20 Hours in America
- Issues: Republican Indiana, drop in the stock market, terrorist attack, criminal liability and the International Criminal Court, assassination policy, abortion statistics, alternative fuels, global warming, faith-based initiatives, health-care coverage, farm subsidies.
A long, long day begins with a Bartlet campaign rally in traditionally Republican Indiana (1). Bartlett worries over a drop in the stock market (2), an apparent terrorist attack (3) in which 44 people are killed, and whether he could face criminal liability (4) for ordering the assassination (5) of Kumari defense minister Abdul Shareef. Meanwhile, Toby, Josh and Donna are stranded in Indiana and face several obstacles getting back, including a girl who asks them how many abortions (6) they're responsible for. Sam fills in for Josh and gets re-acquainted with a former romantic possibility, C.J. tries finding a Big Brother to replace the late Sam Donovan, Abbey gets misinterpreted, and a new secretary is finally hired to replace the late Mrs. Landingham. Some of the many, many other issues raised in this episode include: alternative fuels (7), how to measure the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions (8), faith-based initiatives (9), health-care coverage (10), and farm subsidies (11).
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Republican Indiana (last modified August 28, 2002) (back to top)
Indiana has voted Republican in every presidential election since the late 1940s, except for in 1964, when Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy won the state's electoral votes. It currently has 11 electoral votes due to the 2000 census count, which puts the state below 13 other states in terms of electoral votes (Missouri, Tennessee and Washington also have 11 electoral votes).
In the 2000 presidential election, 1.25 million Indiana voters voted for Republican candidate George W. Bush, compared to 0.9 million for Democratic candidate Al Gore.
For a table showing how each state has voted in the presidential elections since World War II, go here. For information about the electoral college, including a graph showing how electoral votes are allocated, go here.
Sources: Election data taken from the National Archives and Records Administration has much information about the electoral college on-line here; tables and charts were developed from the data therein.
The Stock Market (last updated August 17, 2002) (back to top)
The stock market grew rapidly in value in the late 1990s, spurred by the end of a recession, the rise of technology companies, and the influx of new investors who had access to more financial information than before and who could take an active role in trading. However, this growth has been criticized as resulting in an overvalued market and in price fluctuations since peaking around August 2000.
The following chart shows the fluctuations in how major shares were traded from 1990 to January 2002, as measured by the Standard & Poor's index tracking the 500 largest companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. From 1994 to 2000, the S&P Index more than tripled, but other measures of a stock's value increased by smaller amounts; the overall price-to-earnings ratio, for example, only doubled. In addition, some basic economic indicators such as the United States' gross domestic product did not show comparable increases.
A share in a company represents the shareholder's ownership of a part of that company. Shareholders can realize a profit on their investments by selling their shares for a price greater than what they initially paid for them, and they can also receive dividends based on the company's profits.
According to the efficient market theory, the trading price of a company's share reflects the true value of the share because people are buying and trading the stock based on their belief in how the company is doing and how it will perform in the future. However, this theory assumes that investors have good and reliable information about what they are doing, and are acting rationally based on such information. Some economists have pointed out how group dynamics affect share prices, and how there is little evidentiary support for many cause-and-effect relationships that some suppose are responsible for share price changes.
Shares are traded either in a registered exchange such as the New York Stock Exchange or in over-the-counter markets regulated by the NASDAQ. Shares listed on registered exchanges are generally bigger, more established companies, whereas shares traded in over-the-counter markets are generally younger and smaller. Technology companies in particular have leaned towards the NASDAQ.
There are several ways to measure the performance of the "stock market," using the indexes that track how various stocks are being traded and at what price shares are being traded. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (usually referred as the "Dow") tracks the performance of 30 companies selected by the editors of the Wall Street Journal as reflecting the overall economy. Standard & Poor's (S&P) index tracks the 500 largest public companies being traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The NASDAQ Composite Index measures the performance of stocks traded on the over-the-counter market.
The following charts reflect how the S&P Index has developed since the 1870s, along with charts showing the crashes in the 1920s and the 1980s. As with the above chart for the 1990s to February 2002, the data for these charts comes from Yale University Professor Robert J. Shiller's data, which is on-line here.
