Government Executive - Authors - Olga Belogolova

Who will succeed Jackson as EPA head?

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:05:49 -0500

After four years in office, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said on Thursday that she will step down after President Obama’s State of the Union address in January, inviting speculation about who will be named as her successor.

Jackson’s four-year tenure at the agency was busy and productive, but it also was controversial. Since Jackson was confirmed to head EPA in 2009, the agency has undertaken a number of significant and divisive measures, including setting new standards to clean up mercury and other toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants, and setting new standards to limit fine particle soot in the air. EPA played a lead role in establishing new fuel-economy and greenhouse-gas standards for motor vehicles. In 2009, the agency reversed findings made under the Bush administration, declaring that climate change poses a real threat to public health and the environment.

This active administrative role made her a target for lawmakers and pundits who see EPA regulations as symptomatic of the Obama administration’s government overreach, but her leadership did score points within the environmental community, which on Thursday lamented her imminent departure.

“There has been no fiercer champion of our health and our environment than Lisa Jackson, and every American is better off today than when she took office nearly four years ago,” said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Lisa leaves giant shoes to fill.”

As her exit didn’t come as too much of a surprise to the environmental community, they have long been speculating about whom Obama will choose as her successor.

Following are the candidates most frequently mentioned as the next potential EPA administrator:

Bob Perciasepe

Perciasepe, the agency’s deputy administrator and chief operating officer, is widely considered to be the front-runner for Jackson’s job. Perciasepe has had a wide-ranging career and is considered one of the most qualified for the post. In the Clinton administration, he was first appointed to serve as the nation’s top water official and later as the senior official responsible for air quality. Before his appointment to EPA in 2009, he was chief operating officer at the National Audubon Society and has served as secretary of the Environment for the state of Maryland.

“I think Bob Perciasepe is the leading, and probably most deserving, candidate. He has worked at every level of government, and in almost every major part of EPA—air, water, and deputy administrator. In each job, he has performed with distinction,” William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, told National Journal on Thursday. "The others are also very worthy candidates, but my money is on Bob!" Perciasepe is not only considered a front-runner due to his career breadth but also because he is respected in both environmental and industry circles, making for a potentially smoother confirmation process. “Both environmental groups and industry see him as a straight shooter,” said Clean Air Watch President Frank O'Donnell.

Mary Nichols

Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, would be an ambitious and possibly controversial choice to head EPA, but she has been right at the center of successor speculation. In her current post since 2007, Nichols has led the charge on the Golden State’s cap-and-trade program for greenhouse-gas emissions that has come under intense attack from major oil companies. Her work on cap-and–trade has brought her into close contact with Obama administration officials who worked on a comprehensive climate-change bill in the last term, and she is known to have close ties with Senate Environment and Public Works CommitteeChairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who in 2008 supported a Nichols nomination.

Nichols previously served as assistant administrator for EPA’ s air and radiation program in the Clinton administration and as secretary for California's Resources Agency from 1999 to 2003. Ahead of that, Nichols served as director of Institute of the Environment at the University of California (Los Angeles).

Gina McCarthy

EPA's air chief has also been named as one of Jackson’s potential successors. As assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation at the EPA, McCarthy has been behind some of the Obama administration’s toughest clean-air policies and has often testified in lieu of Jackson at congressional committee hearings on the agency’s controversial regulations.

Before her confirmation, McCarthy served as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and had extensive involvement with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate pact to cap and cut emissions. McCarthy, who is originally from Boston, served as an environmental regulator under Mitt Romney and the four previous Massachusetts governors.

Bradley Campbell

Campbell, who was commissioner of New Jersey’s Environmental Protection Department from 2002 to 2006, was Jackson’s boss before she came to Washington. Campbell currently heads a private law and consulting practice focused on environment, energy, and entrepreneurship in New York, but his résumé does include extensive experience in Washington.

Before his work in the New Jersey department, Campbell served as EPA regional administrator for the Mid-Atlantic region, enforcing federal environmental laws in five states and the District of Columbia. He also spent five years in the Clinton administration as associate director of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality.

Kathleen McGinty

McGinty, former head of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, is considered to be another potential nominee for Jackson’s post. McGinty began as a protégé of former Vice President and current environmental activist Al Gore, serving as his aide when he was in the Senate. She accompanied Gore to the White House and became the first woman to chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality and founded and headed the White House Office on Environmental Policy.

McGinty’s experience in climate protection has earned her respect among many in the environmental community, but she has also been praised for her record in working with industry and utilities in Pennsylvania. She is the founding partner at Peregrine Technology Partners, a firm focused on the commercialization of clean technologies. McGinty is also a director at wholesale power company NRG Energy.

Heather Zichal

Zichal, the White House’s top aide on energy and climate issues, is a popular choice among some environmental groups. She has been in the Obama administration since 2009, serving as deputy to Obama’s top climate and energy policy aide, Carol Browner. Zichal took over upon Browner’s departure in early 2011, when officials said they would bring the energy office and the Office of Health Reform under the umbrella of the Domestic Policy Council. Zichal spent more than eight years working on Capitol Hill in three different congressional offices, including as legislative director for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. She also served as a top energy and environment adviser to the 2004 Kerry presidential campaign and the Obama 2008 presidential campaign.

Amy Harder contributed to this report.

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Lisa Jackson stepping down as EPA head

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 11:20:48 -0500

This story was updated to add comment from President Obama.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson will be stepping down after President Obama’s State of the Union address in January.

Jackson, the first black head of the EPA and the fourth woman to hold the job, has spent much of her tenure at the center of the energy and environment debate in Washington and was often criticized for the agency’s controversial Clean Air Act regulations.

President Obama on Thursday thanked Jackson for her four years of service. "Under her leadership, the EPA has taken sensible and important steps to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink," he said.

The EPA during Jackson's tenure has undertaken several significant regulatory actions, including setting new standards to clean up mercury and other toxic emissions from coal power plants, establishing new fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles and setting new standards to limit fine particle soot in the air.

The EPA also reversed course from the Bush administration's policies and declared that climate change posed a real threat to the environment.

Critics have accused the EPA of overreach and of putting in place “job-killing” regulations at a time of economic weakness. In the last year, Jackson and her colleagues have been grilled by congressional committees on the agency’s environmental rules and their effects on energy industries and economic recovery. The GOP-led House has passed laws trying to block or delay EPA regulations.

Jackson, 50, was born in Pennsylvania, but grew up in New Orleans. She spent 16 years at the EPA and six years at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection prior to becoming EPA administrator.

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What's new in Obama's second-term goals?

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:43:42 -0400

In his speech at the Democratic convention in Charlotte on Thursday, President Obama laid out a list of goals for his second term, some of which represented new policy ideas and some which were repackaged goals that his administration had announced previously.

Here’s a look at Obama’s second-term goals:

Manufacturing

Create 1 million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016.

