The Great Debate

– Mary D. Nichols is Chairman of the California Air Resources Board, the lead agency for implementing California’s landmark climate change law, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. The views expressed are her own. –

After eight years of inaction on climate change by the federal government, we can now look forward to the Obama administration tackling global warming head on. With not a minute to lose, Lisa Jackson, the soon-to-be new head of the EPA, should move quickly to capitalize on the momentum of states that have so far been the leaders in fighting global warming. There is no better place to start than by establishing a national greenhouse gas emission standard for automobiles based on California’s landmark clean car law.

California has always been a pioneer in setting tough automobile emission standards. Our regulations paved the way for lead-free gas, the catalytic converter, and many other innovations that were later adopted as the national standard. As a result, we have eliminated 99 percent of harmful pollution pouring out of autos today compared to a 1960s era car, leading to clearer skies and cleaner air in our cities.

In 2002, California continued its track record of pioneering environmental legislation when it passed a law that directly addressed greenhouse gas emissions from cars. Personal vehicles produce 20 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gases, and so are increasingly being addressed by governments that are serious about averting catastrophic climate change. Thirteen other states have formally adopted and three states are considering adoption of California’s cost-effective and technologically doable program.

Indeed, the motivation is not only environmental – owners of these cars will save thousands of dollars over the vehicle’s life because cars that meet the standard are also likely to be more fuel efficient.

- Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own -

Here is a piece of advice for Barack Obama for dealing with Iran, one of the countries that will loom large in his presidency. Forget the way five of your predecessors dealt with the place. Take your cue from Richard Nixon and his 1972 breakthrough with China.

Just as Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, realized that a quarter of a century of isolating and weakening China had not served America’s interests, so Obama should acknowledge that 30 years of U.S. policy since the 1979 Iranian revolution has failed and that what is needed is a grand bargain, a shift as fundamental as the one Nixon achieved with China.

Those suggestions come from Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, a husband-and-wife team of independent experts who worked on Middle East policy on the National Security Council during George W. Bush’s first term in the White House.

– Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

An American president vowing to cooperate with the rest of the world would barely be news if it did not follow eight years’ of George W. Bush’s tenure in the White House.

Barack Obama’s inauguration address was thin on foreign policy specifics, but his pledge to work with allies and adversaries on global problems from nuclear weapons to climate change was a message many have waited impatiently to hear.

Robin Shepherd is a senior research fellow at Chatham House in London. The opinions expressed are his own.

Which part of the word “change” did Barack Obama not understand? A year from now it is a question that many outside America will be asking about his foreign policy.

American forces will still be in Afghanistan; the handover in Iraq will continue, with some  troops coming home as they would have under President Bush; U.S. support for Israel will remain unchanged, while the Annapolis process begun under Obama’s predecessor continues to take its course.

– Ram Charan is the author several book, including “Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: The New Rules for Getting the Right Things Done in Difficult Times.” A noted expert on business strategy, Charan has coached CEOs and helped companies like GE, Bank of America, Verizon, KLM, and Thomson shape and implement their strategic direction. The opinions expressed are his own. –

The first 100 days demand that President Barack Obama sort out his priorities and choose the ones that will help solve many others. With many constituencies and direct reports clamoring for his time and attention, he cannot attend to them all.  He has to decide which of the many complex and urgent issues that have accumulated must be resolved first.

The new president will inevitably be pushed to spend a huge amount of time on foreign policy.  But I suggest that the president’s top priority should be to get the nation out of this economic and psychological funk.  He has selected some very capable people who will help sort out the economic mess. He made a brilliant move to have Paul Volcker in the White House.

– Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

Barack Obama says he will make Afghanistan the central front in his fight against terrorism but the incoming U.S. president will have to scale back the war aims he inherits from George W. Bush and redefine success.

Bush ordered the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 to oust a Taliban government that was harboring al Qaeda militants blamed for the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

– Scott Paul is executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), a labor-management partnership of several leading U.S. manufacturers and the United Steelworkers. The views expressed are his own. —

Barack Obama knows the story of American manufacturing firsthand. He cut his political teeth as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago in the shadow of shuttered steel mills, working to salvage hopes and dreams that had been crushed by the weight of layoffs and economic decline. As President, he can authoritatively recall America’s industrial heritage and decline, but more importantly, Obama can lead the nation to a renaissance in American manufacturing.

Manufacturing has boosted the American economy, jobs, and wages for generations dating back to World War II. Recently, it has fallen on very hard times. Nearly one in four manufacturing jobs has vanished since 2000, and 40,000 factories have closed since 1998. Last year, manufacturing accounted for nearly a third of all lost jobs in the U.S., while factory orders plummeted to record lows.

– Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Any views expressed are her own. —

As President-elect Obama and his chief performance officer Nancy Killefer, formerly of McKinsey & Co., ponder how to make government more efficient, they could cast an eye on almost any federal agency and find savings for the American taxpayer.

One example is the Federal Communications Commission, which is failing to earn hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the taxpayers by undercharging for the private use of parts of the radio spectrum, notably the frequencies used for the links between cell phone towers and the integrated telephone network.

– Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The views expressed are her own. –

President-elect Obama announced on January 8 that he is planning to use $300 billion of his $700 billion two-year stimulus package for tax cuts—but we should not celebrate too soon. Obama is proposing a series of temporary tax cuts, not permanent cuts that would hasten economic recovery.

For two years only, Obama wants to give a tax cut of $500 a year to individuals and $1,000 a year to families, at a cost of about $145 billion over the two years.  Rather than mail out U.S. Treasury checks, as was done last spring in an effort to ward off a recession, he would lower withholding rates so that the tax cut would be spread over the year.

– Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

The European Union is entering a lame duck year just as new challenges are mounting from Israel’s assault on Gaza, Russia’s gas cut-off to Ukraine and the impending inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama.

The EU’s active crisis management in the Georgia war and the global financial meltdown last year under the energetic leadership of French President Nicolas Sarkozy was an exception, not the dawn of a new, more effective Union.