While browsing the web today, I learned that Southern California Edison will be building a solar panel farm on commercial rooftops. This project is expected to generate 250 megawatts of carbon emission-free and 100% renewable energy.

While browsing the web today, I learned that Southern California Edison will be building a solar panel farm on commercial rooftops. This project is expected to generate 250 megawatts of carbon emission-free and 100% renewable energy. It was only 90 days ago that the largest photovoltaic installation in the US started operating in Nevada; it is 14 megawatts (powering roughly 14,000 homes). Even Pennsylvania – yes Pennsylvania, the coal state - is currently adopting solar electricity systems.

Considering the rapidly dropping costs associated with, and the rapidly increasing adoption of, solar energy, it would be outrageous to suggest solar energy is not a premier long-term solution to addressing our nation’s emissions problem. In addition to protecting our environment, promoting solar energy is politically prudent for Israel. Business and government technological partnerships with Israel - a world leader in developing concentrated solar energy and vertical wind turbines – bolsters the US-Israel alliance.

Although solar energy offers bright possibilities for the future of electricity, like all energy sources, solar is not flawless. Solar energy uses toxic materials, namely silicon, to produce electric currents from the sun’s rays. There is no proverbial silver bullet when it comes to managing the myriad environmental pollutants underscoring our need to be more energy efficient in our day to day lives – from driving less and improving the efficiency of our appliances to taking shorter showers and unplugging ourselves entirely every once an a while.

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Last month, President Bush hosted a breakfast aimed at highlighting the multitude of persistent vacancies on the federal bench—a claim that was refuted by the New York Times Editors, and others*, who noted that the Senate would be far more inclined to confirm the president’s nominees if he didn’t insist on continually nominating such egregiously unfit people. The following week one such nominee, Richard Honaker, who is up for the District Court of Wyoming (a small and already conservative bench) had his hearing in the Senate.

Much has been written about Mr. Honaker’s nomination, and his threat to progressive values. In addition to being decidedly and doggedly anti-choice, Honaker believes that the United States is built on Christian values, and that God’s law is absolute, trumping individual liberty and “man-made laws” every time. His disdain for individual liberty is particularly concerning.

If Honaker had looked carefully, he would have found that our country’s roots lie not in a particular Christian theology, but in the search for religious freedom and political autonomy. The individual liberty that Honaker derides is not only what defined our country, but is what ensures the ability of people of all faiths to practice their religion openly, without fear of government persecution and with the full protection of our justice system. Indeed, it is this value that allows the Religious Action Center to exist and to speak publicly on issues such as reproductive freedom and the separation of church and state.

Though Honaker promised at his hearing to uphold precedent should he be confirmed to the bench, there are many who take his words with a grain (and perhaps a gallon) of salt. Honaker’s assurances reminded many present at the hearing, including Senator Feinstein, of similar promises espoused by both Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. and Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. at their confirmation hearings. But heedless of their previous pledges, both Justices have been rewriting precedents with alarming speed. Are we misguided in fearing that Honaker will do the same, particularly when he will be sitting on a court that garners far less attention and scrutiny than does the Supreme Court?

For this reason, the Executive Committee of the Union for Reform Judaism voted unanimously this past Monday, after lengthy consultation with local leadership and the Commission on Social Action, to oppose Honaker’s nomination to the District Court of Wyoming. As federal courts increasingly have the final review of a case, thus setting the law for their district, it is evermore important to ensure that those who ascend to the bench will honor the vital freedoms that not only define our nation, but protect the health, lives and existence of all of America’s people.

*Alliance for Justice, National Council of Jewish Women; EarthJustice; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

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Forty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Memphis to rally with striking sanitation workers who had suffered under terrible working conditions. King would be assassinated there, but his fight for basic decency for all workers lives on. Last week, the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, of which the Union for Reform Judaism is a member, sponsored an interfaith celebration in Memphis to commemorate Dr. King’s advocacy and to push for living wages in Memphis and around the country.

The minimum wage has eroded significantly in the last 40 years. In 1968, the federal minimum wage was $1.60, roughly $9.75 when adjusted for inflation. Today, the minimum wage stands at just $5.85 (and will rise to $7.25 by the end of 2009). “Workers should not have to choose between paying the rent and buying food for their children,” Rev. Jennifer Kottler, Director of Let Justice Roll, said at the event. “A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.”

 

Last week’s interfaith celebration ended with the 150 or so faith leaders in attendance echoing Dr. King’s 1968 call (paraphrased from the prophet Amos): “Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all of God’s children. … Now is the time for justice to roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Now is the time.”