While this particular number is new, President Obama’s plans have previously included ideas about creating a more favorable environment for companies to create manufacturing jobs in the U.S. In his “Blueprint for an America Built to Last,” Obama included proposals to lower tax rates for “companies that manufacture and create jobs in the United States” and create a new tax credit that would support companies seeking to finance factories, equipment, or production in communities “that have been hardest hit by a company choosing to relocate or a military base shutting down.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected about 357,000 new manufacturing jobs over the next decade. Meanwhile, the Boston Consulting Group has forecast that 2 to 3 million new manufacturing jobs will be created by 2020.

Double exports by the end of 2014.

In his National Export Initiative launched in 2010, Obama vowed to double U.S. export growth by 2015. “Because the more products we make and sell to other countries, the more jobs we support right here in America. So tonight, we set a new goal: We will double our exports over the next five years, an increase that will support 2 million jobs in America. To help meet this goal, we're launching a National Export Initiative that will help farmers and small businesses increase their exports, and reform export controls consistent with national security,” Obama said in his first State of the Union address in 2010.

Energy

Cut net oil imports in half by 2020.

In his "Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future" released in March 2011, Obama set a goal of reducing oil imports by one-third by 2025, pushing an “all-of-the-above” energy plan in order to reach that goal by tapping domestic oil and gas resources, increasing energy efficiency, and developing biofuels and other alternative fuels. Obama’s goal is more ambitious here, as he cuts the timeline by five years and moves from cutting oil imports by one-third to cutting them in half. The goal might be more ambitious, but it is also getting more within reach, as domestic oil and gas production is at an all-time high and in 2011, the U.S. became a net-oil exporter for the first time since 1949, according to the Energy Department.

Support 600,000 natural gas jobs by the end of the decade.

This 600,000 natural-gas jobs figure was already included in Obama’s State of the Union address this year. It capitalizes on the boom in the United States that has driven natural-gas prices to all-time lows and was sparked by recently-discovered formations of shale gas all over the country and the private sector’s investments in new technologies to tap it. The boom means that the natural-gas industry will continue to grow regardless of what the Obama administration does. Natural gas and unconventional gas production is expected to support nearly 1.5 million jobs by 2015, according to a June report from energy research group IHS CERA. And according to that same report, the goal of 600,000 jobs has already been reached and surpassed: The survey shows that in 2010, unconventional gas activity supported 1 million jobs.

Education

Cut the growth of college tuition in half over the next 10 years.

Over the past year, Obama has made college education a focal point of his education agenda. This spring, this push came to a head when he fought to keep the need-based student-loan interest rate at 3.4 percent. It was a home run -- Congress passed legislation in June to keep the low rate for another year. Now, Obama is trying to channel the public's frustration about the cost of college into votes with his pledge to cut tuition in half. And Obama doesn't need help from Congress for that or anything else he purports to do in higher education. Instead, he can bully college presidents and state boards of education. College tuitions are set either by the state, if they are public, or the university itself. Obama has proposed giving federal benefits to the colleges that try to keep their tuitions low and withholding them from those that don't. And he can do that unilaterally. It's still an uphill battle, however. Higher education is its own strange world that has its own pitfalls. But none of them are named John Boehner or Mitch McConnell.

Recruit 100,000 math and science teachers over the next 10 years.

This figure was included in Obama’s FY2013 budget. The program, as laid out by the White House, will "double key investments in science to educate the next generation of scientists and engineers, encourage private sector innovation, and prepare at least 100,000 math and science teachers over the next decade."

Train 2 million workers for real jobs at community colleges.

This figure was included in Obama’s FY2013 budget. “Join me in a national commitment to train 2 million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job,” Obama said in his State of the Union address this year. “My administration has already lined up more companies that want to help. Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, Orlando, and Louisville are up and running. Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers -- places that teach people skills that local businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing.”

National Security

Invest in the economy with the money we’re no longer spending on war.

The sentiment here isn’t necessarily new. The idea of war savings has been a part of President Obama’s agenda for a while now. In a weekly video address in May, Obama said that money saved from winding down the war in Afghanistan should be used in part to pay down the debt and, in part, to “strengthen the middle class” and “rebuild America.”

“Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource –- our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industries, while living within our means,” Obama said in 2011, when he addressed troop reductions and the way forward in Afghanistan.

Deficit

Reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade.

This figure was included in Obama’s FY2013 budget. This would require a deal with Congress. The White House and House Republicans have been at loggerheads over fiscal issues, so getting any deal for long-term deficit-reduction would be a big challenge.

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Arctic drilling might wait until 2013, Interior Secretary Salazar says

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 08:45:00 -0400

A delay in getting oil-spill equipment into the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska means that Shell Oil might not be able to start the first offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean this year as planned, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Monday.

Shell is still working to meet Coast Guard requirements for its spill-containment barge, the Arctic Challenger, but “if they are not met, there won’t be Shell exploration efforts that will occur this year,” Salazar said sharply on a conference call from Anchorage, Alaska.

Heavy sea ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas pushed back Shell’s initial plans to begin drilling in July, but Salazar argued on Monday that Shell bears the blame for not being ready to start drilling now. “It’s not the ice conditions that have held up the effort,” he said. “They have not been able to get it done," he said, referring to the incomplete and uncertified containment vessel. “If they had gotten it done, they may already be up there today.”

Shell issued a statement later on Monday saying it agreed with Interior that drilling should not begin until the containment barge is in place, but it still hopes to begin drilling this summer.

“Progress related to the final construction of the Arctic Challenger containment barge remains steady,” said the statement from Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh. “We continue to work closely with the U.S. Coast Guard to outline a schedule for final inspections and an on-water deployment that would lead to certification. There’s no set timeline for the completion of this important process.

“This is the world’s first Arctic containment system, and there are a number of major systems that have recently been completed. These systems must now be thoroughly inspected. It’s a process that takes time and one that can’t be rushed.”

Salazar’s conference call was a wrap-up of his three-day visit to Alaska, during which he toured the North Slope and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Earlier this summer, Salazar suggested that the Interior Department would make a final determination on Shell’s drilling permits in the Arctic by Aug. 15, and with that deadline not far off there had been some anticipation that Salazar might announce the permit approval on Monday.

But with Shell’s containment barge still subject to Coast Guard certification and time running out, Salazar said that “over the next several weeks, some final decisions will be made.” Salazar wouldn’t say when it might be too late for Shell to move forward with its exploratory drilling program, but noted that “we don’t have a lot of time.”

Shell is required to be out of the Chukchi Sea by Sept. 24 in advance of the harsh Arctic fall and winter and out of the Beaufort Sea by the end of October.

While some lawmakers and drilling advocates have suggested that Interior consider pushing back the end of the drilling season due to the unusually heavy ice conditions in the Arctic earlier this summer, Salazar insisted that Shell’s holdup is “not a matter of ice.”

Salazar noted that the Arctic drilling season is “a very dynamic situation” in which “conditions are rapidly changing.” Therefore, he said, “we don’t know what will be happening this summer.”

