed a reasonable bet, and for a while it may have been true. But in recent years economists, sociologists, and other researchers have begun to question that link. Indeed, they're finding that at least since the 1950s, more material prosperity has yielded little, if any, increase in humans' satisfaction.

In the 1990s, for instance, despite sterling economic growth, researchers reported a steady rise in "negative life events." In the words of one of the study's authors, "The anticipation would have been that problems would have been down." But money, as a few wise people have pointed out over the years, doesn't buy happiness. Meanwhile, growth during the decade increased carbon emissions by about 10 percent.

Further, economists and sociologists suggest that our dissatisfaction is, in fact, linked to economic growth. What did we spend our new wealth on? Bigger houses, ever farther out in the suburbs. And what was the result? We have far fewer friends nearby; we eat fewer meals with family, friends, and neighbors. Our network of social connections has shrunk. Do the experiment yourself. Would you rather have a new, bigger television or a new friend?

Rebuilding those communities will be hard work – and it will start by rebuilding local economies, so that we actually need our neighbors again. Consider, for instance, food. Farmers' markets are the fastest-growing part of our food economy as people discover the joys of being a "localvore."
Some of those joys are culinary – fresh food tastes better, you eat with the flow of the seasons, and so on. But some of those joys are emotional, too. Academics who followed shoppers found that those in farmers' markets had 10 times as many conversations as those in supermarkets.
And here's what's interesting. Local food also uses about 10 times less energy than food shipped around the globe.

If we're going to do anything about that endless flow of carbon that's breaking our planet, we're also going to have to do something about our broken communities. Not just by preaching about neighborliness but by rebuilding the web of economic relationships that grows from farmers' markets or effective public transportation or an energy grid that relies on your rooftop solar panels and my backyard windmill as much as it relies on some central power station.

More and better don't lie in the same direction anymore. And that's good news, at a moment when good news is scarce.

•Bill McKibben is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and author of "Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future." ©2007 Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

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Trust-busting the prosecutors

from the March 23, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0323/p08s02-comv.html

US attorneys are political appointees, but they can lose public trust if they appear to favor one party.

The Monitor's View

A winter snow squall over the firing of eight US attorneys has turned into a spring blizzard. A constitutional crisis is brewing. The attorney general is being buried by criticism. In these white-out conditions, it's helpful to focus on what started it all.

This clash began when questions were asked about whether the US prosecutors were fired for cause, as the administration says, or for political gain, as Democrats and some of the prosecutors suspect.

Whether the suspicions are true is an important question. They relate to fair application of law. Fairness breeds trust – without which a legal system can't operate in a democracy.

This week, President Bush emphatically denied politics as the motivation in the firings. But he also reminded people that US prosecutors – the attorneys who go after those who break federal laws – are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president.

It may strike many as odd that a US prosecutor is a political appointee. At the state level, voters mostly elect prosecutors. But voters still have a say at the federal level – it's just very indirect.

Federal crime is a big, wide world, and voters select their enforcement priorities in electing a president. A president may decide, for instance, to focus on civil rights enforcement (historically a Democratic issue) or, as with this president, immigration and drug laws. Under Mr. Bush, immigration prosecutions more than doubled during his first term, soaring above those of the Clinton era. And Bush put less emphasis on white-collar crime during that time, and those prosecutions declined compared with those in the Clinton years.

While prosecutors receive their job through the political process, they're expected to be "apolitical" when investigating elected politicians or elections. It's that trust factor again. Grand juries help keep them in check, but so does their Senate confirmation. Rightly, the Senate voted this week to fully restore that oversight, which had been weakened by the USA Patriot Act.

Thousands of internal documents released by the Justice Department haven't fully cleared up the motivation behind the firings. Cause seems well established, for instance, in the case of the US attorney in San Diego, who didn't prosecute as many illegal alien smuggling or firearms cases as the administration wanted.

On the other hand, the fired prosecutor in New Mexico was praised in the documents. It's troubling that he was put on the termination list after complaints from two GOP lawmakers who phoned him before last year's midterm elections about his corruption investigation of Democrats. The prosecutor interpreted the calls as pressure to bring charges. Some of the fired prosecutors were also investigating corruption by GOP officials.

Technically, the president is correct that he can fire whomever he wants, and presidents routinely replace the previous regime's attorneys. But they must be mindful of the appearance of excessive politicization. Some of the appearances here – including inaccurate testimony by Justice officials before Congress – will erode trust in federal law enforcement if they are not cleared up. Congress and the administration must find a way to remove these doubts.

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Ethical investments: A shelter from the stock market's storms?

from the March 26, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0326/p13s01-wmgn.html

Socially responsible funds may screen out bad apples, but they haven't escaped market volatility.

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

About five years ago, when accounting scandals were roiling stock markets, promoters of socially responsible investments (SRI) trumpeted their social-screening criteria as effective tools to keep bad apples – and big losses – out of one's portfolio.

Now jittery stock markets, spooked in recent weeks by two of the biggest single-day dips in years, suggest that some investors could use a steady keel in their portfolios. Among the top issues is whether ethical investments can be a haven from an imploding subprime mortgage market and its ripple effects.

But history suggests that SRI mutual funds have been no panacea for avoiding a bumpy road. And if the financial sector stumbles, as some analysts predict, then short-term results this time around are apt to depend largely on whether screens used by particular SRI funds have served to lessen or heighten related risks.

In a March analysis of the most volatile market years of the past two decades, fund tracker Morningstar found that SRI investors tend to feel the pain of plunging markets even more than other investors do. Plus, when fluctuating prices have led to big gains, SRI funds have missed part of the party.