The trading of shares is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was created in the wake of the stock-market crash of 1929. The SEC requires certain disclosure obligations and prevents insider trading.
Sources: Robert J. Shiller, Irrational Exuberance (Princeton University Press, 2000). Shiller's home page is on-line here, and his data on the S&P Index and attributes such as the price-to-earning ratio is on-line here. The Securities and Exchange Commission is on-line here B. O'Neill Wyss, Fundamentals of the Stock Market (McGraw-Hill, 2001).
Major Terrorist Acts against the United States or involving United States citizens (last updated 9/25/01) (back to top)
- April 18, 1983: Bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, 63 killed. Linked to the Islamic separatist group Hizballah.
- October 23, 1983: Bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, 241 marines killed. Linked to the Islamic separatist group Hizballah.
- September 20, 1984: Bombing of the U.S. embassy annex in Beirut, Lebanon, 14 killed. Linked to the Islamic separatist group Hizballah.
- December 21, 1988: Bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, 259 passengers and crew killed, including 217 Americans. Two Libyans went on trial in the Netherlands in 2000; Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was found guilty and the other found not guilty.
- February 26, 1993: World Trade Center bombing: $500 million in damages, six killed, more than a thousand injured. This incident was organized by Ramzi Yousef, who is linked to Muslims who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, but was not the doing of any formal terrorist organization with an identifiable organizational structure, known base of operation, or well-established means of fundraising.
- April 1993: Unsuccessful attempt by Iraqi Intelligence Service to assassinate former President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait. President Bill Clinton authorizes retaliatory cruise missile strikes against IIS headquarters in Baghdad.
- Summer 1995: FBI arrests members of a plot to attack various landmarks in New York City, organized by Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman, the head of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization who also has links to Muslims who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan.
- April 19, 1995: Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, 168 killed, hundreds injured. Conducted by Timothy McVeigh (for more information, click here).
- April 3, 1996: Theodore Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, is detained by federal agents after sending package bombs for nearly two decades, killing 3 and wounding 23. NOTE: Kaczynski was not initially considered a terrorist due to the initial mystery of his motives.
- August 7, 1998: Bombing of two US embassies in the East African cities of Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, at least 301 killed, more than 5,000 injured. Organized by al-Qaeda, the terrorist group led by Osama Bin Laden.
- October 12, 2000: Attack on USS Cole in Yemeni port of Aden, 17 sailors killed. Organized by al-Qaeda, the terrorist group led by Osama Bin Laden.
- September 11, 2001: Attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, resulting in the deaths of thousands. Organized by al-Qaeda, the terrorist group led by Osama Bin Laden.
Sources: Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Designations by the Secretary of the State, released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism on October 9, 1999, available via the State Department’s website online here. Terrorism in the United States 1999, by the FBI’s Counterterrorism Threat Assessment and Warning Unit, available here.
The United States and the International Criminal Court (last updated September 25, 2002) (back to top)
Even if Bartlett had committed some kind of a war crime in ordering the assassination of Defense Minister Abdul Shareef (a very big if), he could not be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court now in operation in the Hague because the United States has not signed and will probably never sign the establishing treaty for that court.
Before the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established on July 1, 2002, there was no permanent court where individuals "without any distinction based on official capacity" could be prosecuted for war crimes. Instead, war crimes were prosecuted internationally only through specifically convened mechanisms, such as the post-World War II Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, and the specially created tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.
Even now, the ICC does not have universal jurisdiction over all persons who commit war crimes. First, it only has jurisdiction over – and thus can only prosecute – officials and representatives from those countries that have ratified the Rome treaty and only over certain crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, or aggression) committed after their countries have so ratified. Second, the court only has jurisdiction when the relevant state has been found be unwilling or unable to exercise jurisdiction itself and if the alleged crimes are of "sufficient gravity."
Finally, the ICC faces several political and administrative checks. The ICC's prosecutor is able to initiate investigations on his or her own, but can commence cases only with approval by a pre-trial chamber of judges. Investigations or prosecutions can also be delayed for a year if the United Nations Security Council passes such a resolution.
