Category: Leadership

A Letter to President Obama

This letter, which will be published as a blog post, is a followup to my earlier post entitled ‘A Conversation With S. David Freeman’. In that post I stated:
“….. despite the obvious resistance that Obama faces from Republicans on anything he proposes, and the need to keep a Democratic Senate if at all possible (so that his last two years in office will not be even more difficult than his first six years), should the President think big and propose what he knows the country needs as opposed to what is politically feasible? My heart says yes, and the side of me that claims to be practical, after many years in Washington, DC, tries hard to understand Obama’s strategy and support it. But Dave may be right – we may have an intellectual President whose nature just won’t allow him to stick his neck out. As I said to Dave, the test for me will be after the November elections, when Obama will have no Democratic candidates to protect and nothing to lose by proposing farseeing energy and environmental legislation. He will not succeed in getting it passed by the most dysfunctional Congress I’ve seen in forty years, but as Dave says, we have to start somewhere.”

I’m also aware that a number of my liberal/progressive friends and colleagues, in addition to Dave Freeman, have expressed disappointment with the President for not doing more on energy and environmental issues as they assumed he would when he was elected. I have resisted joining this group and continue to support the President’s analytic and pragmatic approach to dealing with these issues. It has led to some difficult discussions, and despite my long and transparent political history led one long-standing friend to write: “…it is interesting, for sure, to see you moving toward the real Democrats.”

Needless to say, I disagree with this friend’s characterization of what a true Democrat believes, as if there is only one way to address these issues, and we will have to agree to disagree. Nevertheless, these interactions with friends and my own impatience about seeing more done quickly to achieve a clean energy society, leads to this appeal to you as you approach the final two years of your presidency.

Once we are past the elections in the first week of November you will have little reason, in my opinion, to hold back on your vision for this country’s energy future. I believe you have a clear understanding of what that future must be, but that vision has to be translated into a national energy policy that is codified by the U.S. Congress. As a nation we need to set long-term goals for moving away from dependence on fossil fuels and toward an energy system increasingly dependent on increased energy efficiency and renewable energy generating sources, as the European Union has done and even China is doing in its multiple five-year plans. You need to level with the American public about the policy choices we have to make now to ensure we are well on our way to that energy future that other nations have identified more clearly than we. Republicans and some Democrats may not agree but your leadership is needed to point the way forward and put pressure on the Congress to protect our long-term interests.

You have recently taken important steps to do what you feel you can reasonably do within your executive powers to reduce energy-related carbon emissions. You are taking some political heat for that. but that comes with the job and as best I can tell from media reports the majority of Americans agree with your approach. What is less clear is your vision for a long-term clean energy policy and how we can move rapidly to that end, which is part-and-parcel of addressing global warming/climate change and improving national security. Your all-of-the-above energy strategy leaves many of us wanting more clarity from you on the hard choices we have to make to ensure our energy future. This letter is a request for such clarity while you still have a chance to make a significant difference as President. It will undoubtedly lead to further political attacks, but so what? You were overly patient with Republican intransigence in your first Administration, a serious mistake that took you too long to learn from, and you must not repeat that again in setting out your goals for the future. They will huff and puff and perhaps slow down national progress, as they threaten to do on health care, but you must lead in pointing the way. We will get there eventually but the sooner the better. You can make a difference and I await your post-November 4th leadership.

A Conversation With S. David Freeman

Had a most interesting discussion at lunch today (3 September 2014) with Dave, whose name is well known to older generations of energy policy types but less well known to many younger folks. He and I first met when we both joined the staff of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on October 1, 1974. Dave joined as a full-time energy staffer just after leading a major review of national energy policy sponsored by the Ford Foundation (‘A Time to Choose: America’s Energy Future’), and me as a Congressional Fellow/Staff Scientist. Dave is now 88 years old (I’m a relatively young 77) and in my opinion is as sharp, feisty and opinionated as he was when I first met him forty years ago. In the interim he has held a series of high level jobs (Chairman/TVA, General Manager/Sacramento Municipal Utility District, General Manager/New York Power Authority, General Manager/Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) and is still active in trying to close down California’s aging and poorly located nuclear power plants. We had not seen each other in a number of years and today’s lunch was a chance to catch up a bit.

image

We met at noon at his apartment building in DC, and after walking to a nearby barbeque restaurant we got down to filling in the years. We reflected on the work we both did in the 1970’s on energy issues during Senator Warren Magnuson’s tenure as Chairman of the Commerce Committee, and on the many talented people we worked with at that time. We then discussed Dave’s time in Knoxville where he pushed hard to introduce conservation and solar energy into TVA’s energy portfolio and resisted the pressures to add more nuclear power plants. These priorities characterized his subsequent roles at SMUD, NYPA, and LADWP, and remain his priorities today. He was an early voice for clean energy in the U.S., and was appointed by President Johnson in 1967 as “..the first person with an energy responsibility in the federal government.” He has also been termed an “‘eco-pioneer’ for his environmentally-oriented leadership of SMUD.”

