Word: congressed
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...small part to prodding by California and other states with progressive governors, attitudes have changed in Washington. But Congress continues to dither over cap and trade, and California is moving ahead. On Sept. 15, Schwarzenegger signed an executive order requiring that the state get 33% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 - well above the 15% national standard that current climate bills circulating in Congress would require. California is not alone: more than half the states in the U.S. have similar renewable energy standards, and states in the West and the Northeast have begun to form regional carbon...
...climate. Scientifically, they're probably right - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that developed nations like the U.S. need to cut carbon emissions 25% to 40% by 2020 to keep global warming within what is hoped are safe limits. Politically, however, that seems out of question for Congress. Which is why Obama's speech at the U.N. last week was an exercise in realism, even if much of his audience wanted idealism...
This summer, I knew where to stand on the health-care debate before Congress. I didn’t know where to stand on the “healthcare” debate. My order-loving personality wouldn’t allow me to break the rules. But could I really reconcile political liberalism with grammatical conservatism? Wouldn’t that be the ultimate sin for a copy editor—internal inconsistency...
Part of USAID's problem is a "bunker mentality" that exaggerates genuine security concerns, he says, noting that agency regulations prevented key personnel from accompanying even members of Congress who traveled there to examine aid projects. But other observers say the problems go far beyond security issues. For Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistan security expert and director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, the core of USAID's shortcomings is that it has outsourced "its thinking, planning and local interactions with the recipients" to Beltway contractors who are more incentivized to keep money flowing than getting...
...designing projects that local communities will "own" and sustain. That, however, would require far more manpower than USAID currently has; over the years, funding cuts have eviscerated it down to little more than a contract-management agency. USAID officials, who did not make themselves available for this article, told Congress this past summer that they are rapidly staffing up for Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the agency may soon have its biggest footprint since Vietnam. Currently the dependence on highly paid consultants means at least half of every development dollar stays...