Imbalance Of Powers Imagine a group of lawyers at work on guidelines for instituting an imperial presidency. There would be an uproar, and rightly so. But what if the goal is to blunt global warming? Well, then, in that case it's OK to bypass the checks and balances between the branches of the federal government, right? We can't think of a single proposal on the right side of the political spectrum in which academics could construct a manual to help the president unilaterally fast-track policy because the legislative and judicial gears of government move too slow. The media and law professors would storm the White House if President Bush decided the executive branch alone would cut taxes or privatize Social Security, bypassing Congress. But global warming? Now that, they believe, is a threat the president should be able to deal with without the constraints of limited power. With that in mind, a team of researchers at the University of Colorado Law School spent six months assembling a 213-page handbook that will provide the next president, should he choose to use it, a blueprint for rapidly addressing climate change issues through executive authority. Part of the law school's Presidential Climate Action Project, the report suggests that "there exists significant authority, without further action by Congress, for the president to take action by executive order to implement various aspects of climate change policy." President Bush has been accused of running an imperial presidency by fighting an "illegal" war in Iraq and asking for more authority in the struggle against terrorism. But nothing in America's post-revolution experience could be more imperial than a White House going beyond its constitutional limits to repel a nonexistent threat....
The Biggest Green Mistake Are rising food prices the result of the economic dynamism of China and India, in which newly prosperous consumers are demanding more food—especially more meat? Perennial doomsters such as the Earth Policy Institute's Lester Brown predicted more than a decade ago that China's growing food demand would destabilize global markets and signal a permanent increase in grain prices. But that thesis has so far not been borne out by the facts. China is a net grain exporter. India is also largely self-sufficient in grains. At some time in the future, these countries may become net grain importers, but they are not now and so cannot be blamed to for today's higher food prices. If surging demand is not the problem, what is? In three words: stupid energy policies. Although they are not perfect substitutes, oil and natural gas prices tend to move in tandem. So as oil prices rose above $100 per barrel, the price of gas also went up. Natural gas is the main feedstock for nitrogen fertilizer. As gas prices soared, so did fertilizer prices which rose by 200 percent. As a report from the International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (ICSFAD) notes, applying the fertilizer derived from 1000 cubic feet of natural gas yields around 480 pounds of grain. That amount of grain would supply enough calories to feed a person for one year. Rising oil prices also contribute to higher food prices because farmers need transport fuel to run their tractors and to get food to urban markets. Even worse is the bioethanol craze. Politicians in both the United States and the European Union are mandating that vast quantities of food be turned into fuel as they chase the chimera of "energy independence." For example, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed misbegotten legislation requiring fuel producers to use at least 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022-which equals about 27 percent of the gasoline Americans currently use each year and is about five times the amount being produced now. And the European Union set a goal that 10 percent of transport fuels come from biofuels by 2020. The result of these mandates is that about 100 million tons of grain will be transformed this year into fuel, drawing down global grain stocks to their lowest levels in decades. Keep in mind that 100 million tons of grain is enough to feed nearly 450 million people for a year....