Consider:

•When the stock market struggled in 1987 and 1990, SRI funds trailed the benchmark S&P 500 index by more than three percentage points in each year.

•In the volatile heyday of the technology boom in 1998 and 1999, SRI funds posted gains that fell 10 and two percentage points below the S&P's in respective years.

•Even in 2002, when terrorism fears and corporate scandals dragged the market down, SRI funds overall lost 23.2 percent of their value while the S&P 500 lost 22.1 percent.

Despite these findings, ethically driven strategies have at times paid off for investors. KLD Research & Analytics' benchmark Domini 400 Social Index, for instance, has since its inception in 1990 outperformed the S&P 500 in cumulative and annualized returns. But investors guided by that index have had a wild ride. Over 17 years, the index has been 6.35 percent more volatile than the S&P, which points to more price fluctuation in the portfolios of investors, according to KLD Business Development Manager Chris McKnett.

Conclusion: SRI funds are usually not a haven in volatile periods. As a result, ethically minded investors need a long-term horizon, say industry veterans. It also means they need to consider whether the funds they own are positioned to prosper or flounder as a result of current trends.

"There is more volatility generally in a socially conscious portfolio than in a portfolio that's more equally weighted across all market sectors," says Steve Scheuth, president of First Affirmative Financial Network, a Colorado Springs, Colo., money-management firm with an SRI focus.

"What that means is that in certain market environments we do better [than other investors]. And in certain market environments, we don't do so well."

SRI funds statistically more volatile

Volatility refers to the degree of movement in stock prices – up, down, or both. When stock prices on average are rising or falling 1.5 percent more than they normally do on a benchmark index, such as the S&P 500, then a period is especially volatile. In the past two decades, the most volatile times have occurred during the early stages of recessions as well as during lofty bull runs.

Steady growth has characterized stock markets over the past four years, and it's too early to tell whether that trend is finished. Investors have displayed signs of nervousness in the past month, however. The most recent sell-off came March 13 in the wake of news that lenders specializing in subprime mortgages, which charge high interest rates over time and levy hefty fees for noncompliance, faced mounting defaults and were tightening controls.

How ethical investors should approach subprime lending is a matter of debate. Some activists believe the practice is not only risky for investors but is also a moral scourge because it sets up the vulnerable to fail.

"To the extent that wealth has been created [in African-American households], it's been through home ownership and the equity appreciation obtained through a mortgage," says Eric Stein, senior vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit that fights predatory lending. "The explosion in the subprime mortgage market – [which] has developed over the last four years – has been, I think, the largest threat to that wealth in American history, aside from slavery."

Some in SRI made a point to steer clear of sub-prime lenders. KLD's Domini 400 Social Index, for instance, delisted Household Finance back in December 2002 after the company settled a predatory lending case brought by multiple states, according to Director of Research Eric Fernald. SRI funds using that index as a guide would probably not own certain firms that are players in the sub-prime market. And those that aren't vigilant about screening out subprime lenders should become more so, says Doug Wheat, a Northampton, Mass., financial adviser with an SRI specialty.

"It is both a moral and financial risk issue" for SRI investors, Mr. Wheat says. "If the mutual funds aren't active in screening out [predatory lending], they should encourage the mutual funds to change their practice."

But some SRI funds give the entire finance industry a wide berth. Those with an environmental emphasis often load up on financial institutions in their portfolios because theirs is largely a nonpolluting industry. The Vanguard FTSE Social Index, for instance, has 40 percent of its holdings in financials. The Sierra Club Stock Fund has a 30 percent exposure to financials, more than any other sector in its portfolio. Although the Sierra Club Stock Fund screens out firms cited for deceptive practices, it allows for subprime lending and includes two of the nation's largest players in that market: Wells Fargo and Countrywide Financial.

"The subprime market in itself does not equal predatory and in fact can be beneficial," says Garvin Jabusch, portfolio manager for the Sierra Club Stock Fund. "In a lot of cases, if there isn't a subprime lender, some people with questionable credit are never going to own a home. We actually think that a responsible subprime lender is socially valuable."

Ethical screens may lower risks

Mr. Jabusch concedes that a heavy weighting in financials increases risk due to lack of
diversification, but he says the strategy also reduces volatility in certain circumstances.

Specifically he argues that because the Sierra Club fund steers clear of oil producers and fossil fuel-burning utilities, it provides stability when energy markets are volatile. When energy slumped in 2003, he notes, the fund outperformed the S&P by 6 percent. Conversely in 2006, when oil enjoyed strong growth, the fund lagged 5 percent behind the S&P.

SRI boosters insist that social screens do, at important times, ferret out particular risks responsible for a market downturn. A classic example occurred in 2002, according to Julie Gorte, vice president and chief social investment strategist at Calvert Funds. Sensitive to lawsuits, citations, and other warning signs of unscrupulous management, Calvert's Social Equity Fund had by 2002 already weeded out many firms that would suffer scandals and drag down other funds' portfolios, including Tyco, WorldCom, and Rite Aid.

As a result, Ms. Gorte says, the fund ended the year down just 14.9 percent while the S&P lost 22.1 percent.

Ultimately, risk-averse investors with an ethical bent and a short-term horizon need to judge whether particular funds have the right screens in place to mitigate factors that are apt to hamper stock prices in the near future.

Those who aren't satisfied with their current position have options, according to Mr. Scheuth, such as taking shelter in a socially screened bond fund. And for those who prefer to see money in the bank during periods of uncertainty, he recommends community development banks that have social missions and competitive rates on certificates of deposit (CDs).