Nonetheless, to avoid the possibility that U.S. citizens could be prosecuted by the court, the United States opposed the Rome treaty when it was approved by 160 other nations in 1998 and has not ratified it (the United States did sign in the waning days of the Clinton administration, but this act was largely symbolic and has been much criticized by the Bush administration). The Bush administration has taken further political steps to insulate its citizens and representatives from the court's reach.
Because jurisdiction is limited only to those cases in which a defendant had not been prosecuted by his own country's courts, or when such prosecutions were a sham, the ICC can be seen mostly as a device to encourage states to prosecute their own and thus avoid the possibility of ICC jurisdiction. Nonetheless, it is questionable as to whether Bartlett has committed any kind of crime for which the ICC could prosecute. The four kinds of prosecutable offenses are:
- Genocide, defined as certain acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
- Crimes against humanity, defined as acts such as murder, enslavement, and rape when "committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack."
- War crimes, defined as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 or of international norms "as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes. The Geneva Convention of 1949 prohibited acts such as torture and certain treatments of prisoners of war. International norms are defined to bar such acts as intentional attacks on civilians, intentional attacks made "in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians," "declaring that no quarter will be given," deliberately causing starvation of civilians, and using certain kinds of weapons.
- Aggression, which went undefined as of July 1998 and is to be defined later.
In ordering the assassination of one man (and presumably his accompanying staff), Bartlett seems to have, at worst, committed murder. But given Shareef's actions against the United States at that time, it is unlikely that such would be considered any kind of prosecutable offense.
Sources: The United Nations maintains a website for the International Criminal Court, available here; the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court can be found there in various languages. Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War (Oxford University Press, Third Edition, 2000). Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (Basic Books, 1977).
Assassinations (last updated May 15, 2002) (back to top)
Officially, the United States does not conduct or permit assassinations. However, this policy is not codified in law, but in an executive order (EO 123333) that the President can change at will and without public notice of the change. In addition, this policy does not define what an assassination is, and the United States has long distinguished assassinations as separate from military operations directed against enemy leaders in the course of self-defense.
Generally, assassinations are considered by international law experts as the murder of a targeted individual for political purposes, usually involving circumstances of a covert or "treacherous" nature. Whether the intended killing of an individual counts as an assassination or as a generally acceptable military operation depends on whether the relevant countries are at peace or war, the forces carrying out the killing, and the means by which the killing is carried out.
During peacetime, the targeted killing of any individual, whether a combatant or not, is generally considered an assassination and is not permitted. However, countries at peace are still allowed to use military force under the inherent right of self-defense of nations, which is recognized in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations.
Taking an arguably broad view of its rights under Article 51, the United States has used military force in peacetime situations where a country's actions were considered a direct threat to U.S. citizens or national security. The United States has invoked this right in launching airstrikes against Libya in 1983, invading Panama in 1989, and launching airstrikes against Iraq in 1993, though the United States did not officially target specific individuals in these operations in order to avoid having these actions labeled assassinations that might not be permitted by EO 12333. Some critics say that the United States' view of Article 51 is overbroad, and that it was meant only to allow countries to repel either direct invasions or immediate, overwhelming threats under the Caroline standard established in the 1830s.
During wartime, countries have more freedom to target and attack individuals who are involved in military operations. A combatant is considered a legitimate target at all times, and is denoted as such by his or her uniform, and so a military operation to kill such an individual is considered permissible, unless done through treacherous means. Thus, the successful attack by U.S. military planes on Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto during World War II is generally considered an intended attack on an individual, but not an assassination.
U.S. policy towards assassinations has been shaped since the 1970s by an executive order first promulgated in 1977 by President Gerald Ford and re-implemented by presidents since then. Ford's Executive Order 11905 provided, in part, that "no employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." That order was expanded by President Jimmy Carter beyond "political" assassination to all assassinations, and is now embodied in EO 12333, which was issued by President Ronald Reagan and maintained by subsequent presidents.