If Shell presents some sort of alternative plan, Interior “will certainly take a look,” Salazar said, but he added that there have been no requests for a change of plans from Shell.

No matter what happens, though, Salazar promised to remain vigilant. “I will hold their feet to the fire in terms of making sure that we’re doing everything we can,” he said.

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Insiders: GOP won’t stop Pentagon’s green-energy push

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 08:21:20 -0400

Republicans in both the House and Senate this year have proposed cutting funds for alternative-energy programs in the defense authorization bill. But these efforts won’t gain much traction, National Journal’s Energy & Environment Insiders say.

More than 70 percent of Insiders say that the Defense Department’s move to use more biofuels will survive congressional opposition, arguing that lawmakers will have trouble saying no to the Pentagon.

“Despite the GOP’s overzealous pursuit to end any program that doesn’t line the pockets of big oil, this program likely survives because DOD doesn’t actually answer to Congress,” one Insider said.

In particular, arguing in favor of cutting military biofuels spending becomes an uphill battle when Pentagon officials, military veterans, and former lawmakers are saying that the spending is needed to save lives in war zones.

“The biofuel initiatives aren’t all about greener energy, but ways to meet energy requirements in the field that put fewer lives at risk (particularly in convoys). If biofuels can improve operations in the field, the work will continue,” one Insider said.

Pentagon officials have long argued that alternative energy can save both money—by reducing dependence on oil—and lives, because American fuel convoys are often targeted in attacks.

“The facts can’t be ignored—DOD and America are too dependent on foreign oil and it costs too much in blood and money,” one Insider said.

There’s also “electoral logic” to increased biofuels spending, another Insider said. Investment in biofuels, whether it comes from the Defense Department or anywhere else, plays well in farm states that could see new jobs and industry growth from these efforts.

In that regard, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has been a prominent part of a number of Pentagon biofuels announcements and regularly appears alongside Navy Secretary Ray Mabus touting the Navy’s new biofuel-powered “Great Green Fleet,” which saw its first successful demonstration during maritime exercises off the coast of Hawaii last week.

Although House lawmakers in May passed a provision in the defense authorization bill to prevent the military from purchasing alternative fuels that exceed the cost of “traditional fossil fuel,” and the Senate version included similar provisions, Insiders agree that such efforts are not likely to survive the final conference on the bill.

“Congress can stop DOD only if it enacts a law. Enacting laws has not exactly been a signature strength of this Congress,” one Insider cracked.

Still, 29 percent of Insiders think that the military biofuels push will not succeed, especially at a time when the Defense Department is already facing significant cuts.

“It won’t survive at current levels,” one Insider said. “With rescission looming large at the Pentagon, an expensive program with political opposition won’t survive in full.”

Most Insiders said that military investments in renewable energy will spur similar investments in the private sector. Thirty-one percent of Insiders said that the Defense Department's investments are 'very likely' to encourage an alternative-energy push from industry.

"DOD is validating the performance of replacement biofuels in practice and reducing the technical uncertainty surrounding their production processes. Both these developments will spur additional attention and work in the private sector," one Insider said.

"The military had a track record of investing and developing nascent technologies that eventually become part of the mainstream consumer experience in this country. Think Internet, smartphones, etc.," another Insider added.

But the rest of the Insiders were split on what effect the Pentagon's efforts might actually have on the private sector—28 percent voted "somewhat likely," another 28 percent voted "not very likely," and 13 percent said "not at all."

"The petroleum market is close to $3 trillion per year," one Insider said. "If garnering a share of that market isn't incentive enough for a competitive alternative, then the military program won't make much difference."

See the rest of the survey results at National Journal.

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Nuclear agency chairman stepping down

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:45:14 -0400

The embattled chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, announced on Monday that he is resigning from his post at the NRC, noting that now is the “appropriate time” to step down. His resignation is effective upon the confirmation of his successor.

Jaczko, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has been at the center of a political firestorm since late last year when the other four NRC commissioners complained to the White House that he has bullied staff, verbally abused women, and hindered communications at the agency, which oversees the nation’s 104 nuclear plants.

The commissioners testified before Congress, questioning Jaczko’s leadership, which they said created a chilled environment at the agency. The controversy seemingly quieted down at the start of this year, when commissioners noted that the agency had “moved on.”

But the controversy over Jaczko erupted again last month, when Reid urged the White House not to reappoint a Republican commissioner, Kristine Svinicki, one of the commissioners who had criticized Jaczko. He was overruled and the White House officially renominated her this month.

In his statement, Jaczko does not speak to any of the controversy surrounding his leadership, but speaks largely of his pride in the work of the agency in implementing reforms following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan last year.

His full statement is below:

STATEMENT OF NRC CHAIRMAN GREGORY B. JACKZO

After nearly eight years on the Commission, I am announcing my resignation as Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, effective upon the confirmation of my successor. My responsibility and commitment to safety will continue to be my paramount priority after I leave the Commission and until my successor is confirmed.

After an incredibly productive three years as Chairman, I have decided this is the appropriate time to continue my efforts to ensure public safety in a different forum. This is the right time to pass along the public safety torch to a new chairman who will keep a strong focus on carrying out the vital mission of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

During this last year alone, the agency has responded with an impressive focus on safety under my leadership to a number of diverse challenges including the accident at the Fukushima Da-ichi reactors in Japan, and a number of severe incidents at reactors in the United States ranging from flooding, an earthquake and tornados to damaged plant structures and steam generator problems. In addition to this vigilant oversight, together we identified and began to implement lessons learned from Fukushima and completed our rigorous safety reviews for the first new reactor licenses in 30 years.

Throughout my time on the Commission as both Chairman and Commissioner, the agency finalized regulations to ensure new reactors are designed to withstand an aircraft impact, completed the development and implementation of a safety culture policy statement, enhanced our focus on openness and transparency, and enhanced awareness of and worked to resolve some of the most long-standing generic issues facing the nuclear industry, including sump strainer issues and fire protection. Beyond the power reactor work, substantial progress was made in establishing a more transparent and effective oversight program for fuel cycle facilities. In addition, radioactive sources of concern are now fully protected with our new security regulations and source tracking system. We stand as a stronger and more decisive regulator now because of these years of efforts. I am truly humbled by the agency's success.

Serving the American people as the Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been an honor and privilege. The mission of this agency - protecting people and the environment, and providing for the common defense and security - could not be more clear, or more critical. Our collective focus on that mission was, I believe, one of the primary reasons the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was one of the best places to work in the federal government throughout my tenure. The highly talented and dedicated professional staff, including dozens who have served on my personal staff over the years, have been instrumental in fulfilling the agency's mission.

I will always be grateful for the opportunity of having served alongside the staff for all of these years, and for all that we accomplished together. I am looking forward to bringing all I have learned from my work and focus on safety at this agency with me as I move forward.