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In 1994’s Shawshank Redemption, long-time prisoner Brooks Hatlen (played by veteran actor James Whitmore) is paroled, turned loose into the free world and ends up overwhelmed by society after decades of guidance and structure provided by the penitentiary. A liberated but defeated man, Brooks writes in his suicide note:

“I have trouble sleepin’at night. I have bad dreams like I'm falling. I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. Maybe I should get me a gun, an, an rob the Foodway so they'd send me home. I could shoot the manager while I was at it, sort of like a bonus. I guess I'm too old for that sort of nonsense anymore. I don't like it here. I'm tired of being afraid all the time. I've decided not to stay. I doubt they'll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me.”

It’s a sad story for a movie, sure, but it’s not just theatrics – here in the real world, one in every 100 American men is imprisoned. Each year, nearly 650,000 men and women are released from prison only to face a myriad of hurdles in reentering their communities; in fact, nearly two-thirds of released prisoners are reincarcerated within three years. Why? Because these men and women often have no one to turn to and no means of reintegrating themselves into their communities. Instead, they return to the lives they know – in prison.

This week, the Senate passed the Second Chance Act, which seeks to reduce recidivism by authorizing funding to prepare prisoners for successful community re-entry and to help former prisoners find housing, employment, education and health care. The House passed the same bill in November, and it’s now headed to the Oval Office, where it awaits the President’s signature.

Second Chance Act sponsor Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) has called the prison door, “more often than not, a revolving door” due to a lack of institutional and community support for struggling ex-prisoners. May this bill be a step in the right direction toward closing the door once and for all on individuals’ lives of crime – and opening new doors for them as successful, rehabilitated members of society.

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“The current financial crisis in the US,” Alan Greenspan (dispassionately) announced today, “is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the second world war.” On Friday, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman and Greenspan’s successor in that post, spoke to a packed hall about the primary cause of the current meltdown, the home foreclosure crisis.

“Foreclosure rates have increased substantially,” Bernanke said in the keynote speech of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition’s (NCRC) annual conference, which I attended. “Behind these disturbing statistics are families facing personal and financial hardship and neighborhoods that may be destabilized by clusters of foreclosures. … These realities challenge us to find ways to prevent preventable foreclosures” and “ensure a regulatory environment that promotes responsible lending.” (Those quotes come from the Times, which mostly mirror my own notes.)

The Center for Responsible Lending has estimated that over 2 million homes are at risk of foreclosure due to the implosion of the sub-prime lending market. Bernanke, however, mostly discussed ways to prevent a future crisis from occurring. He also mentioned the Administration’s “HOPE Now” program, an initiative based on voluntary industry action.

 

According to the NCRC, at this point, hope isn’t enough; people need help. That’s why they released their own proposal, “HELP Now,” which would allow the government to buy at-risk loans, modify them and then sell them back into the market, in ways that would prevent families from losing their homes and ensure lenders received adequate payment for loans they made.

 

At an earlier plenary discussion, Mark Zandi, the chief economist and co-founder of Moody’s Economy.com, praised the HELP Now proposal because it would help homeowners stay in their homes, would adequately regulate the market, and would not be considered a bailout.

 

Alys Cohen, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, said another way to keep people in their homes is to pass H.R. 3609, which would allow bankruptcy courts to modify the terms of home loans during bankruptcy proceedings for recently made loans made. Zandi told the House Judiciary Committee last year that “There is no more efficacious way to short-circuit this [foreclosure] cycle than adopting legislation to allow bankruptcy judges the authority to modify mortgages by treating them as secured only up to the market value of the property.”

 

Even without Greenspan’s pronouncement, it seems after this weekend that the phrase “bear” economy has taken on a whole new meaning.

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Noting that “The seventh anniversary of President George W. Bush's Faith Based Initiative passed quietly,”  Bill Berkowitz offers a very helpful overview of the past, present and, to the extent possible, future of the White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI). 

Berkowitz uses the recently-released 122 page report, “The Quiet Revolution: The President’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative: A Seven-Year Status Report” (get your copy here),  as a point of departure to examine statements by Senator Clinton, McCain and Obama on related issues, and to offer some thoughts about how the OFBCI might fare under their Administrations. 

Here are two key paragraphs from Berkowitz:

Getting the full measure of Bush's faith-based initiative is no easy task. There have been some notable faith-based successes. It has given the term "faith-based" political currency; expanded the initiative to a number of states -- according to the White House, some 35 governors and 100 mayors have established faith-based offices; opened the doors for more religious organizations to be eligible to receive government grants; doled several billion dollars to (mostly) constituent religious groups; and overcame political opposition by issuing of several significant executive orders to move the project forward.

On the other hand there are still no adequate measures in place to gauge whether religious organizations providing social services outperform -- or even perform equally as well -- as their secular counterparts. In addition, the initiative has been used as a religious patronage system to recruit minority religious officials and bolster Bush's conservative evangelical constituency. And the faith-based initiative still hasn't received any legislative approval.