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E-mail trail shows power struggle behind US attorneys' firings

from the March 21, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0321/p01s02-uspo.html

Newly released documents show the White House sought the upper hand over US prosecutors and Congress.

By Peter Grier Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON

Apparently no top officials at the Justice Department pined for the task: appear before a House panel, just as a brewing flap over fired US prosecutors reached a boil, and try to explain what happened.

It would have to be someone able to withstand three hours of questioning, noted an internal Justice Department e-mail on the subject. The implication: It might be preferable to sit three hours in a dentist's chair.

Another departmental e-mail noted, jokingly, that good management dictated that the unfortunate selectee be notified in person. But e-mail it was. "I regret to say [Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty] picked you as the witness," said an e-mail to the chosen one, William Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general.

As newly released Department of Justice documents make clear, the furor over the firings of eight US attorneys is at least partly driven by a power struggle between the US government's legislative and executive branches.

Much of that struggle reflects politics. Democrats in Congress continue to use their new majority status to mount hearings and investigations intended to put the White House on the defensive.
But it is partly institutional, as well. As attorney general, Alberto Gonzales has irritated powerful Republicans as well as Democrats. They may not be calling for his resignation, but neither are they rushing to his aid.

The Justice Department "has been running roughshod over Congress. What's happened here is, Congress is pushing back," says political analyst Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.

That pushback can be seen in the speed with which Congress has moved to revoke new authority it granted the Bush administration last year to name federal prosecutors.

The authority was derived from a provision buried deep within the USA Patriot Act that allowed the attorney general to appoint federal prosecutors for an indefinite period without Senate confirmation.

'Less deference' to senators

In recent congressional testimony, Justice officials have insisted that they did not intend to use this provision to simply evade the confirmation process. Indeed, home-state senators have long played a key role in the selection of US attorneys. Federal prosecutors are powerful local officials, after all.

But e-mails released March 19 indicate that, back in their offices, some Justice Department officials felt otherwise.

An e-mail sent Sept. 13, 2006 from Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Gonzales's former chief of staff, said that by avoiding the confirmation process "we can give far less deference to home-state senators."

According to Mr. Sampson, who resigned recently over his role in the firings furor, this meant chosen replacements could be up and working more quickly, "at less political cost to the White House."

The recipient of the memo? Former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

The Senate voted 94-2 Tuesday to repeal this provision.

Congress irked by testimony

Members have also expressed irritation about what they consider to be misleading or incomplete testimony from executive-branch officials about the circumstances surrounding the recent prosecutor dismissals.

For instance, after drawing the short straw, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Moschella appeared before a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 6. In response to a question about possible White House involvement about the firings, he implied that White House officials were consulted only after the list of those to be dismissed had been drawn up.

Internal documents released by the Justice Department have since shown that the White House had at least some involvement in the listmaking process.

Early in January 2005, White House political adviser Karl Rove asked "how we planned to proceed" in firing some US attorneys, according to an e-mail from a White House lawyer.
Another e-mail from that time period notes that Sampson, then a lower-level Justice Department aide, had discussed the idea with the White House counsel, Gonzales.

At the time of writing it remained unclear whether Gonzales could withstand the crisis swirling around his office.

President Bush's new chief counsel, Fred Fielding, was scheduled to visit Capitol Hill on Tuesday to meet with the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Senate committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont has said he wants Mr. Rove and others to testify before his panel under oath. The White House indicated that it might resist that move on grounds of executive privilege.

Few Gonzales defenders

Neither of the top two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary panel was stepping forward to defend Gonzales in public. Sen. Arlen Specter (R) of Pennsylvania has said he will defer judgment until he sees all the facts. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah has declined to make public statements about the matter.

Their silence may reflect the fact that when the GOP was in the majority and he was committee chairman Senator Specter had his own differences with Gonzales.

Gonzales "would go up in front of the Republican-run Judiciary Committee and very nicely stonewall them" on questions about warrantless eavesdropping and other controversial subjects, says Mr. Ornstein of AEI.

Bush called Gonzales early March 20 to offer his support for his old friend, however.

The White House also denied reports that it is already searching for a new attorney general.
"Those rumors are untrue," said Dana Perino, White House deputy press secretary.

•Material from wire services was used in this report.

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'No Child Left Behind' losing steam

from the March 21, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0321/p01s01-legn.html

GOP lawmakers are among the biggest critics of Bush's school reform program.

By Gail Russell Chaddock Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON

Support for No Child Left Behind – President Bush's signature education reform – is fraying as it heads into reauthorization this year.

The heaviest criticism is coming from within his own party. Conservative Republicans in the House and Senate introduced bills last week that allow states to opt out of most of the law's requirements, while keeping federal funding. Backers of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) say that move would gut the law.

Even supporters say that changes are needed.

"This is a critical year. It's very important that we perfect and tweak NCLB as we move forward," US Education Secretary Margaret Spellings told urban school leaders in Washington this week. "There are lots of forces aligning on both sides of the poles to unravel or unwind NCLB, but I don't think that's going to happen," she told the Council of the Great City Schools.

At the heart of this sweeping education reform is a mandate that states annually test students in Grades 3 through 8 in reading and math. Schools that fail to show "adequate yearly progress" in student achievement face sanctions ranging from cuts in federal funding to a requirement to shut down.

The reform passed Congress with big bipartisan majorities in 2001. But problems in implementing NCLB have spawned criticism from principals, teachers, parents, education groups, and across the political spectrum.

