Bipartisanship has its advantages. A bipartisan process is more likely to get policy based on values that Americans broadly agree on, and a bipartisan process is less likely to accept mistaken evidence because many eyes will have examined the evidence from different perspectives.

But we need to remember, especially at Across the Aisle, that bipartisanship should rarely, if ever, be a goal for its own sake. The United States in recent years has made all sorts of “bipartisan” foreign policy errors.

And we’re on our way to another one, if the House-led effort to crack down on oil market speculators makes it into law.

In recent years as a New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman has often opined based on his values, and his columns can sometimes seem partisan and shrill. But when he writes as an economist, he is almost always sharp and clear and insightful (who am I to offer broad criticism of one of the leading international economists of our time? I once tried to get him to join my committee of advisors on my Ph.D. dissertation, but since I studied graduate international economics at MIT when he was on leave, meaning that I took the class with another great contemporary international economist, Avinash Dixit, Krugman demurred.  Bottom line: I have my personal views about Krugman’s economics writings, but a dispassionate observer would be perfectly justified in taking his views much more seriously than mine.).

Krugman’s column in today’s Times about speculation in the oil market seems solidly on point, based on well-argued economics. And he offers much more detailed analysis on his blog (here is the most recent post in a series, which started here). Blaming “speculators” for the run-up in oil prices and passing bipartisan legislation to crack down on speculators in hopes of driving down the price of gas in the U.S. is misguided.

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According to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in an article in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, China’s reluctant and belated concession to allow a skeleton UN-AU peacekeeping force in Sudan represents a newly “cooperative approach on a range of problems.” But the reality is that some newfound sense of Chinese responsibility on the world stage had nothing to do with Beijing’s decision to “cooperate.” The concession on Darfur (if you want to call it that) was entirely about the Beijing Olympics. Given that it took a threatened boycott by Western leaders for China to stop arms sales to Sudan and drop its veto of the peacekeeping resolution, I am dubious that we’ll see any further “responsible” behavior after the Olympic Games have come and gone. At this point, the Games are going ahead—with or without protesting Western leaders—and the leverage a coordinated boycott might have provided will be a mere memory.

But I’m not writing this to bemoan a missed opportunity or cast aspersions on Rice’s diplomatic optimism. I’m writing this to call some attention to the next opportunity down the road: Sochi 2014.

China and Russia are both rising powers, economically, militarily and diplomatically. Secretary Rice referred to both as carrying “special responsibility and weight as fellow permanent members of the UN Security Council.” Translation: they both have lots of nuclear weapons, so our military power doesn’t really scare them. China is also not the only rising power we’d love to see adopt a more cooperative stance as it claims (or reclaims) “full membership in the international community.”

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Let’s forget for a moment that Apple has just released their new and improved iPhone and that Hillary’s campaign is no more and let’s focus instead on the rising price of fuel. As of late Monday night, the big story on all of the major news websites is that the price of gas has just inched over the 4 dollars per gallon mark (not sure where they have been - in D.C., where I live, my local gas station was charging me that benchmark price well over a week ago).Now this is indeed big news. If you drive, you are definitely feeling the pain at the pump. But as you may already know, oil has snaked its way into many parts of our lives, so stand by for what could be a dramatic decrease in your purchasing power. If you wear clothes (and I imagine that most of us do) then you may notice a rise in the cost of your synthetic attire; if you use household paint, expect a jump in the price at your local Home Depot or Lowes; and if you color your hair, well…

Even food will become more expensive, due to the price of fertilizer and the cost of transporting products to the market.

*sigh*

Just as it has taken a series of national challenges to force us to get serious about interagency reform, the rising price of oil is going to act as a forcing function - making our nation come to terms with a looming energy crisis. One can expect some of the energy topics of old being recycled as a distressed public pressures lawmakers and corporations alike to find solutions. Will we make peace with the thought of nuclear energy? Will we increase our refining capacity? Will solar power be integrated into new construction? Will mass transit become the norm and not the exception? And will we decide to drill in locations that are currently off-limits? (more…)

Many observers, inside and outside the U.S. Government, believe we are at a critical juncture, some say a tipping point, in global efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the missiles materials, technology and expertise associated with them.  While much progress has taken place over the past few years, the trend lines are not very promising and we may be falling behind where we need to be.  The next administration will be tested the first day it takes office.  It will need to prepare itself for the long haul with a policy agenda, an organizational structure, skilled leadership and adequate staffing to rally our country and our friends and allies to the cause, if it hopes to reverse this trend.

