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Nothing to worry about here...move on folks, nothing to see here, move on.
Misplaced Fears About the 'Czars'
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) argued on this page this week ["Czarist Washington," op-ed, Sept. 13] that the Obama administration's "czars" are effectively in those positions uncons utionally because their hiring creates "precisely the kind of ambiguity the Framers sought to prevent." Far from undermining the separation of powers, however, the president's right to organize his White House policymaking apparatus is protected by that very cons utional principle.
The White House czars are presidential assistants charged with responsibility for given policy areas. As such, they are among the president's closest advisers. In many respects, they are equivalent to the personal staff of a member of Congress. To subject the qualifications of such assistants to congressional scrutiny -- the regular confirmation process -- would trench upon the president's inherent right, as the head of an independent and equal branch of the federal government, to seek advice and counsel where he sees fit.
As Hutchison points out, the result of a president seeking counsel where he likes may well be embarrassment -- as was the case with "green jobs czar" Van Jones, who recently resigned over revelations of his ties to radical groups and his apparent endorsement of Sept. 11 conspiracy theories. Barack Obama has taken the political hit -- and he is not the first president to pay that price. In 2006, Claude Allen, a domestic policy adviser to President George W. Bush, resigned after being accused of shoplifting.
This raises a second point in the Obama administration's favor: Some of the positions many are now criticizing have existed for years. As The Post reported this week: "By one count, Bush had 36 czar positions filled by 46 people during his eight years as president." Historically, presidents have turned to special advisers.
However much the czars may drive the policymaking process at the White House, they cannot -- despite their grandiose (and frankly ridiculous) appellation -- determine what that policy will be. The Cons ution's "appointments clause" requires that very senior federal officials be appointed with the Senate's consent, though lesser appointments can be made by the president, agency heads or the courts, as Congress provides. Well-established Supreme Court precedent holds that an "officer" subject to these requirements is one who exercises "significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States."
This is the critical difference between the White House czars and federal officials who must be confirmed by the Senate. In the absence of legislation (such as that creating the Office of Drug Control Policy, whose director is the "drug czar"), the only power exercised by White House czars comes from their proximity to the president and the access this provides. Yes, as many will note, that truly is power. But it is not significant authority under U.S. law -- which only the Cons ution or Congress can confer.
Thus, White House "Energy and Environment Czar" Carol Browner can analyze, develop, advise, hold meetings and pound the table all she likes on energy and environment issues, but she can determine nothing. Her signature on any order, decision or regulation establishing or altering Americans' legal obligations would be meaningless, unenforceable by a court.
Contrast this with Browner's authority as Senate-confirmed administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration, when her signature on regulations gave them the force and effect of law, fully enforceable in the courts, not infrequently by substantial fines and even jail time.
If there is doubt about the centrality of advisers to the president's execution of his office, recall the 2005 demands by Democrats that former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Bush adviser Karl Rove testify before Congress about the dismissal of several U.S. attorneys. This effort had very little to do with Miers and Rove and even less to do with a handful of unhappy Republican political appointees. The target was always President Bush and his policies. Republicans who are concerned about Obama's czars should not fall into the same bad habits now that a Democrat is president.
Hutchison's frustration at being unable to tell whether the czars are imposing the administration's agenda on agency officials who have been confirmed by the Senate is misplaced. Legally, they can do no such thing. The Cons ution vests all executive power in the president, creating a unitary executive, and it is his authority to execute the laws that federal officials exercise, subject to his direction.
The writers are partners in the D.C. office of Baker Hostetler LLP and served in the Justice Department under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Nothing to worry about here...move on folks, nothing to see here, move on.
czars outrage is just more fabricated, fake, transparent outrage in bad faith by the wrongies. yawn
I have no problem with John Holdren being a former proponent of Eugenics and forced sterilization. Good times.
Especially if he advocates sterilization of welfare mothers and dead beat dads.I have no problem with John Holdren being a former proponent of Eugenics and forced sterilization. Good times.