Ford's original order came in the wake of a Senate committee investigation into allegations about United States-authorized assassinations. That committee, which was chaired by Senator Frank Church, concluded that the United States was directly linked to the assassination of Rafael Trugillo of the Dominican Republic and to assassination attempts of Fidel Castro of Cuba., and recommended laws that would prohibit assassinations in peacetime. No such laws were ever enacted, probably pre-empted by Ford's executive action.
EO 12333 is open to much interpretation, perhaps intentionally so. It does not define assassination, which gives the United States some flexibility in its actions and allows it to pursue overt military operations even against specific individuals. It also does not define "engaging" or "conspiring," which arguably leaves room for the United States to encourage coup attempts as long as there are no specific plans for the killing of individuals.
The order also has limited constraint on the President, since he can modify or overrule the executive order at any time and, because it involves security matters, he does not need to notify the public of the change. The president would not have such flexibility to lift the constraint on his power if the ban on assassinations was embodied in a law rather than an executive order.
Effectively, the President has several options if he does wish to order the killing of a foreign leader. He can ask Congress to declare war, he can construe Article 51 to authorize the use of military forces in self-defense, he can narrowly interpret EO 12333 to allow actions as long as specific plans to kill individuals are not involved, and he can modify or overrule EO 12333 unilaterally. His ability to order the killing of a foreign leader visiting the United States, however, might be limited by other factors such as the general policy of not using military forces in the United States, which is given some effect by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
Sources: W. Hays Parks, Executive Order 12333 and Assassination, Army Lawyer (1989). Stephen T. Hosmer, Operations against Enemy Leaders (Rand, 2001). Lt. Commander Patricia Zengel, Assassination and the Law of Armed Conflict, Military Law Review, Volume 134, Page 123 (Fall 1991). Bert Brandenburg, The Legality of Assassination as an Aspect of Foreign Policy, Virginia Journal of International Law, Volume 27, Page 655 (1987). Boyd M. Johnson, III, Executive Order 12,333: The Permissibility of an American Assassination of a Foreign Leader, Cornell International Law Journal, Volume 25, Page 401 (1992).
Abortion Statistics (last updated October 31, 2001) (back to top)
The number and rate of abortions in the United States has largely gone down in recent decades. According to data by the Centers for Disease Control, there were 1.185 million legal abortions and 30.6 abortions per 100 live births in 1997, the lowest reported figures since the late 1970s.
For more on abortion rights and related issues and statistics, go here.
Sources: National Center for Health Statistics, Health, United States, 2000.
Alternative fuels (last modified September 21, 2002) (back to top)
Alternative fuels still have a long ways to go before significantly reducing gasoline consumption in the United States.
Despite advances in alternative fuels, gasoline and diesel gas are still the main source of transportation fuel consumption. Gasoline (not including reformulated gasoline) comprised 74.5 percent of total transportation fuel consumption in 2000, diesel gas 22.7 percent, and all alternative fuels (including reformulated gasoline) just 2.8 percent.
Not counting reformulated gasoline, there are several kinds of "true" alternative fuels, which altogether comprised 0.2 percent of total fuel consumption in 2000. Some types are listed below, in order of their share of the total fuel consumption in 2000.
- Liquefied petroleum gas (0.150 percent). A mixture mostly containing propane, LPG is a by-product of natural gas processing or petroleum refining. It is a gas at room temperature but a liquid when compressed.
- Compressed natural gas (0.058 percent). Natural gas, which is a mixture of hydrocarbons extracted from underground reserves, is used as an alternative fuel either in compressed or liquefied forms.
- Liquefied natural gas (0.004 percent). Natural gas, which is a mixture of hydrocarbons extracted from underground reserves, is used as an alternative fuel either in compressed or liquefied forms.
- Methanol-gasoline blend (M85) (0.004 percent). Methanol is a liquid alcohol fuel made most commonly from natural gas, and it is used as alternative fuel in several different forms, the most common being a blend of 85 percent methanol and 15 percent gasoline.