Controlling the spread of WMD is a bipartisan national priority. Improving the way we organize our arms control and nonproliferation structure to prevent WMD proliferation should be a bipartisan challenge as well. Dispassionate discourse on the strengths and weaknesses of past and current organizational practices can help shape the next administration’s strategy on stemming and reversing the proliferation of WMD.

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Anyone who drives these days gets sticker shock upon arriving into the gas station.  In recent days in the DC area the average price I’ve seen is well over $3.50.  Many analysts predict that when the summer driving season hits in full force we’re likely to see an average price of at least $4 a gallon.  These prices are a dramatic increase from the 1999 price which, in today’s dollars, averaged around $1.25 - the lowest point of the past 30 or so years.  The truth is that the price of gasoline has fluctuated greatly over the years and if measured in inflation adjusted dollars, we are now reaching the high point of the early 80s right after the start of the Iran-Iraq war. 

So, what is the government to do?  Well, considering that we’re in full flung political campaign mode these days, our presidential candidates certainly have something to say about this infringement on the American way of life!  John McCain jumped out front and center and proclaimed his support of a gas tax holiday to provide relief to American car drivers during the summer driving season.  Hillary Clinton jumped on board and expressed her support.  Obama called this for what it is - a scheme.  Clinton then criticized Obama for being for a gas tax holiday when he was a state senator and being against it as a presidential candidate.  Even the White House has been skeptical of such quick fixes.  The NY Times reported that President Bush’s spokeswoman essentially sided with Mr. Obama in saying that tax holidays and new levies on oil companies would not address the long-term problems of dependence on foreign oil.  This is certainly an interesing bipartisan debate:  Clinton and McCain v Obama and Bush. 

The truth of the matter is that a gas tax holiday will offer little relief to consumers and actually serves to perpetuate the very problem we’re seeking to solve.  Clinton and McCain both got this one wrong.  A gas tax holiday would lower the cost of gasoline, thereby encouraging consumer to buy more of it.  A recent analysis by the Washington Post predicted that consumers would actually see little benefit from a gas tax holiday and oil companies would be the real winners.  Right now the true cost of gasoline that takes into account national security and environmental costs is much higher than the price actually reflected at the pump.  The 18.4 cent/gallon gasoline tax is an effort towards correcting for this externality, but it is really just a drop in the bucket.   Most experts admit that this idea really is a loser, but it doesn’t stop politicians from trying to win easy political points.  (more…)

One of the classic rules of propaganda is that if you say something enough times, regardless of whether or not it is true some people will come to believe it.  With that in mind let us look at the newest conventional wisdom that has been increasingly circulating the past few years; especially in the aftermath of the recent climate change conference in Bali; namely, that the need to curb carbon emissions in order to prevent global warming means the world must rely more on nuclear power.

Yes, nice, clean, safe, nuclear power, as an advertisement from the Nuclear Energy Institute or the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, or even the International Atomic Energy Agency might put it. And no, I’m not picking on them. Like a character out of a Cecil B. Demille movie they are is just three of uncounted thousands –hmmm, in an internet age we better make that millions– parroting this new orthodoxy.

But before we think that advances in technology have made nuclear power so safe that even Homer Simpson can run a nuclear power plant perhaps we should pause to consider the world of reality, and not the one where Montgomery Burn’s Springfield nuclear power plant supplies our energy needs.

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Every day now it seems that we see more and more concrete examples of the serious ramifications of the warming of our planet.  The fires in the West are just the most recent example of the type of changes that are in the works.  Even George Bush has admitted that climate change is happening and that humans are something to do with that.  Ahhh…. the world breathes a sigh of relief.  Now that the American President, ever so skeptical of scientific evidence, has actually recognized both the magnitude of the problem and the cause, surely America will take the lead in solving the problem.  Unfortunately, no such overtures have been made by this administration.  It’s belatedly strong on talk, but still quite short on action. 