Doubts loom especially large for GOP conservatives, who swept into power in the House in 1995 on a promise to reduce the size of the federal government and abolish the US Department of Education.

"It's pretty obvious that the consensus that led to [NCLB] six years ago is unraveling," says Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a former Reagan-era education official. "How badly it unravels over what period of time is what we don't know yet."

Democrats want more federal funding

Democrats, who now control both the House and Senate, say that they initially supported NCLB on the promise that federal funding would give schools the resources they needed to implement the new law. While federal funding for public schools has increased by a third since the law was enacted, it still has been underfunded by some $70.9 billion, below levels authorized by law, say critics ranging from top Democrats to education associations and teachers unions.

"Year after year, the president sends us a budget that comes nowhere close to funding No Child Left Behind at an adequate level," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D) of Iowa, who chairs the education subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, at a hearing on NCLB funding last week. The president's budget for fiscal year '08 underfunds the law by $14.8 billion, he adds. "The numbers have gotten almost laughable."

Democrats also aim to revise aspects of how the law is implemented, including revising strategies for turning around low-performing schools. Of some 90,000 public schools, about 9,000 have been targeted by NCLB as needing improvement. "We want to make turning around our most struggling schools a priority in this reauthorization," says Roberto Rodriguez, senior education adviser to Sen. Edward Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. That panel is considering shifting to alternative measures of "adequate yearly progress," including models that account for the improvement of individual students over a school year, rather than whether they meet target proficiency standards.

But Democrats say they are still committed to a key assumption of the NCLB law: that the federal government should be involved in leveraging higher achievement in local schools. That is not the case among Republicans.

On the House side, 52 Republicans, including minority whip Roy Blunt, are cosponsoring the A-Plus Act, introduced by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R) of Michigan. Thirty-three Republicans voted against the NCLB bill, most of whom are cosponsoring the Hoekstra bill. This bill, along with a companion bill in the Senate, revives a formula that drove GOP education policy in the 1990s: that the best route to accountability is through local control and parental choice, not a bigger federal footprint on education.

"We must move education decisionmaking out of Washington closer to where it belongs – with parents and teachers," said Sen. John Cornyn (R) of Texas, a cosponsor of the Senate version of this bill and typically one of the strongest supporters of the Bush administration in the Senate.

In a bid to bridge the gap in GOP ranks, House majority leader John Boehner (R) of Ohio is reminding Republicans that choice was once a part of the No Child Left Behind bill, but was dropped during negotiations with Democrats. Mr. Boehner was one of the original sponsors of NCLB with Rep. George Miller (D) of California. President Bush signed the bill into law in Boehner's district.

"As the No Child Left Behind Act comes up for reauthorization, House Republicans will challenge Democrats to explain why we can't provide more choices for parents and more local control for states and communities that are willing to commit to increasing student achievement," Boehner said in a statement.

Few use school choice provision

Under the terms of existing NCLB law, students attending chronically low- performing schools can choose to attend more successful public schools. But the provision has been little used, because so few seats are available in alternative schools. Conservatives want to offer such students $4,000 scholarships to attend private schools, including religious schools.

"Even the two relatively minor choice options in NCLB have proven to be relatively ineffective because the powers that be have found ways to avoid them," says Michael Franc, vice president of government relations for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. "The more robust choice provisions never made it through. Conservatives believe that choice is the ultimate accountability."

But the choice option sets up a conflict within the bipartisan NCLB coalition that could sink prospects for reauthorization this year – putting adjustments to the bill beyond the 2008 presidential election.

Democrats, strongly backed by teachers unions, say that private-school vouchers would drain critically needed federal dollars from public schools. They oppose the move.

"There is still strong middle ground for NCLB," says Sandy Kress, a former top Bush education adviser, who now consults with education and business groups. But he warns that the opt-out proposed by Republicans could sink the reauthorization. "Republicans used to stand for rigor and standards, but no money for education. Now they seem to be for the money, but no standards."

Meanwhile, Congress is pursuing hearings on the new law in both the House and Senate, with hopes of taking up legislation by early summer. Education groups are urging early action.

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Gore on Capitol Hill revives speculation about '08 bid

from the March 22, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0322/p02s01-uspo.html

Recent polls put the former vice president in third place among Democrats even though he's not a candidate. But will he run?

By Linda Feldmann Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON

There are many reasons for Al Gore not to run for president again.

First, the Democratic field is already well stocked with candidates, and, more important, Democratic voters are happy with their choices. Second, if he were to announce, the former vice president and Oscar-winning climate change uber activist would immediately descend from his celebrity perch and revive all the old criticisms of his campaign style (usually described as stiff and pedantic) and failed presidential effort in 2000.

Another downside to jumping back into presidential politics: no more big-bucks speeches. Since retiring from politics, Mr. Gore has become a wealthy man. He may be loath to return to the days of dialing for dollars – a practice that once landed him in considerable hot water.

But the much-ballyhooed return of Gore to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to deliver testimony on global warming,could not help but revive the 2008 question: Will he run? He has his ardent supporters. And polls continue to show him scoring well in the Democratic nomination race, even as a noncandidate.

A March 9-11 CNN survey of registered Democrats showed Gore in third place with 14 percent, behind Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York (37 percent) and Barack Obama of Illinois (22 percent), and in a statistical tie with former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina (12 percent).

One surefire way to tell if Gore really is thinking of jumping in is to watch his girth – i.e., if it starts shrinking – political observers quip. (Though some raise the counterargument that a less-than-slim Gore makes him look real, and not "overly managed," and that would help average Americans relate to him.)