Our lunchtime discussion, after appropriate reminiscences, devolved into a discussion of energy policy under President Obama. Dave appreciates that Obama has an understanding of the importance of energy efficiency and renewble energy to our future energy system, but feels strongly that Obama is indecisive and has failed to put action behind his words. In fact, Dave called him “gutless” for failing to provide needed leadership on reducing our use of fossil fuels and making an all-out push on renewables. Dave’s feeling is that Obama is too cautious by nature (he quoted the opinion of an Illinois politician who had worked with Obama) and unwilling to stick his neck out, when what this country needs is a Preident who does just that. Notwithstanding the argument that the President is having a hard time getting any legislation through the Congress, and may have even more trouble after the November elections, Dave’s argument is that we have a critical need to reduce carbon emissions and that we have to start somewhere, even if it takes 10 years to get a meaningful program implemented. It is a powerful argument, as nothing gets done if one doesn’t try.

Dave gave me a lot to think about, as I’ve been a strong supporter of the President and his energy policies, but admit to being concerned about the President’s limited public explanations of his policies, whether energy or foreign policy. He may understand the issues, and Dave and I agree that he does, but is the President being too cautious by far? As a result, is he passing up an opportunity to lead the country in a needed direction at a critical time? As the leader of the nation is it encumbent upon him to propose legislation that limits our use of fossil fuels and puts us more aggressively on the path to a renewable future, even if the likelihood of passage is low to nonexistent in the near future? Upon leaving Dave after lunch I decided to write about our conversation and raise the question that Dave poses. This is the result.

My thoughts upon reflection are the following: despite the obvious resistance that Obama faces from Republicans on anything he proposes, and the need to keep a Democratic Senate if at all possible (so that his last two years in office will not be even more difficult than his first six years), should the President think big and propose what he knows the country needs as opposed to what is politically feasible? My heart says yes, and the side of me that claims to be practical, after many years in Washington, DC, tries hard to understand Obama’s strategy and support it. But Dave may be right – we may have an intellectual President whose nature just won’t allow him to stick his neck out. As I said to Dave, the test for me will be after the November elections, when Obama will have no Democratic candidates to protect and nothing to lose by proposing farseeing energy and environmental legislation. He will not succeed in getting it passed by the most dysfunctional Congress I’ve seen in forty years, but as Dave says, we have to start somewhere.

As those who read my blog will recall, I’ve taken issue with the Clinton-Gore Administration for not doing more on clean energy when they had the chance in the 1990’s. Dave’s point about Obama is similar – we need leadership that looks down the road despite today’s political realities. My final verdict on the Obama Administration’s achievements on energy policy will depend on what comes out of the White House after November. I hope that the President has it in him to do what Dave and I both agree the country needs, but at this point I still have confidence in President Obama. Dave does not.

This is a lot to think about, and I will continue to cogitate on Dave’s perspectives. Hopefully, others will join this discussion via comments on this blog post.

Am I Still An Environmentalist?

This piece has been a long time coming. The reason I raise the question is simple: my recent public statements in favor of approving the Keystone XL pipeline and that fracking is here to stay for a while and we need to act accordingly. The question I’ve asked myself is: does taking these positions override a lifelong professional commitment to clean energy and environmental protection in environmentalists’ eyes? In mine it does not. Both positions are strongly opposed by vocal and perhaps significant fractions of the ‘environmental movement’. What that fraction is is not clear. I also wish to offer some unsolicited advice to my fellow environmentalists to help ensure that environmentalism will continue to flourish in the years and decades ahead.

First a little background. I’m a trained scientist (physics) who started thinking about clean energy (solar, wind, ..) in the early 1970s and have spent most of my professional career helping to prepare these technologies for wide scale deployment. I’ve also worked hard to advance energy efficiency as the cornerstone of national energy policy.

My involvement in planning and management of renewable electric programs at the U.S. Department of Energy, from which I retired in 2012, exposed me to some of the less attractive realities of the renewable energy world, such as solar energy advocates denigrating wind energy, and vice versa. I reacted strongly at the time, seeing such self-interested behavior as damaging to the long-term interests of the nation and the renewable energy community. I now fear for the long-term interests of the environmental movement as I see parts of it putting what I consider too much energy into battles that it cannot win. In my opinion this can only harm the movement’s image with the public and thus environmentalism’s needed and long term impacts.

Why do I feel this way? Despite my strong belief that the U.S. must reduce its heavy dependence on fossil fuels as quickly as possible, for environmental, economic and national security reasons, and that we must move as quickly as possible to an energy future based on renewable energy, my sense of reality is that this cannot happen tomorrow and that the public recognizes this, despite their often-repeated enthusiasm for renewables. The public wants leadership and a clean energy future, but it also wants energy, the services energy makes possible, and a realistic path to that future. When environmentalists and others imply that our current dependence on fossil fuels can be undone in a decade or so I take strong issue. It will take decades, even with a willing Congress, and fuels derived from petroleum will still be needed to move our cars and trucks while we move to develop alternative fuels. The Keystone XL pipeline will not reduce Canadian mining and production of its tar sands, the rationale behind environmental opposition to the pipeline, and I’d rather have that oil coming to the U.S. via a modern and highly regulated pipeline than via truck and rail and barge.