This challenge has the potential to be the overwhelming security challenge of this century.  If predictions are correct, it may make us yearn for the days when we only had to deal with terrorists and nuclear states.  In so many ways, climate change has the potential to dramatically alter many of the fundamentals of our economy and our relationship with the natural world.  Yes, there will be winners and losers, but it seems that the evidence indicates that the losers will dramatically outnumber the winners.  What’s more, the losers are those members of society that can least afford to deal with the dramatic life changes that will come.  Generally any event that creates that many losers in the world is bound to lead to increased conflict and, therefore, dramatically increased instability.   A recent report by a panel of retired generals and admirals outlines the dramatic national security threat that global climate change poses. 

The report predicts:

“Projected climate change will seriously exacerbate already marginal living standards in many Asian, African, and Middle Eastern nations, causing widespread political instability and the likelihood of failed states…. The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide, and the growth of terrorism.

Here is recent Congressional testimony on the subject by the author of an upcoming CSIS and CNAS report, The Age of Consequences:  The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change. 

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Once the scourge of reflexive internationalism, the Bush administration is now dressing in multilateralist garb. The president’s latest concession is pushing the Law of the Sea Treaty, appropriately known as LOST.

The treaty declares all seabed resources to be the “common heritage of mankind,” hits Western mining companies and their sponsoring nations with fees and royalties, and creates a new global bureaucracy to divvy up the spoils. There are authorities, enterprises, committees, commissions, tribunals, and rules galore.

Unfortunately, decades ago the so-called Group of 77, the developing nations’ political lobby, appended this money-making scheme to [add] proposals to improve ocean resource exploitation, regularize petroleum exploration, improve environmental protection, and strengthen navigational freedom. Turn over the globe’s unowned resources to us, the Third World states offered, and we’ll recognize some of your rules–many of which already had been accepted as customary international law. (more…)

This week, there’s been a sudden flurry of questioning the economic value of free trade — on many fronts. Hillary Clinton came out against the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Senators renewed their bipartisan effort to bludgeon China about the value of the Yuan — this time by calling China a “currency manipulator” to trigger sanctions rather than by proposing a tariff to directly “compensate” for the manipulation. And one of my colleagues on this blog, Matthew Rojansky, was shocked to discover that some people think that aiming for energy independence (that is, avoiding all trade in energy) is not a smart goal.

Dan Drezner has a useful (if a bit ascerbic) post countering these arguments, especially focusing on China. His main point is that the U.S. benefits from many imports, whether it’s efficiently produced goods or capital that keeps interest rates low (pointedly right now, capital that we borrow from China). The argument that trade benefits consumers and investors in the U.S. is well-known but needs reiterating from time to time.

Why? Because it’s also well-known that trade does not benefit everyone. In the U.S., trade hurts certain import-competing business, and it hurts labor (especially workers without particularly scarce, hard-to-obtain skills). Critics of free trade like Scott Paul at the Huffington Post focus on those who are hurt, arguing that presidential candidates (specifically Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and John Edwards but also, he hopes and expects, Republicans, for whom he might cite positions on the immigration reform bill) are “witnessing the toll those [free trade] agreements are taking on America, and they are courageous enough to say it’s time to change course.”

But the free trade agreements are not taking a toll on America. (more…)

I appreciated Matt Rojansky’s post the other day that expressed skepticism about presidential candidates (and others) who rely primarily on technological solutions to our oil dependency.  This technological solution to this public policy issue is certainly one component of the solution.  However, without getting the economics right, I fear that new technology will only inch us along to the ultimate solution. 

What we need are bold bipartisan solutions.  Instead what we get are feeble proposals that ask no one to sacrifice.  Everyone agrees that the energy challenges we face are immense and that the infrastructure and lifestyle that we have to today that has been built up over decades can not be maintained.  Few politicians - Democrats and Republicans - have the political courage to actually propose solutions that are commensurate with the challenges we are facing both in terms of energy supply and environmental degradation. 

Robert Samuelson had a very useful op-ed today in the Washington Post on this issue that is worth a look.

Technological solutions are great and they certainly will be part of the solution.  However, if the market is construed in a way that doesn’t promote usage of those new technologies, then they just sit on the shelf or are used primarily by enthusiasts and environmentalists.  While it’s great for us to buy hybrids because we feel that they will benefit the environment, the plain truth is that if we simply rely on peoples’ goodwill and environmental awareness to decrease our consumption and increase conservation, we’ll barely make a dent in the enormous problem that we are facing.   (more…)