- Ethanol-gasoline blend (E85) (0.002 percent). A liquid alcohol fuel that can be made from biomass feedstocks, ethanol is used as an alternative fuel as part of a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Ethanol has had strong political support among Midwestern farmers. For more on ethanol, go here.
- Electricity (0.001 percent). Electric vehicles are of three types: battery-powered, fuel cell, and hybrids. Battery-powered electric vehicles use electricity on onboard rechargeable batteries, fuel cell vehicles convert chemical energy into electricity, and hybrids may use fuel cells along with a gasoline engine. Electric vehicles outnumbered gasoline-powered automobiles at the beginning of the 20th century, but became less popular once cheaper methods of using gasoline were developed.
Other forms of alternative fuel being used or developed explored include biodiesel fuels (made from natural sources such as vegetable oils and animal fats), hydrogen gas (being developed for use in compressed or liquid forms), P-series (a new kind of liquid fuel for spark-ignited engines), and solar energy (not yet in public use).
Sometimes considered an alternative fuel, reformulated gasoline (RFG) is gasoline that has had oxygenates added to reduce toxic emissions. RFG is used much more than true alternative fuels, comprising 92 percent of the alternate fuel consumption in 2000, and the Clean Air Act of 1990 requires its use in the cities with the worst smog pollution. The most common additive is methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), followed by ethanol. Such reformulated gasoline comprises about 92 percent of alternative fuels used in 2000; MTBE-based RFG comprised 69.4 percent, and ethanol-based RFG comprised 22.6 percent.
Sources: Data on transportation fuel consumption comes from the Energy Information Administration, available here. Mary Joyce, Developments in U.S. Alternative Fuel Markets, a publication by the Energy Information Administration, is on-line here. Information about several kinds of alternate fuels is on-line from the AFDC here.
Global warming and carbon dioxide emissions (last updated March 20, 2002) (back to top)
The phenomenon known as global warming centers around the possible rise in climate temperature due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases. In fact, more greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are being emitted into the atmosphere, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, and the global surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the 20th century and is expected to rise even faster in the future. While there is still some scientific debate as to how significant the temperature increase is and how much is being caused by greenhouse-gas emissions, there is little debate that there is some connection.
In order to minimize the temperature increase and the resulting climatic changes, many nations have acted both individually and collectively to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. For example, the United States, which has the highest carbon-dioxide emission levels of any major country on an absolute and per capita basis, has individually implemented fuel-efficiency standards and targeted the worst polluters through penalties and pollution-credit allocations. Collectively, many nations agreed to commit themselves via the Kyoto Protocol adopted in 1997 to meet certain reduction goals by around 2010. However, the Protocol has not been widely adopted, and President George W. Bush has criticized the protocol and said that it will not bind the United States.
The problem of global warming lies not in the existence of a greenhouse effect, but in how human activity may be enhancing that effect so much that climactic changes result. The greenhouse effect is simply nature's way of regulating the temperature on Earth. Greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) trap infrared (heat) radiation from the sun within the lower part of the atmosphere (the troposphere) and then re-radiate some of the heat towards the surface of the Earth. Without such gases, the heat would escape from the atmosphere into space and the earth would be 60 degrees Fahrenheit colder and uninhabitable.
Atmospheric concentrations of naturally-occurring greenhouse gases have been increasing over the 20th century. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by about 28 percent since 1860, that of methane has doubled, and that of nitrous oxide by about 10 percent. Also, the atmosphere now contains engineered greenhouse gases such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), that result from industrial activities and that deplete the ozone layer while absorbing heat.
While some of the concentration increases may be due to phenomena such as volcanoes or the loss of land-based vegetation, one major cause is the burning of fossil fuels such as petroleum or coal. About 22 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide gas are added to the atmosphere each year due to emissions from fuel combustion, still a small fraction compared to the amount of carbon dioxide exchanged in the Earth's normal carbon cycle each year, but enough to cause a buildup of carbon dioxide beyond natural fluctuations. In the United States, about 98 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions are the result of the combustion of fossil fuels.