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New FBI probe of bomb plot highlights administration’s tough stance on leaks

Yochi J. Dreazen and Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:36:07 -0400

The FBI has launched a criminal probe designed to identify the government officials who leaked key details of a foiled al-Qaida bomb plot, the latest indication of the Obama administration’s unrelenting push to find and punish those sharing classified information with the media.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, said that the agency was trying to identify which officials had spoken to reporters about the foiled attack, helping the Associated Press report that the scheme was part of an al-Qaida plot to down a U.S.-bound airliner with an sophisticated underwear bomb. The agency is also looking for who told media outlets that the plot was broken up with the help of an undercover agent working for the Saudi Arabian intelligence service, a detail first reported by The Los Angeles Times.

The Saudi assistance doubtlessly saved significant numbers of American lives, and Mueller -- like other Obama administration officials -- warned that future cooperation could be hampered by the disclosure of the Saudi role.

“Leaks such as this threaten ongoing operations, puts at risk the lives of sources, makes it much more difficult to recruit sources, and damages our relationships with our foreign partners,” Mueller said. “And consequently, a leak like this is taken exceptionally seriously, and we will investigate thoroughly.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pressed Mueller on whether the information had been leaked by the administration for political gain, likening the details on the bomb plot to what he described as the "authorized leaks from the White House about the operation to kill Osama bin Laden.” The FBI director declined to answer the question.

The hearing offered an unusually vivid illustration of the Obama administration’s hard-line approach to the news media.

The administration took office with a promise of unprecedented transparency, including – in a sharp change from the Bush administration -- posting the names of those visiting the White House onto its website. The White House also offered strong support for a so-called shield law preventing reporters working national-security stories from being forced to identify confidential sources.

But those moves have been increasingly outweighed by the administration’s aggressive effort to crack down on those responsible for sharing classified information with the news media.

The White House’s main tool has been the Espionage Act, a 1917 law passed during the height of World War I as a way of finding and punishing officials passing useful information to enemy countries. The legislation had been used to bring cases against suspected leakers a grand total of three times in the previous 91 years; the Obama administration has invoked it to prosecute six such cases in the past three years alone. If the FBI believes it has found the official or officials who spoke to the AP, that tally will increase to seven.

The first case brought under the Espionage Act targeted Thomas Drake, a whistle blower from the National Security Agency who was indicated for giving a reporter information detailing massive waste, fraud, and inefficiencies at the secretive agency. The Justice Department’s case against Drake fell apart days before the trial was set to begin last summer, highlighting the difficulties of winning convictions in such cases.

That hasn’t stopped the administration from trying. In January, the Justice Department indicted John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer accused of providing classified information about waterboarding and other controversial interrogation methods to journalists and misleading the agency while trying to get permission to publish a memoir about his time there. The case is ongoing.

The others facing potential prison time for their dealings with the media are former FBI translator Shamai Leibowitz, State Department contractor and analyst Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, and Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of leaking thousands of classified military and State Department documents to online whistle-blower WikiLeaks. Leibowitz was sentenced to 20 months in prison in 2010 for leaking classified information to a blogger regarding Israel’s efforts to influence Congress and public opinion; the other cases are continuing.

The new investigation began earlier this month when news leaked that the CIA had helped to foil a Yemeni-based attempt to use a sophisticated underwear bomb to bring down a Western airliner. The Los Angeles Times soon reported that an undercover Saudi agent had penetrated the al-Qaida affiliate there, volunteered for the supposed suicide mission, and then secreted the bomb safely into the hands of other intelligence operatives.

The leak infuriated the Saudis, who said it put the agent at risk and endangered other undercover operatives elsewhere in the field. The unnamed agent and his family were subsequently placed into protective custody. The anger was felt just as fiercely in Washington, where an array of powerful lawmakers warned that disclosing the source and method of the information would make the Saudis less likely to work with the U.S. in the future and make it harder to foil new plots.

The AP has defended its reporting, with spokesman Paul Colford saying in a written statement that the news service “acted carefully and with extreme deliberation in its reporting on the underwear bomb plot and its subsequent decision to publish.”

That argument fell on deaf ears on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, with Mueller saying that he didn’t want to say the leak would have a “devastating” impact on U.S. intelligence gathering efforts -- but then effectively saying just that.

“The relationship with your counterparts overseas are damaged and which means that an inhibition in the willingness of others to share information with us where they don't think that information will remain secure,” he said. “So it also has some long-term effects which is why it is so important to make certain that the persons who are responsible for the leak are brought to justice.”

Those who leaked the new information may or may not be caught. But the ferocity of Mueller’s comments mean that the administration’s war against those who disclose such information won’t wind down anytime soon.

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TransCanada reapplies for Keystone permit

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:41:32 -0400

TransCanada announced on Friday that it has submitted a new application for a permit for the northern portion of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that would bring Canadian tar-sands oil from Alberta to Steele City, Neb., reigniting the divisive political debate over the project.

"Our application for a Presidential Permit builds on more than three years of environmental review already conducted for Keystone XL," TransCanada CEO Russ Girling said in a statement, noting that 10,000 pages of review documents have already been completed for the project. "It was the most comprehensive process ever for a cross-border pipeline and that work should allow our cross-border permit to be processed expeditiously and a decision made once a new route in Nebraska is determined."

The Obama administration earlier this year denied a permit for TransCanada to build the full pipeline running from Canada down to the Gulf Coast, but President Obama did give the nod to the southern portion of the project, which will run from Cushing, Okla., to Port Arthur, Texas, to help ease a bottleneck in the nation's pipeline system.

Since then, TransCanada has unveiled a new route for the northern portion of the pipeline that would go around the sensitive Sandhills region in Nebraska. Obama had delayed the project last fall because of environmental concerns about the route through Nebraska. The Nebraska Legislature and the state’s Republican governor, Dave Heineman, have signed off on legislation that will allow the company to work with Nebraska's Department of Environmental Quality in finalizing this new route.

TransCanada said on Friday that it still plans to begin construction of the pipeline in the first quarter of 2013, noting the “firm, long-term” contracts the company has in place to carry more than 500,000 barrels of oil per day in the pipeline. TransCanada expects to begin construction of the $2.3 billion southern portion of the project this summer and complete it by mid to late 2013, with the full project’s completion slated for late 2014 or early 2015. The completed pipeline is meant to bring Canadian tar-sands oil as well as Bakken crude oil from Montana and North Dakota down to U.S. refineries along the Gulf Coast.

For its part, the State Department, which is tasked with evaluating the project because it crosses an international border, said that it has received TransCanada’s permit application and “will consider this new application on its merits.”

As it has in the past, the State Department said that it will be hiring a third-party contractor to assist the department in reviewing the existing Environmental Impact Statement for the pipeline project as well as any new analysis. In addition, State said that it plans to cooperate with the state of Nebraska and other local agencies in its process evaluating whether the pipeline is in the national interest. Nebraska’s own state review of the new route is expected to take six to nine months, according to the State Department.

State said that it will conduct its new review as efficiently as possible, using the existing analysis available from the company’s previous application and corresponding environmental review.

When it becomes available, the new application can be found on State’s Keystone XL project website: www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov.