With John Holdren being a Malthusian desciple and a global warming catastrophist, what could go wrong?
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1
Unchecked population growth is speeding climate change, damaging life-nurturing ecosystems and dooming many countries to poverty, experts concluded in a conference report released Monday.
Unless birth rates are lowered sharply through voluntary family-planning programmes and easy access to contraceptives, the tally of humans on Earth could swell to an unsustainable 11 billion by 2050, they warned.
The UN currently projects that global population will rise from 6.8 billion today to between 8.0 and 10.5 billion by mid-century.
The researchers said that with one and a half million more humans climbing aboard the planet every week, a recipe is looming for ecological overload, famine and broken states.
"Continued rapid population growth in many of the least developed countries could lead to hunger, a failure of education and conflict," said Malcolm Potts at the University of California in Berkeley, which hosted the conference in February.
The papers, authored by 42 specialists in environmental science, economics and demography, are published by the Royal Society, Britain's de-facto academy of sciences.
"There is no doubt that the current rate of human population growth is unsustainable," summarised Roger Short, a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
"The inexorable increase in human numbers is exhausting conventional energy supplies, accelerating environmental pollution and global warming and providing an increasing number of failed states where civil unrest prevails."
Ninety-eight percent of the expected population growth will occur in developing countries, especially in Africa, where numbers are set to double to almost two billion by 2050.
"How Niger is going to feed a population growing from 11 million today to 50 million in 2050 in a semi-arid country that may be facing adverse climate (change) is unclear," said Adair Turner, a member of Britain's House of Lords.
The population of Uganda was five million in 1950, is 25 million today and could reach 127 million by 2050, Turner said.
Concern about population growth is not new.
It was most famously articulated by a British mathematician, Thomas Malthus, who in 1798 -- when Earth was home to about one billion -- calculated that exponential growth would inevitably lead to famine.
Malthus's dire warning was widely taken seriously until the advent of mechanised farming. The surge in food productivity, helped by the Green Revolution of the 1960s, gave the impression that Earth's bounty was limitless.
But relentlessly rising demand, diminishing farmland, depleted fish stocks, falling water tables and the threat of climate change have in recent years placed the Malthusian dilemma back on the table.
In their overview, the authors say that even though the burden of excess population is clear, controversy and taboo stalk the question of how to tackle it.
Some objections, such as the Roman Catholic Church's ban on birth control, are religious.
But the question has been ignored or sidelined in the secular arena too, the authors said.
Population control, for example, did not figure among the UN's eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, though it was added later "as an afterthought," said Short.
One reason has been the family planning programmes in China and India that critics say veered into forced sterilisations and coercive abortions, breaching human rights.
The researchers acknowledged these problems but also pointed out that without its "one-child" policy, China would have an extra 300 to 400 million mouths to feed today.
There would be double the number of young people, from 20 to 40 million, who enter the Chinese job market each year.
The researchers agreed with the widely held belief that improving economic conditions generally lead to lower birth rates.
But, they argue, smaller families also lead to greater prosperity, and this can be helped by programmes that are voluntary and inexpensive.
Some 80 million pregnancies -- nearly 40 percent of the total each year -- are unplanned. More than half of those unwanted pregnancies will result in abortion, with five million women suffering severe complications or death.
"Much more emphasis need to be given to meeting the need for family planning -- all women should be protected from unintended childbirth," they said in a collective editorial.
So the resident conservatives were silent during the Bush yrs... shocking example of hypocrisy.. Actually it's not shocking it's par for the course..
In other words, the board conservatives don't have a good rebuttal.
You may not like who he chooses to surround himself with, and you can stir up a public storm to get him to fire them, a la Jones, but it's not uncons utional, and it's certainly not something new that Obama just cooked up.
It's an outrage!!In other words, the board conservatives don't have a good rebuttal.
