Pending legislation to reform the use of the state secrets privilege received a wave of support last week from numerous public interest, professional and civil liberties organizations.
While the bill is opposed by the Attorney General, it received strong endorsements from the American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Constitution Project and others. See their statements and responses to the Attorney General’s March 31 letter on the subject here.
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.