Gore himself insists he "has no plans" to run. But he always leaves that kernel of doubt. Wittingly or not, it may be helping the global-warming cause he has held dear since his days as a member of the House.

"I think, in the end, he is right now not planning on running, and you take him at his word," says John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. But "he may decide at some point down the road that he will run. He's keeping the window open, because the context could change."

The unprecedentedly early start to the 2008 presidential campaign means that the public could tire of the candidates currently out there running. In particular, in the top tier, Senators Clinton and Obama are in a bruising fight, and that could breed some dissatisfaction with their supporters.

"It's also true that even if people stay satisfied with their options, Gore's entry would transform the race," says Mr. Geer.

On Iraq, the No. 1 issue of public concern, Gore has been a high-profile critic of the war from the start, unlike Clinton. Obama, too, opposed the war from the start, but at the time he was just an Illinois state senator.

On the plus side for Gore, unlike just about anyone else who may jump into the Democratic nomination race late, he has a ready-made network of donors and strategists and could likely be competitive financially and organizationally with the other top-tier candidates. Of course, some of his network overlaps with that of the wife of the former president under whom Gore served, and so a Gore run would unleash an internecine battle like no other in the Democratic ranks.

But on Capitol Hill Wednesday, the topic was all climate change, where the former congressman and senator from Tennessee warned of looming catastrophe if immediate action is not taken. Since the Demo-cratic takeover of Congress earlier this year, members have introduced a raft of legislation aimed at reducing carbon and other emissions.

"I want to testify today about what I believe is a planetary emergency – a crisis that threatens the survival of our civilization and the habitability of the Earth," Gore told a joint hearing of two House committees. "The consequences are mainly negative and headed toward catastrophe unless we act."

He added that he believed it was not too late to address climate change. The film "An Inconvenient Truth" about Gore's crusade won the Academy Award for best documentary last month.

The last time Gore appeared in the Capitol was in 2001, when he presided over the certification of his December 2000 loss to George W. Bush in the Electoral College. That disputed election result remains a painful memory for Democrats, and some party activists blame Gore for not winning easily during a time of peace and prosperity – and in particular, losing in his home state of Tennessee.

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No one blinks, yet, on US attorney firings

from the March 22, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0322/p01s02-uspo.html

Bush and Congress have staked out their battle over turf, and seem headed for a constitutional confrontation.

By Peter Grier Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON

As they trade threats and bluster over whether top White House aides will publicly testify about the firings of federal prosecutors, Congress and the Bush administration seem headed for a constitutional confrontation.

But if history is any guide, it is a showdown that will be settled by political negotiation. Most disputes over executive privilege – the legal doctrine that discussions between a president and his advisers can be kept secret – don't end up as lawsuits, say experts.

"These matters are not traditionally litigated," says Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. "Courts don't like them and it takes too much time."

There are important exceptions to this rule. Near the beginning of President Bush's first term, the administration refused to release to Congress papers from an energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. That position was ultimately supported by the US Supreme Court.

However, recent presidents – including Bill Clinton and Mr. Bush – in general have used a threat of resorting to a claim of executive privilege as their opening bid in a poker game with Congress over the release of internal information.

Some feel this trivializes an important aspect of the American system of the separation of powers of the branches of government. The invocation of executive privilege should be a last resort, says Mark Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

If Bush truly believes that political adviser Karl Rove and other current and former top aides should not give sworn testimony about the firings of US prosecutors, he should not allow them to speak to Congress at all, says Professor Rozell. Yet the administration has already offered to allow aides to speak with lawmakers in private.

"If he's willing to let them talk, why not under oath?" says Rozell. "It seems to me this is also an opening of negotiations by the president."

Still, on Wednesday the confrontation between Congress and the White House became at least one notch more intense. A House Judiciary subcommittee on a voice vote approved the issuance of legal orders for Mr. Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers, and others to testify under oath about the dismissals of eight US attorneys.

The Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled a similar vote for Thursday. Democratic lawmakers say the threat of subpoenas seems the only way to get public answers from the White House.

Previously, the White House dispatched counsel Fred Fielding to Capitol Hill with the offer of unsworn private testimony. The administration characterized the offer, combined with the release of 3,000 pages of Justice Department internal communications on the matter, as an unprecedented window into personnel decisionmaking within the executive branch.

Bush signaled he is willing to resort to the courts if Congress turned down the offer. "The president must remain faithful to the fundamental interests of the presidency and the requirements of the constitutional separation of powers," said a letter to congressional leaders from Mr. Fielding.

The phrase "executive privilege" does not appear in the US Constitution. But presidential claims to preserve the confidentiality of information and documents intermittently have been an aspect of relations between Congress and the White House since George Washington's days as president, according to a Congressional Research Service report on the subject.

The point of executive privilege is to ensure that a president receives candid advice from those around him. The fear of being hauled before a congressional committee to disclose their thinking might make aides less likely to speak their minds, goes the legal theory.

The nadir of this legal doctrine may have occurred under President Richard Nixon, who invoked it in an effort to keep from turning over his Watergate tapes. In 1974, the Supreme Court decided against him, setting the stage for the downfall of his presidency.

In the immediate aftermath of the Watergate scandal, presidents invoked the claim weakly or not at all. None wanted to be associated with a phrase discredited by Mr. Nixon.

Mr. Clinton reversed this trend, says Rozell. He exercised the power more often than did his five predecessors combined, in matters such as an attempt to protect information related to the dismissal of employees at the White House travel office.