You may not like who he chooses to surround himself with, and you can stir up a public storm to get him to fire them, a la Jones, but it's not uncons utional, and it's certainly not something new that Obama just cooked up.
He never was.I have no problem with John Holdren being a former proponent of Eugenics and forced sterilization. Good times.
You lie!
Wasn't your mother on welfare?
Here's the table of contents from John Holdren's lovely book, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment.
Table of contents
Contents
Preface xiii
Chapter 1 Population, Resources, Environment: Dimensions of the Human Predicament 1
The Essence of the Predicament 2
Interactions: Resources, Economics, and Politics 2
Interactions: Technology, Environment, and Well-Being 4
The Prospects: Two Views 5
SECTION I NATURAL PROCESSES AND HUMAN WELL-BEING 7
Chapter 2 The Physical World 11
Earth's Solid Surface and Below 14
The Hydrosphere 21
Atmosphere and Climate 32
Chapter 3 Nutrient Cycles 67
Dynamics of Nutrient Cycling 68
Chemistry of Nutrient Cycles 70
Cycles of the Principal Nutrients 73
Other Nutrients and Geographical Variations 92
Chapter 4 Populations and Ecosystems 97
Population Dynamics 98
Natural Selection and Evolution 122
Community Ecology 128
Biomes 145
Freshwater Habitats 160
Marine Habitats 161
Ecological Models 170
SECTION II POPULATION AND RENEWABLE RESOURCES 177
Chapter 5 The History and Future of the Human Population 181
Population Growth 181
Demographic Projections and Population Structure 202
Population Distribution and Movement 227
Chapter 6 Land, Water, and Forests 247
Land 247
Water 257
Forests 272
The Taken-for-Granted Resources 278
Chapter 7 A Hungry World 283
The Production of Food 284
The Dimensions of World Hunger 290
The Distribution of Food 297
Expanding the Harvest 328
Food from the Sea 352
New and Unconventional Food Sources 370
Should We Be Pessimistic? 376
SECTION III ENERGY AND MATERIALS 387
Chapter 8 Energy 391
Size and Sources of Contemporary Energy Use 393
Growth and Change in Energy Flows 396
Energy Resources: Supplies, Depletion, Limits 400
Energy Technology 411
Energy Use and Conservation 489
Perspectives on the Energy Problem 498
Chapter 9 Materials 515
Materials Use: Flows and Stocks 516
Prospects for New Mineral Supplies 522
Augmenting Resources: Recycling, Subs ution, Low-Grade Ores 525
Conclusions 530
SECTION IV UNDERSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL DISRUPTION 535
Chapter 10 Direct Assaults on Well-Being 541
Air Pollution 542
Water Pollution 556
Pesticides and Related Compounds 561
Trace Metals 567
Fluorides 575
Chemical Mutagens 575
Ionizing Radiation 579
The Environment and Cancer 586
Noise Pollution 596
The Work Environment 597
Geological Hazards 600
The Human Environment 601
The Epidemiological Environment 606
Chapter 11 Disruption of Ecological Systems 621
Modifying Ecosystems 623
Pollutants in Ecosystems 629
Atmosphere and Climate 672
Thermonuclear Warfare 690
Ecological Accounting 691
SECTION V THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING AWAY OUT 711
Chapter 12 Humanity at the Crossroads 715
The Optimum Population 716
Understanding the Web of Responsibility: The First Step to Solutions 719
The Prospects 730
Chapter 13 Population Policies 737
Family Planning 738
Population Policies in Developed Countries 745
Population Policies in Less Developed Nations 761
Motivation 776
Population Control: Direct Measures 783
Population Control and Development 789
Chapter 14 Changing American Ins utions 805
Religion 806
Science and Technology 813
Medicine 823
Education 824
The Legal System 829
Business, Labor, and Advertising 840
Economic and Political Change 843
Some Targets for Early Change 858
A Question of Goals 873
Chapter 15 Rich Nations, Poor Nations, and International Conflict 885
Rich World, Poor World 887
Population, Resources, and War 908
Helping the Poor: A Problem in Ethics 920
Inventing a Better Future 924
International Controls: The Global Commons 939
Chapter 16 Summary 953
Cornucopians Versus Neo-Malthusians 953
Defects in the Cornucopian Vision 954
Alternative Approaches to Technology and Well-Being 955
Epilogue 957
Appendix 1 World Demography 959
Appendix 2 Food and Nutrition 967
Appendix 3 Pesticides 979
Appendix 4 Reproduction and Birth Control 988
Acknowledgments 1001
Index of Subjects 1005
Index of Names 1029
Never advocated.