At the same time, global average surface temperature (average of near surface air temperature over land, and sea surface temperature) has increased, with the rate increasing since the 1970s. The temperature increased about one degree Fahrenheit over the 20th century, and the 1990s was the warmest decade in record since 1861. The temperature is expected to increase by another two to six degrees over the 21st century.
This rise in temperature is believed to be caused by the higher concentrations of greenhouse gases, and that temperature increase in turn is believed to lead to worsened air pollution, damaged crops, an intensification of the Earth's hydrological cycle, and a rising sea level due to melting glaciers and expanding oceans. However, some dispute the significance of the temperature data, arguing that it is still too soon to determine whether the temperature increase is actually significant or if it is just a normal variation. Also, some point to satellite data that shows little if any warming over the past two decades, though such data does not always correlate with what is happening on the surface due to the effect of ozone layer depletion.
While the exact link between the rising temperature and greater carbon-dioxide emissions probably cannot be proven definitively for decades to come, there is an overall consensus accepting it among many scientists and policy-makers. Even a National Research Council study commissioned by the Bush administration in 2001 to investigate uncertainties in the science of climactic change concluded that, while it could not rule out the possibility of some natural variance in global temperature, "the changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities."
Global warming thus became an international concern in the 1980s, when the international community began discussing possible actions to limit human impact on the climate. In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created to help provide scientific research and advice to policymakers.
In the 1990s, international efforts focused on organizing individual countries' efforts via mechanisms of international law. In 1992, more than 160 countries - including the United States - adopted an international convention (the Framework Convention on Climate Change) committing themselves to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990-levels. Nevertheless, greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and other developed nations continued to rise.
In 1997, international negotiators reached a new agreement on goals for the first decade of the 21st century. The United States signed this agreement, known as the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention, on November 12, 1998, but is not bound by it until it is ratified by the Senate. President George Bush has criticized the Kyoto Protocol and said he will not submit it for ratification.
Both the original Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol distinguish participating nations based on the extent of their industrialization. Industrialized countries such as the United States are classified as "Annex I" and commit to meeting specific reduction goals; under the FCCC, Annex I nations committed to reduce carbon-dioxide emission levels to 1990-levels by 2000, and under the Kyoto Protocol, to about 95 percent of 1990-levels by around 2010. Non-industrialized countries such as China and India are still required to limit emissions but do not commit to specific goals.
Such differentiation recognizes that industrialized countries emit more carbon dioxide than non-industrialized nations, and that the United States on its own emits about 25 percent of the world total. Even on a per capita basis, the United States emits more carbon dioxide from fuel combustion per person than any other major country, about 20 million metric tons per person. China, by contrast, produces about 13 percent of the world total and about 10 times less carbon dioxide per person than the United States. After the United States and China, no single country emits more than six percent of the world total.
Nonetheless, President George W. Bush has indicated that the United States will not agree to the Kyoto Protocol because it "exempts 80 percent of the world, including major population centers such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy," as he wrote in a March 2001 letter. The Bush administration has said that it does not object to other countries continuing to participate in the Kyoto Protocol or the Bonn Agreement which finalizes some implementation issues, but that the United States will develop its own alternatives.
Recently, some in the Bush administration have proposed focusing not on how much a country emits or how much it emits per person, but on how much a country emits per $1,000 of gross domestic product. Such a standard would allow a country to improve its environmental record by having its economy grow faster than emissions, thus rewarding efficiency rather than necessarily requiring emission-reduction. Under such a standard, the United States has a good record at about 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide for every $1,000 GDP, but then so does China with its growing economy.
For more on environmental issues, go here.
Sources: Data on carbon dioxide emissions for the tables comes from the Energy Information Administration, on-line here. The Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center provides data on current greenhouse gas concentrations and comparisons to pre-industrial levels here, and the DOE's 2000 report on greenhouse gas emissions is on-line here. Temperature data was taken from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, available on-line here. The text and current status of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol is on-line here. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is on-line here. The 2001 report commissioned by the Bush administration on global warming ("Climate Change Science: an analysis of some key questions") was done by the National Research Council and is available via the National Academy Press.
