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Just think of all that could get done through the art of compromise if only both parties saw it in their own interests to act." Steve Elmendorf, who was chief of staff to former House minority leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), agreed that both sides see the deal in their self-interest as well as the national interest, but he cautioned that it may not be easy to replicate. "You have a perfect storm here of short-term challenges to do something that you probably won't get on other issues," he said. The White House and Congress spent most of 2007 at loggerheads over the Iraq war, children's health insurance and immigration. Only at the end of the year, after veto threats and harsh rhetoric, did Bush and lawmakers come together on a spending package and energy legislation.
Criticism Mounts Against Biofuels
Indeed, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, released in October 2006, estimates that deforestation and other comparable land-use changes account for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions around the world. Biofuels, say activists, accelerate that process. A Gold Rush "We are causing a climate catastrophe by promoting agro-fuels," Greenpeace agricultural specialist Alexander Hissting told SPIEGEL ONLINE, using his group's preferred term for biofuels. "We are creating a huge industry in many parts of the world. In Indonesia, something akin to a gold rush has broken out." The European Union seems to have taken note of the gathering biofuels storm. The plan has noted that the 10-percent goal is dependent on whether "production is sustainable," as an EU PowerPoint presentation delivered to reporters on Tuesday noted.
Running for the economic empathizer in chief
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- She has been railing about the price of gasoline, wondering how working mothers pay doctors' bills, and generally echoing complaints of everyday folks: How can you afford to put kids through college? What about paying that inflated adjustable-rate home loan? Or holding onto a job in a teetering economy?
New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made her final push Friday across South Carolina in advance of today's Democratic presidential primary, channeling the central imperative of her husband's first run for president: a focus, "like a laser beam," on the economy.
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