Whatever its archaic publication policy may say, the U.S. Air Force still manages to generate and publicly release documents of significant policy interest. A new manual on the Open Skies Treaty explores the origins, development, and implementation of the Open Skies regime, which permits the overflight and inspection of member nations’ territory and facilities. See Air Force Manual 16-604 (pdf) on “Implementation of, and Compliance with, the Treaty on Open Skies,” October 20, 2009.
A summary account of U.S. government programs to combat weapons of mass destruction is provided in the latest annual report from the interagency Counterproliferation Program Review Committee. See “Report on Activities and Programs for Countering Proliferation and NBC Terrorism,” Volume I, executive summary, July 2009 (published September 2009).
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.
FAS is launching the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to build a new, transpartisan vision of government that works – that has the capacity to achieve ambitious goals while adeptly responding to people’s basic needs.