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Wife's diagnosis won't deter Edwards

from the March 23, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0323/p02s01-uspo.html

The Democrat, running well in early-voting states, will stick with the '08 presidential race.

By Linda Feldmann Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON

Democratic candidate John Edwards's decision to continue his 2008 presidential campaign, despite a diagnosis of a recurrence of illness in his wife, adds a new dimension to an already complex battle for his party's nomination.

Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed with cancer again on Wednesday, after being given a clean bill of health last year following her earlier bout with breast cancer that began in 2004. At the Edwardses' press conference Thursday afternoon in their hometown of Chapel Hill, N.C., the couple spoke about her diagnosis and about how it would affect the former senator's presidential bid.

Former Senator Edwards, with Elizabeth standing at his side, said the rigors of the campaign would not affect his wife's treatment or her prospects, promising that he would be with her whenever he needs to be.

"Both of us are committed to the cause," the candidate said. "We are committed to changing the country that we love so much, and we have no intention of cowering in the corner."

Edwards has been polling a strong third in the Democratic primary races, and in some early nominating states – such as Iowa and South Carolina – was making a serious play for first among Democratic voters. Edwards was born in South Carolina and won his only primary victory there in 2004.

Edwards's decision to stay in the race could open him to criticism that he is putting his political ambitions ahead of his family.

But in their joint appearance, the Edwardses sought to allay that impression by showing a united front. Mrs. Edwards spoke, too, of her and her family's commitment to the race. Both Edwardses explained in detail the circumstances that led to the discovery of her latest illness, and her prognosis. Mrs. Edwards said she is asymptomatic and will continue to take part in the campaign. The Edwardses have two young children, in addition to an adult daughter.

Another possibility for Mr. Edwards is that, given the news, he gets a second look from voters who may have begun to see the Democratic nomination race as between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. While Edwards has carved out a constituency among union members, an important part of the Democratic base, he has had a hard time of late breaking through the intense media attention to the battle between the top two candidates.

Mrs. Edwards has been an integral part of her husband's campaigns from the start. A lawyer like her husband, she is also his closest political confidante, helping him to make key campaign decisions. Her personal challenges – her health struggles, the loss of her and her husband's teenage son in a car accident, and her challenges with weight – have made her into a a figure that American women can relate to. Last September, she published a book, "Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers."

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Congress puts its marker on Iraq war, but how big?

from the March 26, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0326/p02s01-uspo.html

The Senate, following the House's vote Friday, is to weigh a war-funding bill – with exit dates.

By Gail Russell Chaddock Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON

After the House vote Friday that laid out a schedule for US troop withdrawal from Iraq, the Senate this week takes up a bill that outlines its own timetable for ending the US combat role in that conflict-riven nation.

Neither bill appears to have the backing to override the presidential veto that is certain to follow. But Democrats now controlling Congress say the power of the purse – and a roused US public – may yet bring about changes in President Bush's war policy.

Immediately at stake is more than $100 billion in emergency war funding that the Pentagon says is needed before April 15. In the absence of such a spending measure, men and women in uniform will face serious disruptions, it says.

"I've asked Congress to pass an emergency war-spending bill that gives our troops what they need, without strings and without delay. Instead, a narrow majority in the House of Representatives decided yesterday to make a political statement," Mr. Bush said during his Saturday radio address.

As in the House, the Senate debate is expected to focus on whether lawmakers should, in Republicans' words, "micromanage" the war in Iraq and whether billions in nondefense-related projects should be added to the war-funding bill.

On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her new Democratic leadership overcame deep divisions in their caucus to hand Bush the strongest rebuff on the war of his presidency. "The American people do not support a war without end and neither should this Congress," said Speaker Pelosi, as she closed out the debate on redeploying US combat troops from Iraq by Sept. 1, 2008.

On their way to a 218-to-212 victory, Democrats added $24 billion to the $103 billion emergency supplemental request, including millions to store peanuts, grow spinach, provide health insurance for children, and remove asbestos from the US Capitol power plant.

Republicans, who held their caucus together with only two defections, called the add-ons bribery. "The sweeteners in this bill are political bribery, and our troops deserve more than this," said Rep. Sam Johnson (R) of Texas, a former US prisoner of war in Vietnam, to a standing ovation on the GOP side of the aisle.

The Senate takes up its own $121.7 billion version of the emergency spending bill on Monday. The bill requires that US forces begin redeploying out of Iraq four months from the date of the bill's passage and sets a goal of removing combat troops by March 31, 2008 – five months earlier than the House bill calls for. Unlike the House bill, the Senate version is nonbinding.

In an amendment to be voted on Tuesday, Republicans aim to strip language setting troop-withdrawal timetables from the bill. A similar proposal failed earlier this month by a 48-to-52 vote. Democrats, for their part, say their improved version of an exit timetable will fare better this week.

"The legislation contains critical improvements from the Iraq resolution recently considered by the Senate. Unlike that resolution, the supplemental legislation includes a series of benchmarks for the Iraqis to meet and also the inclusion of regular progress reports to Congress from the US commander in Iraq," Sen. Robert Byrd (D) of West Virginia said in a statement, before his Appropriations Committee cleared the funding bill for floor action.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D) of Nebraska, a key swing vote, says he favors the benchmarks but still opposes an exit date for US forces from Iraq. On Friday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I) of Connecticut said he expects one or two more Democrats to oppose an exit timetable.