Faith-Based Initiatives (last updated September 25, 2002) (back to top)
Many religious organizations have long been involved with charitable activities, and the broad goal of President George W. Bush's faith-based and community initiative is to help support them by providing greater access to federal funding.
However, several religious organizations have said that current funding restrictions based on the First Amendment's Establishment Clause (which states that Congress cannot make any law "respecting an establishment of religion") are appropriate or are only a minor problem for religious organizations, and have questioned whether making funds available to religious organizations – without increasing the overall amount of such funds – would simply take money away from similar non-religious organizations already doing the same kind of work.
President George W. Bush made his faith-based initiatives program an early priority of his administration, issuing an executive order (E.O. 13198) that specifically created Centers for Faith-Based & Community Initiatives in five Cabinet departments (Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Labor, and Justice) and ordered them to identify "all existing barriers to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the delivery of social services."
According to the resulting report, published in August 2001, the federal government provides "very little" funding to religious organizations "relative to the size and scope of the social services they provide," and federal social-service programs have in the past exhibited a "widespread bias against faith- and community-based organizations."
This bias allegedly comes from an overly restrictive interpretation of the Establishment Clause that sees "close collaboration with religious organizations [as] legally suspect." Such an interpretation has forced religious organizations to suppress that core aspect of their organizations in order to receive federal funding and has thus denied them "full and fair" opportunity to receive federal funding, according to the report.
However, several religious organizations reported no religious-based obstacles to receiving federal funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the only one of the five Cabinet departments to solicit public comment before complying with Bush's executive order. HUD has regulations that prohibit federal funds from being used for religious instruction or worship, or for exerting religious influence while providing public services.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union's analysis of the 145 comments made to HUD, 81 organizations reported facing only obstacles from HUD that were not specific to religious organizations, and 35 either reported no obstacles, approved of HUD's regulations, or specifically opposed Bush's initiative. Still, 23 organizations reported facing obstacles based on their religion.
Bush's faith-based initiative grows somewhat out of a "Charitable Choice" concept that became part of the 1996 welfare reform legislation. At that time, Congress enacted some provisions to increase religious organizations' access to some welfare-related federal funding.
Congress considered a bill in 2001 that would have helped implement Bush's faith-based initiative program and expand the "Charitable Choice" concept by specifically requiring that religious organizations be treated the same as non-religious organizations in terms of seeking funding. A more controversial provision would have allowed religious organizations to receive federal funding but not be subject to certain anti-discrimination laws generally applicable to organizations receiving federal funding, which would have allowed federally-funded religious organizations to exclude members of other religions from their organizations. Both provisions were dropped in July 2001 as the bill became a more general, non-religious-specific bill to provide incentives for charitable contributions.
According to a 2001 report by the non-profit group Independent Sector, people who regularly go to religious services volunteered at a higher rate than those who did not (44 percent compared to 32 percent), and households with people who regularly attended religious services also contributed more per year than those who did not ($2,151 compared to $964).
Sources: The White House has information on faith-based initiatives on-line here, including the August 2001 report, "Report on Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs." An August 7, 2001 press release by the American Civil Liberties Union is on-line here, along with a related report analyzing religious organizations' comments to HUD. Information about H.R. 7 in the 107th Congress, which was originally known as the Faith-Based and Community Initiative Bill, was found via the Library of Congress's legislative service on-line here. Information about Independent Sector's 2001 report is on-line here.
Health Care Coverage (last updated July 27, 2002) (back to top)
About 16.5 percent of the U.S. population under 65 years of age, roughly 39.2 million people, had no health insurance coverage in 1998. Two-thirds of the population had private health coverage through their workplace, and about 8.8 percent had health coverage through Medicaid.
Of those people with private insurance, 28.3 percent in 1998 had theirs through a health maintenance organization (HMO). In 1989, only 18.4 percent had their coverage through a HMO.
Sources: Data taken from the National Center for Health Statistics' Health, United States, 2001, available on-line here.