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Power struggle at watchdog agency could undermine nuclear-plant safety

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:12:00 -0400

Until the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan and a very public internal feud late last year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was a fairly obscure federal agency with primary responsibility for regulating the nation’s 104 nuclear power plants.

But when the other four NRC commissioners—two Democrats and two Republicans—ganged up on Chairman Gregory Jaczko last year, accusing the Democratic appointee of bullying and intimidating his fellow commissioners and agency staff, the backwater agency based about 15 miles outside of Washington was suddenly in the spotlight with a good old-fashioned, inside-the-Beltway melodrama.

Six months later, things have settled down at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md., at least on the surface, but the bitterness caused by the controversy still seems to linger and many lawmakers overseeing the agency continue to raise questions about whether NRC is functioning effectively at a critical time for the nuclear industry.

In a recent interview with National Journal, Jaczko spoke calmly about the debacle. Sitting in his office on the top floor of the agency’s headquarters, the embattled chairman’s words were measured. Reiterating what he has now said many times about the blowup, Jaczko argued that disagreements at an independent commission like NRC are the sign of “a healthy culture.”

“If people wanted everyone who agreed, then they’d save the money and they’d just have one person in charge,” Jaczko said.

There are dozens of independent boards and commissions in Washington, from the National Endowment for the Humanities to the Federal Communications Commission, but rarely has one of them had its dirty laundry displayed like the NRC’s was late last year.

“That was a really unusual circumstance,” former NRC Chairman Richard Meserve, a Democrat, told National Journal in March. “There often are disagreements, but this was one that was very public and that’s unusual.”

The four other commissioners at the NRC wrote a letter in October to then-White House Chief of Staff William Daley, charging that Jaczko had created “a chilled work environment” at the agency by bullying and withholding information from his fellow commissioners. After House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., released the letter in December, the floodgates opened, and in hearing after hearing, commissioners testified to lawmakers that Jaczko verbally abused female employees and snapped at fellow commissioners and agency staff.

Republican lawmakers in both chambers called for the chairman’s resignation, but Jaczko has been steadfast in saying he has no plans to step down. The White House and most Democrats, including the chairman’s former bosses Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., have stood by him.

When Congress returned for its second session in January, it looked as though the firestorm had passed. The commission, plunging itself back into the shadows of regulatory humdrum, went back to its work, dealing with post-Fukushima safety reforms and issuing the first new reactor licenses in the United States in decades.

All five NRC commissioners appeared before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in March, discussing industry safety reforms after Fukushima and appearing to have a united front before lawmakers.

NRC Commissioner William Magwood, a Democrat who was in some ways the leader of last year’s upheaval, told reporters after the hearing that “the atmosphere at the NRC is a bit better than it was a few months ago.”

“We went through a very difficult time, everyone put their thoughts on the table, and we’ve moved on,” Magwood said, adding that the commission has been focused on its work amid “the distractions of the last six months or so.”

Regardless of the image they have put forth, however, there are still visible signs of disagreement among the commissioners. Most significantly, when the commission issued license approvals in February and March for four new reactors—two at a plant in Georgia and two at a plant in South Carolina—the chairman was the lone dissenter in both 4-1 votes.

“I think there’s still mistrust among the commissioners,” former NRC Chairman Dale Klein, a Republican, told National Journal in March. “While that’s not on the front page, I think it’s still lurking,” said Klein, who in the midst of last year’s clash called for Jaczko to resign.

“Trust is something you earn, it’s not a right, and so I think there still is some concern among the other commissioners … if you lose 4-1, as chairman, you’re not doing a good consensus-building,” Klein said.

“I think there’s a fundamental lack of communication, lack of trust,” Klein added, saying that the White House letter and the dissenting votes by Jaczko demonstrate the “disfunctionality” of the agency.

Jaczko has since defended his votes against the new reactors, saying that he and his fellow commissioners simply disagreed over the means of implementing new safeguards.

“We had a disagreement, but nonetheless we moved forward with issuance of the license,” he told National Journal in March. “I wasn’t comfortable doing that, but there was clearly a majority of commissioners who were, so I thought it was appropriate that we move forward and we issued the license,” Jaczko said, again noting that disagreements are healthy for the five-member commission.

This kind of obvious friction, though it may be simply over regulatory policy, just fuels the fire for those would prefer to keep last year’s controversy alive.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, chairman of the House Appropriations Interior and Environment Subcommittee, told Jaczko in March that his voting is a troubling sign that all is still not well at the agency, while Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., chairman of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, called the “apparent, and perhaps real, friction” at the agency “disturbing.”

After Jaczko’s most recent dissenting vote on two new units at Scana’s Virgil C. Summer plant in South Carolina, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., called Jaczko “the lone obstacle blocking a full embrace of our nuclear future.” Though he praised the commission for approving the new licenses, Upton noted that he is still “deeply concerned by the politicization that has contaminated its leadership.”

In the Senate, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, didn’t shy away from the opportunity to call out Jaczko for his vote as well.

“I'm not surprised that NRC Chairman Jaczko opposed the license for these reactors in South Carolina just has he opposed the license for the reactors that will be built in Georgia,” Inhofe said, aligning the controversial agency head with President Obama.

“The good news is that despite the Obama administration's efforts to stop energy development in this country, these reactors will be built, thousands of jobs will be created, and Americans will have increased access to reliable, affordable energy,” Inhofe said.

Meanwhile, the NRC's inspector general is still conducting an investigation of last year’s allegations and whenever a report is released, it is sure to reopen some of these wounds. An IG report last June already criticized the chairman for not being “forthcoming” with his fellow commissioners leading up to the shutdown of the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository in Nevada.

Despite the still-swirling controversy, the NRC's employment website, along with Jaczko himself, continues to tout the agency as “a great place to work.” For many years now, even including 2011, the agency has topped the list of rankings for best places to work in the federal government. Whether that superior ranking will stay put, however, likely depends on whether the embattled regulatory agency can plunge itself back into the obscurity from which it emerged last year.

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Two more nuclear reactors approved by NRC

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:26:00 -0400

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday gave Scana Corp. permission to build two new nuclear reactors in South Carolina, making it the second power company in two months to get a nuclear license approval. Before the Atlanta-based Southern Co. was granted a license on Feb. 9, the NRC had not issued any new reactor licenses since 1978.

The license approval gives the South Carolina-based Scana the go-ahead to begin construction of two new units at its Virgil C. Summer plant near Jenkinsville, S.C. The commission issued the license in a 4-1 vote, with NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko dissenting.

Leaders of the nuclear industry are ecstatic about new reactor construction following a 34-year hiatus in the wake of the 1978 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.

“This will be one of the largest construction and engineering projects in South Carolina history,” Marvin S. Fertel, the Nuclear Energy Institute’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement lauding the Friday approval. “It will create thousands of well-paying jobs during construction and provide careers for several hundred more people over the decades that the new reactors will generate electricity.”