We have made significant progress in reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere by replacing coal with natural gas in power production, but solar and wind and geothermal and biomass and hydropower and ocean energy are not yet ready to take on that full burden. We need natural gas as a transition fuel to our clean energy future, even though its combustion still releases CO2. It is still much better than burning coal, and careful regulation and enforcement of fracking can minimize the amount of natural gas, a powerful greenhouse gas, that leaks into the environment.

Finally, I recommend that my environmental colleagues join with me in putting our energies into making sure that the pipeline and fracking are done as well as possible, that national policies encourage maximum utilization of energy efficiency to minimize energy and water demands, and that a steadily increasing price is put on carbon emissions. All these points are essential, but this latter point to me is critical. Without a clear signal to all sectors of our economy that we must reduce carbon emissions to avoid the worst impacts of global warming and climate change we are being irresponsible to ourselves and succeeding generations. Such a price on carbon can unleash innovation and set an example for the rest of the world which still looks to the U.S. for leadership.

Sticking Your Neck Out

In a recent Comment a reader suggested: “….readers might like to hear your perspective on the value and difficulties of “sticking your neck out” on the job, particularly from within federal agencies.” I agreed to respond, so here goes. These are my views, and I know there will a range of answers to this request from other active or retired Feds. I hope they will respond as well.

My first experience as a staff person in the Federal Government was in 1974 when I came to Washington as an APS Congressional Fellow and served as Staff Scientist for the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. I quickly learned my first lesson about ‘sticking one’s neck out’ by observing what happened to the Committee’s Senior Counsel when he went to Sandusky, Ohio on Committeee business and managed to get his picture in the local paper. Senator Magnuson, the Committee Chair, raked him over the coals and said clearly: “If you want to get your picture in the paper get elected”. Sen. Magnuson also forbade any travel by Committee staff for 30 days.

Luckily, aside from sensitivity about pictures in the paper, the Committee was ‘entrepreneurial’ in the sense that staff were given lots of leeway to do things for which they were held closely accountable. This contrasted with the style of some other Senate Committees that were managed more tightly by the members, with less staff discretion. I have always liked the Commerce Committee approach and have used it throughout my government career.

To answer the question more directly I believe, strongly, that staff are obligated to tell their bosses what they believe or else they are not doing their job. Smart managers also should want to hear the unvarnished truth from staff if they are to be most effective in carrying out their jobs. Unfortunately, all too often that is not the way it works. In my experience most people play it safe by not sticking their necks out if they suspect that their bosses really don’t want to hear what they have to say, and too many bosses are not secure enough to be open to suggestions without feeling threatened. That’s why when I found people who were willing to stick their necks out I grabbed them as quickly as I could (they are not common) and insisted upon their promise to provide honest feedback before hiring them.

There is one caveat that I will put forward, one that I believe is essential to survival in any relationship, especially in bureaucratic organizations like the federal government. Pick your fights carefully. Not every issue is worth going to the mattresses for, and if everything from you becomes problematic then you won’t have an impact when you really want it. Credibility and trust are important and are earned .

This may or may not answer the question posed at the beginning of this blog, and I look forward to feedback. What say you all?

Sticking One's Neck Out

Leaving the World in Younger Hands: It Will Be OK

As a ‘retired’ person who has had a long career, I have often heard concerns expressed by some colleagues about the people who will succeed us. Will they be able to handle all the problems they will face (some of which we created) and is the world heading down a sinkhole in their hands? As best I can tell this is a common refrain among older folks in any activity, and will undoubtedly be true of today’s younger folks when they get to that stage of life. Having worked with many young people and mentored a number over the years, I want to comment on that concern.

As a former Fellow in the Congressional Fellowship Program, I have occasionally been asked to serve as a reviewer of fellowship applications, including face-to-face interviews of finalists. Admittedly, these are somewhat unique and highly screened applicants. They all hold science Ph.D’s and are self-motivated to work in Washington, DC for a year or two on Capitol Hill or in a U.S. Government executive branch department or agency. Nevertheless, I am continually impressed, and even awed, by the quality of most of those I interview, many of whom do not receive fellowships because of the intense competition. I’ve also met and worked with other Fellows who came through other paths and who impress me greatly. In my opinion they are every bit as good as those that were part of my peer group, and perhaps better in terms of training and commitment to public service. I do not lose sleep over those who will succeed us in the years to oome.

I have also worked with many others who did not come to public service via the fellowship route. Some of them were people I worked for and with, and some were people I hired as I advanced through my career. All I can say is that I’m not worried about our future public servants and leaders. In fact I see them as more committed to public service than my post WW II generation that was labeled ‘the apathetic generation’.

What I am concerned about is a lack of mentoring of young people by today’s managers, as mentioned in the opening Page of this blog: ‘About this blog and me’. The importance of mentoring will be discussed more fully in a future blog.