Farm Subsidies (last updated March 5, 2003) (back to top)
Since the 1930s, the federal government has subsidized its farmers as the centerpiece of its agricultural policy. The nature and level of such payments has changed over the years, and debate in recent years has focused on how subsidies should be allocated between support for certain commodities and conservation efforts, between large and small farms, and between domestic concerns and international trade obligations.
A 1996 farm bill tried to reduce the amount of federal payments to farmers, but market changes drove up such payments dramatically and Congress then authorized even more emergency aid. In 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law a bill that increased federal payments to farmers for the next 10 years. This legislation in some ways reversed the 1996 legislation and increased the levels of payments going forward.
Most federal subsidies go to provide income support to producers of certain commodities such as wheat and grains; these commodity payments are generally based on production and thus go primarily to large- and medium-size farms. According to a GAO report in 2001, larger farms made up about 7 percent of farms nationwide in 1999 but received about 45 percent of commodity payments that year, while smaller farms made up about 76 percent of farms and received about 14 percent of commodity payments. The 2002 bill increased payments for some commodities such as wheat and corn and renewed commodity payments for wool and honey.
The federal government also funds some agricultural conservation programs; smaller, rural farms receive a greater share of these funds.
The total amount of farm payments has changed over the years due to changes to the various programs and in the market. Commodity payments dropped from $15 billion a year in the 1980s to about $10 billion a year in the early 1990s, and were supposed to drop even further to about $6 billion a year after the 1996 farm bill. However, declines in the export markets and in farm prices in the late 1990s led to dramatically higher payments; the federal government paid about $32 billion for all farm-related programs in fiscal year 2000 and an estimated $20 billion in fiscal year 2001.
Under the 2002 farm bill, the federal government is expected to spend about $15 billion a year in commodity programs and about $4 billion in conservation efforts, which would keep the United States under the limit now imposed by international agreements. Under the Uruguay Round Agreement of Agriculture, the United States cannot pay more than $19.1 billion in such support until a higher limit is negotiated. Direct payments to U.S. farmers exceeded the allowable ceiling in 1998, 1999, and 2000 but were allowed due to exemptions.
Some argue that farm subsidies help support the country's small farms, which are generally defined as those with sales below a certain level (depending on who is defining the term, from $50,000 to $150,000). But others point out that many small farms specialize in commodities which do not receive subsidies and that support programs can inflate farm land prices, thus increasing the pressure on small farmers to sell their land to larger, corporate-run farms.
"[C]urrent program benefits still are largely directed to specific commodity producers reaching only about 40 percent of our farms. And, there still is no direct relationship between benefits received and financial status of the farm," the USDA wrote in a 2001 report on U.S. food policy. "Our current broad-scale, commodity-oriented approach to farm support does not recognize existing wide differences in production costs, marketing approaches, or overall management capabilities that delineate competitive and noncompetitive operations … Another unintended consequence of current programs stems from the increasing disconnect between land ownership and farm operation. While program benefits were intended to help farm operators, most support eventually accrues to landowners."
According to the GAO's 2001 report, commodity payments in 1999 were principally directed towards producers of eight major crops : wheat, corn, barley, oats, sorghum, rice, cotton and oilseeds such as soybeans. Payments in 1999 were made to all states, with six states receiving more than a billion dollars each and together about half that year's total: Iowa ($1.59 billion), Illinois ($1.47 billion), Texas ($1.24 billion), Kansas ($1.21 billion), Nebraska ($1.17 billion), and Minnesota ($1.07 billion).
Sources: The Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agricultural has made a comparison of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 against the legislation from 1996 to 2001 on-line here. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's farm policy, Taking Stock for the New Century (2001), is on-line here. U.S. General Accounting Office, Farm Programs : Information on Recipients of Federal Payments (June 2001, Report GAO-01-606). Economic Research Service, Aligning U.S. Farm Policy with World Trade Commitments, Agricultural Outlook (January/February 2002), on-line here. Geoffrey S. Becker, Farm Commodity Programs : A Short Primer, Congressional Research Service Report (RS20848). The Environmental Working Group has criticized the 2002 farm bill, and is on-line here. David E. Sanger, Reversing course, Bush signs bill raising farm subsidies, New York Times, May 14, 2002.
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