Noteworthy new volumes of congressional hearings on national security-related topics include the following (all pdf).
“War Powers in the 21st Century,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 28, 2009 (published January 2010).
“Voice of Veterans of the Afghan War,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 23, 2009 (published February 2010).
“Strategic Importance of the Arctic in U.S. Policy,” Senate Appropriations Committee, August 20, 2009 (published January 2010).
“Defeating the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) and Other Asymmetric Threats: Today’s Efforts and Tomorrow’s Requirements,” House Armed Services Committee, September 16, 2008 (published December 2009).
“Implications of the Supreme Court’s Boumediene Decision for Detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: Non-Governmental Perspective,” House Armed Services Committee, July 30, 2008 (published January 2010).
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.