Senate Republicans also plan to try to strip nondefense-related expenditures from the bill. Sen. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma, an earmark opponent, says he will offer amendments to strip nondefense-related projects from the bill, starting with the $100 million added to beef up security at the 2008 presidential conventions. He will challenge Democrats to show "why we should borrow from our grandchildren to have a party," especially on a bill to provide emergency funding for a war.

Democrats acknowledge that they do not have the two-thirds vote needed in both the House and Senate to override a presidential veto. Still, the vote sets a high-water mark for the assertion of congressional powers since Bush ordered US forces into Iraq four years ago this month.

"It's largely a symbolic vote," says Norman Ornstein, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "But the fact that the House, even by a narrow margin, accepted the concept of a date certain [for a pullout of US combat troops] means something. It will have an effect on the structure of public debate."

The wild card, over the next few weeks, is public opinion.

Facing the risk of depriving US forces of funding in wartime, the White House is counting on Congress to back down and pass a bill by April 15 that has no exit timetables and no nondefense add-ons.

But Democrats say public opinion may swing further in their direction, even in the event of a veto and a showdown on war funding.

"It's public opinion that determines the outcome," says Rep. Barney Frank (D) of Massachusetts. "People are very antiwar, and the greatest naiveté is too much cynicism, as when people say the public has nothing to do with this."

'Goodies' for votes: a list of add-ons to the House war-funding bill

A subplot in Congress's debate over war funding is how lawmakers deal with nondefense add-ons for pet projects.

In its first test of new rules requiring disclosure of names of members sponsoring "earmarks," the House saw a spat over whether the spirit and letter of the anti-"pork" rules were met.

House leaders said last week that, in keeping with rules passed at the start of the new Congress, no member projects were included in the US Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health and Iraq Accountability Act.

Challenged as to why a $35 million add-on for NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi was not listed as an earmark, Rep. David Obey (D) of Michigan said, "An earmark is something that is requested by an individual member. This item was not requested by any individual member. It was put in the bill by me." (Rep. Gene Taylor (D) of Mississippi, in whose district the funds would be spent, did not support the bill.)

The move violates the spirit, if not the letter, of new House rules, say budget watchdog groups.
"It seems the commitment to reform was short-lived, as Congress fattens up the emergency-spending bill with special-interest goodies," says Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, a public-interest group in Washington.

Another public-interest group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, objected that Senate
appropriators did not allow TV cameras or the public into their markup last week and that a transcript is not yet available to the public.

Below is a partial list of nonwar-related provisions added to the House emergency- spending bill.
MILLIONS ($) PURPOSE

$500 Emergency wildfire suppression
400 Rural schools
283 Milk subsidies
140 Shrimp and fishing industries that suffered losses after hurricane Katrina
100 Citrus growers for losses from hurricanes Katrina or Rita
74 Peanut storage
60 Salmon fisheries in the Klamath River region in California and Oregon
50 Asbestos removal from the US Capitol power plant
48 Salaries and expenses for the Farm Service Agency
35 Risk mitigation at NASA's Stennis Space Center on the Gulf Coast
25 Spinach growers
25 Hurricane compensation for livestock producers
16 Security upgrades to House of Representative office buildings
10 Flood control along the Rio Grande River

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As Canada turns 'green,' its Conservatives follow

from the March 19, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0319/p04s01-woam.html

The party recently introduced a new environmental bill and replaced a controversial environment minister from oil-producing Alberta.

By Fred Langan Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

TORONTO

Canada's Conservative Party has taken on a new shade of green.

Once hostile to the idea that man-made greenhouse gases can cause global warming, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is now eagerly trying to prove its green credentials.

In recent months, the Conservatives have introduced a new environmental bill, and replaced a controversial environment minister who hails from oil-producing Alberta. The prime minister now says he will respect the Kyoto Accord, which Canada signed under the former Liberal government.

Critics say that Harper Conservatives underestimated the environment as a political issue when they first came to power in January 2006. Now, Harper and new Environment Minister John Baird are more conciliatory and talk about climate change and greenhouse gases, shifting in policy to a stance in tune with the Canadian public.

According to the latest polls from the Environics Research Group of Toronto, Canadians are more concerned about the environment than unemployment, the economy, or war and terrorism. "The sense of public concern is being spurred both by unnerving temperatures – in our case a balmy winter rather than a hot summer," says Amy Langstaff, a researcher at Environics. "It does seem as though public opinion in Canada has turned a corner."

Mr. Baird acknowledges that Canadians want the government to do more in regard to the environment. "We've announced major policies from industrial pollution, action on greenhouse gases, and the Hydrogen Highway in British Columbia," he says.

And, he says, the Conservatives will be able to overcome the skepticism that is meeting the Conservatives new, greener tack. "I understand people are cynical. We'll be judged by our actions, not our talk. The Liberals under Stephane Dion [then environment minister, now Liberal leader] did nothing on Kyoto."

Environmentalists and the prime minister's political opponents in Ottawa, however, are reaching into the recent past to try to discredit Harper's new environmentalism as political opportunism. In a fundraising letter in 2002, Harper railed against Kyoto calling it a "socialist scheme."

"It's a ruse. Their only environmental promise [in the election last year] was to make bus passes tax deductible," says Nelson Wiseman, a political scientist at the University of Toronto.

Green initiatives will probably be part of the government's new budget, which is to be released Monday, and could result in spring elections if Conservatives cannot gain enough support to pass the document.

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To reduce water use, farmers in Colorado tax themselves

from the March 19, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0319/p02s01-ussc.html

Some are voluntarily retiring wells that drain the Republican River, but murmurs of state-mandated closings raise concerns.