Never a proponent.
You lie!
Good proof you provided. (as usual)
The proof is in the book you never read.
Go read it.
Writing about something is not the same as proposing it. I can obviously state that, say, killing those who disagree with you is an effective means of silencing opposition.
Of course, that doesn't mean I'm FOR that issue. Can you find him stating he actually SUPPORTS a policy? And in a relevant way, not in a "50 years from now, where the choices are population control through forced abortion or mass starvation" kind of way?
You provided no proof that he was a proponent of anything.
From work.
Again.
Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren are clearly advocates of controlling population through "population control policies". Their writings make that clear.
When did he write the book?
OK, then clearly you can find a passage from the book you clearly didn't read that clearly states that they are clearly advocates of the policies they describe.
PolitiFact.com: "We think it's irresponsible to pluck a few lines from a 1,000-page, 30-year-old textbook, and then present them out of context." After Fox News' Glenn Beck claimed that Holdren "proposed forced abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population," PolitiFact concluded that "the text of the book clearly does not support that. We think a thorough reading shows that these were ideas presented as approaches that had been discussed. They were not posed as suggestions or proposals. In fact, the authors make clear that they did not support coercive means of population control. Certainly, nowhere in the book do the authors advocate for forced abortions."
full textr at: http://www.npg.org/notable%20papers/...drenpaper.html
That the United States should and probably can achieve a condition of zero population growth at some time in the next hundred years is no longer a matter of much dispute. Most students of contemporary American problems seem to have agreed, at least, that the costs of long-continued population growth would considerably outweigh the benefits; and the achievement in 1972 of a total fertility rate slightly below replacement has convinced many that a spontaneous and fortuitous approach to a stationary population is already underway. Since the factors that have led to the decline in fertility have not been disentangled, however, it is difficult to be sure yet whether the recent experience represents a fluctuation or a trend. Against this backdrop of loose consensus on the long-term desirability of ZPG and uncertainty about the origins and persistence of recent levels of fertility, serious and controversial questions remain to be settled. Do the potential consequences of continued population growth in the United States justify systematic measures to hold fertility at replacement level if it should show any tendency to rise again? Should such measures be used to push fertility well below replacement, if it does not drop that far without them, in order to bring the attainment of ZPG closer than seventy years hence and to render the intervening population increment smaller than some 70 million? Is even the present U.S. population of 210 million too large? Should there be zero economic growth as well as zero population growth?
Obviously, one's degree of concern about, say, a 30 percent increase in the U.S. population-the increase that would result if fertility remained at the replacement level in the absence of immigration-depends on the way one perceives two basic relations: the role of population size in contributing to existing problems, and the role of population growth in aggravating these problems and impeding the success of attempted nondemographic remedies. I believe that those who are unconcerned by the prospect of 280 million Americans have seriously underestimated the importance of population in both roles. I will argue here that 210 million now is too many and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many; that, accordingly, a continued decline in fertility to well below replacement should be encouraged, with the aim of achieving ZPG before the year 2000 and a gradually declining population for some time thereafter; and that redirecting economic growth and technological change (not stopping either) is an essential concomitant to but not a subs ute for these demographic goals.
So no advocating population control policies.
Thanks for the link.
How much of your work day are you dedicating to posting?
Are you and clambake the same dip ?
We are quite distinct people.
Thanks again for proving me right.
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