Both the Scana and Southern units will be AP1000 Westinghouse reactors, a new reactor design approved by the NRC late in 2011. The first units for both companies should be in operation by 2016, with Southern's second reactor coming next by 2017 and Scana's by 2019.

Other companies that have applied for construction and operating licenses for new nuclear reactors with the NRC include Duke Energy, Progress Energy, Exelon, NRG Energy, Dominion Resources, NextEra Energy, and Energy Future Holdings.

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Nuclear commission issues first Fukushima safety orders

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:40:00 -0500

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday issued three new safety orders stemming from lessons learned from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichii Nuclear accident a year ago. Operators of the 104 U.S. nuclear reactors will have till Dec. 31, 2016, to comply with the safety upgrades.

“The commission has taken a significant step forward on our post-Fukushima efforts,” NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in a statement. "Of course, there’s still a great deal of work ahead of us.”

The three top priority recommendations will have nuclear plant operators develop strategies for dealing with emergency situations that may interrupt off-site power, add more reliable instruments to measure water levels at cooling pools, where spent nuclear fuel is stored, and install hardened venting systems to prevent hydrogen buildup and explosions.

The two orders relating to emergency equipment and spent fuel pools will apply to every nuclear reactor in the United States, including the two recently licensed reactors that are being constructed at Southern Company’s Vogtle plant in Georgia.

The order to install hardened vents will apply to only U.S. boiling-water reactors that have “Mark I” or “Mark II” containment structures. The order will have the reactors improve their venting systems in order to prevent or mitigate core damage in the event of an accident such as Fukushima.

The NRC is also requesting that every operator in the U.S. analyze and update its earthquake and flood risks, conduct “walkdowns” at each plant and assess the ability to communicate in, and deal with, an emergency situation.

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Interior budget boosts oversight of offshore drilling

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:23:00 -0500

The Interior Department would see only a 1 percent increase in overall funding next year under President Obama's 2013 budget proposal, but a significant boost is proposed for oversight and development of offshore oil and gas resources in keeping with the White House's recent push to expand domestic energy production.

The department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and its Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement would together receive $386 million next year, an increase of about $28 million from its current budget.

In the wake of the disastrous BP oil spill in 2010, Interior has worked to revamp its oversight of offshore oil and gas development by breaking up the old Minerals Management Service into two agencies: one handling leasing and environmental review and one handling permitting, inspections and safety of drilling operations.

A portion of the proposed $386 million would also go toward completion of a Gulf of Mexico lease sale to round out a 2007-2012 exploration and production plan. Some funds also would go for implementation of the leasing plan for 2012-2017, which Obama touted in his State of the Union address as opening up more than 75 percent of oil and gas resources on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Overall, President Obama’s 2013 budget request proposes $11.4 billion for the Interior Department, an increase of about 1 percent from the 2012 enacted level of $11.2 billion. Last year, Obama requested $12.2 billion for Interior, with a heavy push toward revamping offshore oil and gas oversight in the wake of the BP spill.

In this year’s request, Obama once again calls for the end of tax breaks for oil and gas companies – a request that has gone unanswered for many years and several administrations.

“Oil and gas subsidies are costly to the American taxpayer and do little to incentivize production or reduce energy prices,” the request says, as Obama has argued multiple times in the past. The 2013 request calls for the elimination of some 12 tax breaks to oil, gas, and coal companies to raise $41 billion over 10 years.

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U.S. approves first new nuclear reactors in decades

Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:00:00 -0500

Giving a dramatic boost to the nuclear-power industry, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 on Thursday to approve the first construction permit for a nuclear reactor in almost 35 years.

The license approval gives Atlanta-based Southern Company the go-ahead to begin construction of two new reactors at its Vogtle plant in Georgia.

The permit sets the stage for construction of the first new reactor in the United States since 1978.

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Criminal charges for Gulf spill reportedly readied against BP

Olga Belogolova — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500

according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The charges would be focused on BP employees, including several Houston-based engineers, and would deal with whether BP provided false information to regulators about the risks of drilling at the Gulf of Mexico well, The Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

An announcement of these charges, which carry a penalty of up to five years in prison as well as a fine, is expected early next year, but the Justice Department has still not made a final decision on whether to move forward, the report says.

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State Department's rerouting plan could kill Keystone pipeline

Olga Belogolova — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

"The Department has determined it needs to undertake an in-depth assessment of potential alternative routes in Nebraska," the State Department said in a media note on Thursday.

"It is reasonable to expect that this process including a public comment period on a supplement to the final [Environmental Impact Statement] consistent with [the National Environmental Policy Act] could be completed as early as the first quarter of 2013," the announcement said.

President Obama immediately expressed his support for the decision. "Because this permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment, and because a number of concerns have been raised through a public process, we should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood," the president said in a statement.

For the Obama administration, the move is essentially a means of punting a decision that has been weighing on the White House and Obama's 2012 election campaign for a while.

The 1,700-mile, $7 billion project would bring carbon-heavy tar-sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

Protests around the country from pipeline opponents and youth organizers have put Obama in a political bind on the pipeline decision. Most recently, thousands of protesters gathered at the White House on Sunday, saying they would pull their grassroots organizing and donor support should the administration green-light the project.

The reroute tackles concerns from Nebraska residents and lawmakers about the pipeline's proximity to the state's Ogallala aquifer in the Sand Hills area, which supplies drinking water to 1.5 million people.

Proponents of the project questioned the decision, arguing that it was largely political.

"This is about politics and keeping a radical constituency opposed to any and all oil and gas development in the president's camp in November 2012," American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard said in a statement on Thursday.

TransCanada, the company that would build the pipeline, said before Thursday's announcement that a rerouting would effectively kill the project, because the new route would require a new Environmental Impact Statement and a public review that would take months, if not years.

"A delay doesn't make sense," TransCanada spokesman James Millar said in an e-mail on Wednesday. "This has been an exhaustive, 39-month review, the longest review ever for a cross-border crude-oil pipeline in the United States. There is no new information to come forward. There is no reason not to make a decision."

But the State Department, which held hearings along the pipeline's route, said that it needs to take in all the comments it received in those public meetings, including concerns about Nebraska's water supplies, which possibly would have been affected by the pipeline.

Nebraska's two senators cheered the news of the delay-albeit cautiously because the announcement had not been made official yet.

Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., said rerouting the pipeline would allay concerns from within his state. "If we can find a better route, I think some of this controversy will go away, and it will," Johanns said on Thursday in the Capitol. "I'm not opposed to tar sands. I'm not opposed to pipelines. You just picked the wrong route."

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who has raised the same concerns about the pipeline's route, wouldn't react specifically to the State Department's plans. But he jokingly said: "I would be pleased if anybody with authority would reroute it."

One of the most outspoken critics of the pipeline, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is still not satisfied. But he indicated a delay was better than approving it.

"I hope this project is never built," Sanders said on Thursday. "To the degree that the project is delayed, it will give the American people more time to become familiar with the project."

"Once the American people know what the global-warming impacts in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions are, in terms of the dangers to drinkable water in this country, and to the cost of gasoline, this project will never be built," Sanders said.