(Hat tip: The Revealer, “a daily review of religion and the press,” a site well worth adding to your daily browsing.)

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Fifty is a special number in America. Aside from the 50 Ways to Leave your Lover, we did the Fifty Ways to Change our Union when the President did his State of the Union in January. And it is likely why RNCentral.com did Fifty easy tips to lower your healthcare expenses. Our Health care initiative can be a big part of those things you might to do to change our union. Until we do get universal health care and everyone is covered; lowering your expenses maybe all we can do.

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Last week’s horrific bombing at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav in Jerusalem brought a welcome series of statements from some of our interreligious partners.  (The Reform Movement’s statement on the bombing is here.)

The National Council of Churches of Christ of the USA coordinated a weighty statement on behalf of itself and four of its largest member denominations (those whom, the statement notes, they were able to reach in a timely manner).  The statement, over the signatures of  Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA; Rev. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ; Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (USA); Bishop C. Christopher Epting, Deputy for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, The Episcopal Church; and The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, noted that:

 As leaders of Christian communities in the United States, we are shocked by the attack on the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and saddened that violence has claimed yet more human lives in Israel.  We pray for all of those who have died, and for their families and loved ones and also for the other students at the seminary, who will carry the scars of this horror for the rest of their lives. 

I also received a very powerful, personal note from Bishop Hansen, expressing his own condolences.

Leaders of the World Conference of Religions for Peace issued a significant statement (available here) as well.  HRH Prince el Hassan bin Talal, President Emeritus, Religions for Peace, Jordan; Rabbi Dr. Walter Homolka; Principal of Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam,Germany; and Dr. Hans Küng, President, Global Ethic Foundation, Switzerland said:

Holy places must not be abused to incite violence or express hatred. Attacking holy spaces is one way that extremists violently abuse religion. Moderate voices are increasingly unheard. All who oppose violence must not remain silent or be indifferent toward human suffering.

Reuters reports that Pope Benedict also spoke of the bombing (indirectly, as is the Vatican style in such matters) during his public remarks yesterday, saying:

 In recent days, violence and horror have once again bloodied the Holy Land, feeding a spiral of destruction and death which seems to have no end…." "I encourage the Israeli and Palestinian authorities in their intention to continue to construct, through negotiation, a peaceful and just future for their peoples," Benedict said after his weekly Angelus blessing. “And I ask, in the name of God, (for people) to leave the torturous paths of hate and revenge and responsibly to take the roads of dialogue and faith."

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When President Bush proposed the final federal budget of his presidency about a month ago, he quickly met with criticism by a variety of organizations. The budget's central flaw is that it does not take into account some basic realities--economic and humanitarian.

For example, the president claims a balanced budget could be achieved by 2012 and 2013. This is based on assumptions that are almost laughable. The budget assumes that Congress would allow the exemption of middle-class families from the Alternative Minimum Tax to expire. The AMT, originally designed to hit only the wealthiest Americans, now threatens to ensnare much of the middle-class. And last year, Congress passed a $50 billion patch to keep middle-income Americans from getting hit. So from a political standpoint, it’s highly unlikely that Congress will not continue to extend this exemption. Additionally, the president’s budget assumes no cost after 2009 for military activities in Iraq or Afghanistan. Again, is it likely that the U.S. will spend zero dollars there in the next few years?

 

At the same time, the president’s budget ignores crucial human needs, even at a time of an economic downturn.  Indeed, the priorities outlined are dubious, if not altogether backward. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) would be cut by $570 million or 22 percent (before adjusting for changes in energy prices, which have skyrocketed), which would eliminate energy assistance for more than one million low-income families and elderly people. The president proposed slashing the Section 8 housing voucher program (one of the nation’s most effective in providing affordable housing), which would deprive 100,000 low-income households of rental assistance. And if the president’s proposed budget is enacted, 200,000 fewer low-income families would receive federal assistance for child care (this would be the seventh consecutive year of frozen funding for the program).

 

The House and Senate mark up their own budget documents this week. In the coming months, we'll likely see a battle royal between the president and Congress. Stay tuned.

 

3/10/08 UPDATE: An Action Alert!

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I want to recommend Rabbi Saperstein’s recent interview with the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy as a great resource for those who are looking for a brief, informative summary of the arguments against direct government funding to religious organizations and the alternatives for partnership.

As the Legislative Assistant working on the separation of church and state, I am frequently engaged in battles against the efforts to allow government money to invade the religious sector.  The Faith-Based and Community Initiative uses the rhetoric of “treating religious groups as equals” to justify a desire to allow government funding of pervasively sectarian religious organizations that are providing various social services.  The problems with direct government funding to pervasively sectarian organizations are often difficult to articulate and/or understand, but Rabbi Saperstein’s interview certainly clarifies and simplifies the position of the URJ and other advocates for First Amendment Rights.

 

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