By Amanda Paulson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WRAY, COLO.

Duard Fix is torn.

On the one hand, the wells with which he irrigates his corn crop are producing lots of water on good land, and corn prices are at near-record highs. On the other, several of those wells – the ones closest to the Republican River – may soon be shut down, as this area struggles to reduce the amount of water it uses from the river.

His neighbors here in eastern Colorado have been raising money for a program to pay farmers like Mr. Fix to retire some of those wells, but it would mean giving up on productive land in a great market. If he doesn't participate, they could get shut down anyway by the state, without compensation.

"It's a tough decision to make," says Fix, who lives on the same farm where he was born more than 70 years ago. "I don't want to give up my water with no chance of ever getting it back. We're going to wait until the end of this year and see where we are."

As the once-plentiful water in the aquifer in this and other areas dwindles, farmers needing irrigation, like Fix, are beginning to see it as a limited resource. Interstate compacts like the one governing the Republican River and other competing water demands are forcing tough choices.

Against that backdrop, farmers in Yuma County are taking significant steps to voluntarily reduce the water they use. They've taxed themselves to kickstart a federal program to get farmers like Fix to retire certain wells. And they're working with conservationists and other unlikely partners to come up with the softest landing possible for farmers, who regard their wells as liquid gold in a region with frequent droughts and little rain.

"They're being very proactive," says Ken Knox, Colorado's chief deputy state engineer, who says he's been receiving calls from other Western states that would like to emulate the Republican River farmers. He is trying to help farmers in the Rio Grande valley set up a similar model, he says. "They're assessing themselves. So even at a personal cost they're trying to work with the state – which I find refreshing – and they're looking for a long-term solution. It's a bit unique."

Still, the choices can be painful. This is a part of Colorado that some mountain dwellers refer to as western Kansas – sweeping flat stretches of shortgrass prairie and dryland farms, dotted with sprinklers that in the summer turn the land into a patchwork of green corn circles. Until irrigation arrived in the 1950s, the land was mostly used for ranching or wheat farming. Now its irrigated acres are some of the country's most productive, with corn yields that occasionally top 300 bushels an acre.

Three forks of the Republican River cut through the county, though these days, they seem more like creeks. One, the Arikaree – the most ecologically valuable with an all-native fish population – rarely flows across the state line, and turns to small pools in the summer. At the Bonny Reservoir on the South Fork, once a prime recreation area, managers keep extending the boat ramp, but it's now virtually unusable.

Though some blame years of drought and exotic trees like the Russian olive for the declining water supply, most agree that heavy irrigation is partly responsible. When the US Supreme Court settled a lawsuit several years ago, determining that Colorado and Nebraska weren't fulfilling their water obligations to Kansas on the river, farmers here decided to look for their own solution.

The vehicle the local water conservation district has chosen is the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) under the US Department of Agriculture. Local farmers contributed $5.50 per irrigated acre to make up 20 percent of the funding; the rest comes from the federal government. Farmers who sign up get a certain amount per year – depending how close their well is to one of the forks of the river – to keep the land fallow for 15 years. After that, they could use it for dryland farming, but never again irrigate it. The district hopes to enroll 30,000 irrigated acres in the initial CREP program and just started a second one.

"We're looking at a very diminishing resource," says Dennis Coryell, president of the Republican River Water Conservation District. While the program was started because of the compact obligations – despite the fact that they're difficult to enforce – Mr. Coryell has hope for other benefits. "A consequence, we believe, will be sustaining the aquifer.'

For some farmers – those who were already looking to retire or who had wells that were drying up or had less productive land – enrolling their wells was an easy decision. The district nearly hit its acreage target in terms of people who initially signed up last summer, though fewer have taken the final steps to commit.

Robin Wiley, a Yuma County commissioner and fourth-generation farmer, enrolled one of his lower-producing wells away from the river in the CREP program. But he acknowledges that although these kinds of wells make up the majority of the ones enrolled, they don't do much to solve the problem, since retiring them has less impact on the rivers' surface flow.

Still, like Fix, he says it's much harder to make the decision to stop irrigating highly productive land. "We've struggled for years with commodity prices, and now we finally have a spike. Producers see an opportunity to make a little money, and it's hard to enroll in a program that will take that away from them," he explains.

He, like everyone here, would like the solution to be voluntary. But a recent state lawsuit verdict increases the likelihood that the state may simply draw a boundary along the rivers and shut down all wells within it.

That possibility haunts farmers like Fix with wells near the rivers, who wonder why they should have to pay for everyone's unsustainable use. Others worry about the damage it could do to small towns like Wray.

"You take the water away, and the economies change," says Brad Rock, who runs a feedlot and farms 5,200 acres near Wray, nearly 900 of them irrigated. He figures close to 200 wells are within three miles of the North Fork. But he's aware that much of the water is being used up on its own. "I'm sure that in 20 years, my son will be a dryland farmer. We figured the water would go away, I just didn't think it would be in my lifetime."

Meanwhile, conservation groups have become partners with the farmers, who they acknowledge were initially distrustful. The Nature Conservancy and the Colorado Water Trust have started a program to pay farmers who retire wells near the Arikaree a premium over what they'd get from the CREP program.

"Our goal is to come in and make the pie bigger for everyone," says William Burnidge, The Nature Conservancy's northeast Colorado director. He figures that if just four key wells near the Arikaree are shut down, the river's flow will double. "Right now, just one summer without water and the Arikaree dries up, and you lose an entire native fish population."

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