Environmental activists opposing the project were also cautious in cheering the delay.

"The president should know that nothing that happened today changes our position -- we're unequivocal in our opposition. If this pipeline proposal re-emerges from the review process intact we will use every form of nonviolent civil disobedience to keep it from ever being built," environmental activist Bill McKibben said in a statement.

Environmentalists and other project opponents oppose the pipeline not only because of potential problems along its route, but mainly for the tar-sands oil that it would bring from Canada to the United States. They are concerned about the extraction and production of tar-sands oil, which is much more damaging to the environment and emits more greenhouse gases than the processes for obtaining and processing conventional oil.

Amy Harder contributed to this report.

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Interior Department plan will include more Gulf, Alaska leases

Coral Davenport and Olga Belogolova — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By expanding drilling in the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, where drilling is already ongoing, but not aggressively opening up other areas such as the Atlantic Ocean, President Obama is striking a delicate balance of trying to appease drilling proponents but avoiding the ire of environmentalists and drilling opponents.

Still, environmentalists are sure to question the opening of the Arctic, as Coast Guard officials and others have often warned the area is not prepared for an offshore oil spill. Meanwhile, drilling proponents are sure to find that the plan is too limited.

The Interior Department's plan is set to be released at noon on Tuesday

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Gang of Six members: Super committee can still ‘go big’

Olga Belogolova — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

"The fact of the matter is, you can't do this with just reducing spending, you can't do it with just reforming entitlements, and you can't just do it on the revenue side. It takes a combination of all three," Chambliss said on MSNBC's Morning Joe. "And the more you're involved in it like [Nancy] Pelosi and [John] Boehner have been over the last several weeks, the more you realize that."

Warner and Chambliss, along with other Gang of Six members, earlier this month presented a plan to the super committee to cut nearly $4 trillion from the deficit over 10 years. The plan recommends several approaches, including reducing both security and nonsecurity discretionary spending, enacting some Medicare reforms, and reforming the U.S. tax code to gain about $1 trillion in added revenues. Forty-five senators and about 100 House members have since endorsed all or part of the plan.

Chambliss said he has been "encouraged" by what he has heard, and Warner said that that he thinks "chances are actually improving" for the super committee to "go big."

When industry groups on both sides "start squawking," Warner said, "that'll be the best indication around if the super committee's getting close."

"This debt battle has almost become a proxy for whether our democratic institutions are up to the job," Warner added.

Chambliss and Warner both said that President Obama needs to be involved.

"I wish he had spent the first three months of this year, frankly, just educating the American people and all of us about some of these choices. Some of this is just math," Warner said.

"He is the chief executive of the United States, and we're not going to solve this without the involvement of the chief executive," Chambliss said.

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Senators: Time to end government 'budget gimmicks'

Olga Belogolova — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The two senators, touting their joint efforts in introducing the Honest Budget Act earlier this month, say in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the measure would make it more difficult for the government to spend money that it does not have, and would weed out "the larger culture of fiscal corruption" in Washington.

"For two years in a row, the Democratic-led Senate has failed to adopt a budget as required by law. Meanwhile, our gross national debt has climbed to almost $15 trillion -- as large as our entire economy," they wrote.

Snowe and Sessions hope to target several "budget tricks" in particular by weeding out routine expenditures that they say are masked as emergency spending and "phony" rescissions implemented by Congress; ensuring federal pay freezes are mandated; and stopping Congress from shifting expenditures or tax due dates from one period to another in order to justify certain legislation.

"We must rein in the explosive growth of the federal government," the two senators wrote. "No more gimmicks, tricks, or shell games."

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U.N. report: Detainees 'systematically' tortured by Afghan authorities

Olga Belogolova — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

United Nations report released on Monday.

The report, which was researched by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, is the result of nearly a year of interviews with more than 300 randomly selected, pretrial and convicted detainees at Afghan National Police detention centers, National Directorate of Security facilities, and Ministry of Justice prisons and juvenile rehabilitation centers.

"Nearly all detainees tortured by NDS officials reported the abuse took place during interrogations and was aimed at obtaining a confession or information," said the report, which found that 46 percent of NDS detainees interviewed had experienced interrogation techniques that consisted of torture. The report found that torture is practiced "systematically" at NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan.

While the report does not apportion any complicity to U.S. or Western officials, it does note that Afghan security forces are trained and funded by the international community.

The ANP's budget is mainly funded by a multilateral trust set up by the United Nations Development Programme in 2002. The trust receives contributions from the United States as well as a number of other Western nations.

The report points out that despite the systematic nature of the torture, is it not based on institutional or Afghan government policy, but is rather the result of the actions of individual security officials. Reform is, therefore, "both possible and desired," the report said, noting that government officials had already cooperated with the report's investigation and begun to take actions to address these problems.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force responded to the formal release of the report, noting that it has already taken action in suspending detainee transfers to certain facilities based on the findings.

Still, the report may put a wrench in American efforts to hand over security responsibilities to Afghan officials as U.S. troops begin a gradual drawdown from Afghanistan. The Obama administration is set to withdraw 10,000 American troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

ISAF, with which UNAMA shared its findings over the course of the last month, said in a statement that it is working closely with the Afghan government and the U.N. panel on efforts to "improve detention operations and establish safeguards to prevent future mistreatment."

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Officials: Secret panel decided on Awlaki killing

Olga Belogolova — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Reuters report, which cites "several current and former officials."

The panel, a subset of the White House's National Security Council, made the decision to target Awlaki, the U.S.-born radical cleric with alleged al-Qaida ties, who was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen last month.

There is neither a public record of nor any law governing the panel's decisions, according to officials. In addition, the role of the president in ordering or endorsing is also unknown, according to the Reuters report.

Officials told Reuters that Awlaki had been the only American put on a government list targeting people for capture or death due to their alleged involvement with militants.

The process that led to Awlaki's death has been questioned by critics who say that there was no due process in his targeted killing, and have wondered whether Obama is now embracing the policies of George W. Bush that he denounced when he was running for office.

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Official confirms tensions over role of women in Obama White House

Olga Belogolova — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Washington Post interview.

"There were some issues early on with women feeling as though they hadn't figured out what their role was going to be on the senior team at the White House," Jarrett said in the interview.

These particular tensions are among those highlighted in a controversial new book about the Obama White House by journalist Ron Suskind, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President.

The book is based on more than 700 hours of interviews with senior officials and the president himself. It quotes top officials who describe a difficult work environment for women, among other tensions at the White House.

In the book, former White House communications director Anita Dunn is quoted as saying, "this place would be in court for a hostile workplace.... Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women."

The White House has pushed back on the book ahead of its official release, with press secretary Jay Carney and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner citing what they said were inaccuracies.

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Top drilling regulator to temporarily head new bureau at Interior

Olga Belogolova — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which Bromwich has led since June 2010, will split into two smaller agencies on Oct. 1. The reorganization grew out of lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, and splits BOEMRE into a bureau to handle inspections, enforcement, and the safety of offshore oil and gas operations, which Bromwich will oversee and a second office to handle energy leasing and planning on the Outer Continental Shelf.

"Director Bromwich is a top-flight manager with a track record of solving problems and implementing reform, in the private sector, in the public sector, and his time at BOEMRE," Salazar said in a statement.

"I am honored to lead BSEE and to carry on its important work until a permanent director can be found," Bromwich said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Tommy Beaudreau, who has been a senior adviser to Bromwich for the last year, will permanently head up the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which will oversee energy leasing and planning on the Outer Continental Shelf.

"The new BOEM will be focused on ensuring that our offshore resources are developed sensibly and responsibly. I am proud to be BOEM's first director and look forward to helping fulfill Secretary Salazar's and Director Bromwich's vision for this new agency," Beaudreau said in a statement.

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Government's final report blames BP, main contractors for Gulf spill

Olga Belogolova — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400

government's final report released on Wednesday found.

The joint investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) found BP -- as owner of the well -- "ultimately responsible" for ensuring the "safety and protection of personnel, equipment, natural resources, and the environment."

"BP's cost- or time-saving decisions without considering contingencies and mitigation" led to the series of events that caused the disaster in April 2010, the 200-plus-page report found.

But the investigators also placed considerable blame on BP's key contractors, Halliburton and Transocean. Hallburton was responsible for the cement work at the bottom of the well, meant to stop oil and gas from escaping; Transocean, the owner and operator of the drilling rig, was responsible for safe operations, the report stated.

The investigation identified several reasons why operations should have been brought to a halt when problems developed, but noted that "no individual on the Deepwater Horizon did so on April 20," 2010, the day of the oil rig explosion. The report also cited an "overall complacency" on the part of the Deepwater Horizon crew.

In a statement on Wednesday, BP said it agreed "with the report's core conclusion consistent with every other official investigation that the Deepwater Horizon accident was the result of multiple causes, involving multiple parties, including Transocean and Halliburton."

"From the outset, BP acknowledged its role in the accident and has taken concrete steps to further enhance safety and risk management throughout its global operations, including the implementation of new voluntary standards and practices in the Gulf of Mexico that exceed current regulatory requirements and strengthen the oversight of contractors," the statement continued.

The investigation found that BP was haphazard in identifying and communicating risks associated with the cementing operations.

It also said that recurring well-control events prior to the spill should have alerted the crew to potential problems. On March 8, the rig crew took at least 30 minutes to identify a "kick"-a potentially dangerous imbalance in pressure around the well. "The delay raised concerns among BP personnel about the Deepwater Horizon crew's ability to promptly detect kicks and take appropriate well control actions," the panel said.

Other official investigations also have concluded that the rig crew's decision to move forward with the well abandonment despite tests that identified potential hazards significantly contributed to the disaster.

Unlike other reports, however, the BOEMRE/Coast Guard investigation also includes a forensic analysis of the blowout preventer, which is meant to shut off the well in an emergency and serve as the last line of defense against a spill. The panel found that a heavy off-center drill pipe prevented the blowout preventer from doing its job.

"The buckling of the drill pipe, which likely occurred at or near the time when control of the well was lost, was caused by the force of the hydrocarbons blowing out of the well; by the weight of the 5,000 feet of drill pipe located in the riser above the BOP [blowout preventer] forcing the drill pipe down into the BOP stack; or by a combination of both," the report stated.

The report also made a number of recommendations to increase the safety of offshore drilling operations, saying that "stronger and more comprehensive federal regulations might have reduced the likelihood of the ... blowout."

It recommended requiring not one, but two barriers to seal each well. The use of both mechanical and cement barriers would "decrease the chances of blowout," the panel said. The report also recommended further testing of blowout preventers and improved drilling-inspection procedures.

The report documented more than half a dozen violations of federal regulations by BP and its contractors. "BOEMRE will be responsible for any regulatory action with respect to the violations," agency spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said in an e-mail on Wednesday.

While spill liability is capped at $75 million under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, BP has said it would not invoke the cap and would pay for all damages resulting from the spill. Still, the administration has asked Congress to pass legislation to raise the liability limit.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., announced a full committee hearing on the report for Sept. 23.

"We need to hear from the investigators, but we also need to hear from those being investigated," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in a statement. "Congress and the American people deserve a full hearing on the facts of this spill that affected millions of American citizens and countless small businesses on the Gulf Coast."

Wednesday's report and the new hearings do not guarantee congressional action on an offshore reform measure.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and ranking member Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, began work on a measure to boost offshore-drilling safety after the spill, but the legislation stalled in their committee earlier this year over a revenue-sharing provision that would allow coastal states to secure 37.5 percent of revenues from new energy production off their shores.

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Biden on 9/11 threat: We’re taking it 'seriously’

Olga Belogolova — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400

On Thursday, just days before the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, federal officials received a credible, but unconfirmed, threat to detonate car bombs in New York and Washington.

"This is the first, the first credible piece of information we've gotten," Biden said on NBC's Today Show Friday. "We cannot confirm it. We are doing everything within our power. All hands are on deck."

U.S. counterterrorism officials have been investigating the threat since the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden four months ago, Biden said.

The real worry, he added, is that it will be conducted by a single individual.

"The lone actor is the more worrisome thing because there are fewer trails to follow, there are fewer leads to move on," he said on the Today Show.

Biden advised Americans to continue their lives "as normal," but to be vigilant and report anything that may look suspicious.

"There are people who are likely to try over the next period of months and years, but the point is that we are using every single asset we can, including local law enforcement, to help thwart the possibility it could happen," he said.

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Economists torn on fiscal policy

Olga Belogolova — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Lawmakers aren't the only ones who can't agree on what to do to fix the economy.

Business economists are split on whether a restrictive fiscal policy or more stimulus will give the flailing U.S. economy the boost that it needs, according to a survey released by the National Association for Business Economics on Monday.

Nearly half of those surveyed by NABE say that they would like to see a more restrictive fiscal policy in the next two years, while 37 percent of the respondents would opt for a more stimulative approach.

As Washington readies itself for another fiscal fight, lawmakers will have to decide how to balance raising tax revenues and cutting spending in order to reduce the federal deficit.

More than half -- 56 percent -- of economists surveyed said they favor reducing the deficit only or mostly through spending cuts; only about 7 percent of economists favored only or mostly tax increases. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said that they would prefer an approach that is equal parts spending cuts and tax increases.

Though 25 percent said that overhauling the tax code could be a good solution, more than two-thirds were not confident Congress could do so in the next 12 months.

Nearly 40 percent said reducing health care costs from Medicare and Medicaid would likely be the most successful part of a deficit-reduction plan.

The survey was conducted just before the August 2 debt deal, in which lawmakers agreed on a plan to raise the debt ceiling by at least $2.1 trillion and enforce spending cuts of roughly $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years.

The survey, which polled 250 members of the NABE, is conducted semiannually.

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