MND I Opening Packet

***Affirmative***
Mass transit 1ac
1ac economy advantage

US transportation policy is focused on road building and
maintenance at the expense of mass transit investment
roads wont be able to accommodate increasing demand
and it threatens overall US infrastructure
Building Americas Future, 11 a bipartisan coalition of elected officials
dedicated to bringing about a new era of U.S. investment in infrastructure that
enhances our nations prosperity and quality of life. (Falling Apart and Falling
Behind, Transportation Infrastructure Report,
http://www.bafuture.com/sites/default/files/Report_0.pdf)
Stunningly, the United States has not made a significant strategic investment
in the national transportation network since we finished building the
Interstate Highway System decades ago. We have let more than half a century
go by without devising a strategic plan on a national scale to update our freight or
passenger transportation systems.
Instead, the federal government has opted to direct most funding to
building highways, to the detriment of the rest of the transportation
network; to disperse most funds to projects without imposing accountability and
performance standards; and to allow pork-barrel spending on politically convenient
rather than economically strategic projects. And the federal government has
not significantly supported or catalyzed further private sector investment.
Lack of National Vision
In stark contrast to our most agile and aggressive foreign competitors, the
U.S. stands increasingly alone in our failure to reorient our transportation
spending according to a new forward-looking vision that could build a
transportation network fit for a 21st-century economy. Without a similarly
strategic plan of attack to create a state-of-the-art transportation network, the U.S.
will be left far behind.
This striking lack of vision is a debilitating problem. Instead of taking a
comprehensive look at the current weaknesses in our national network, we are
largely following the same policy goals and guidelines announced when Eisenhower
was president. As a result, federal transportation policy is skewed toward
maintaining and expanding the Interstate Highway System. Weve put
relatively little emphasis on targeting our most economically strategic
trade corridors or building new transport systems to meet our 21st-century
economic needs.
Government transportation spending, at all levels of government, is
overwhelmingly directed toward roads. Since 1956, the largest portion of
public funding for transportation infrastructure was dedicated to building and
maintaining highways. 1 Although a small portion (15%) of the federal gas tax is
dedicated to a fund for mass transit, the vast majority of federal gas tax revenue is
spent on highways. The same is true for state gas taxes: 30 states are actually
constitutionally or statutorily required to spend 100% of their gas tax revenues on
roads. The disproportionate channeling of transportation dollars toward
highways has encouraged more and more construction of roads, even as the
demand rises for other forms of transportation.
The last multi-year infrastructure law passed by Congress, the 2005 Safe
Accountable Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (known
as SAFETEA-LU), authorized $286.4 billion of federal spending on surface
transportation projects through 2009nearly 70% of which has been spent on
highways, and only 1% of which has been directed to ports, national freight
gateways, and trade corridors. After that, the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act of 2009 (ARRA) provided an additional $48 billion in federal stimulus dollars for
transportation projects, most of which also went to roads.
There is no question that America must continue to provide adequate funding to
ensure the efficiency and safety of our highways, roads, and bridges since they will
always remain an important component of our transportation network. But despite
the emphasis on our road system, we are not meeting the challenge. Congestion
still predominates, especially in our metro areas, and the system has serious
safety challenges. For example, America currently has more than 69,000
structurally deficient bridges, more than 11% of all the bridges in our country. 2
Meanwhile, underinvestment in airports, in commuter and freight rail, and in
ports costs us jobs, economic growth, and access to overseas markets.
Compared to the significant sums dedicated to roads, government spending on
other modes of transportation is relatively meager. The U.S. Department of
Transportation (USDOT) spends about $10.2 billion a year on public transit, or less
than a quarter of what it spends on highways. The federal government contributes
even less to Amtraks operation costs.
In contrast to its highway funding programs, USDOT encourages greater state
contributions to transit projects. Since the majority of states are
constitutionally or statutorily prohibited from using state gas taxes for
public transit projects, USDOTs funding requirements are a tough
imposition on states. Unwilling or unable to match federal contributions
with general revenue funds, states may be more inclined to seek funding
for more road projects than for new transit projects.
The problem is that we cannot build enough roads to meet our growing
transportation needs. Weve built enough new roads between 1988 and 2008
an additional 131,723 miles of roadsto circle the globe more than five times. 3 But
despite all of the resources expended on new highways, we havent fixed
the roads and bridges that are falling apart, and we havent solved our
congestion problems.
Merely expanding our already extensive highway system is not a plan for the future.
We need a new national vision for building and maintaining an efficient
transportation that meets the needs of a 21st-century economy.
This threatens US economic competitiveness and risks

economic collapse

Rebuilding Americas economic foundation is one of the most important
missions we face in the 21st century. Our parents and grandparents built America
into the worlds leading economic superpower. We have a responsibility to our own
children and grandchildren to strengthennot squander that inheritance, and to

pass on to them a country whose best days are still ahead. Our citizens live in a
turbulent, complicated, and competitive world. The worst recession in eighty
years cost us trillions in wealth and drove millions of Americans out of
their jobs and homes. Even more, it called into question their belief in our system
and faith in the way forward.
Our infrastructureand the good policy making that built itis a key reason
America became an economic superpower. But many of the great decisions
which put us on that trajectory are now a half-century old. In the last decade, our
global economic competitors have led the way in planning and building the
transportation networks of the 21st century. Countries around the world
have not only started spending more than the United States does today, but
they made those financial commitmentsof both public and private dollarson the
basis of 21st-century strategies that will equip them to make commanding strides in
economic growth over the next 20-25 years.
Unless we make significant changes in our course and direction, the
foreign competition will pass us by, and a real opportunity to restore
Americas economic strength will be lost. The American people deserve better.
Falling Apart and Falling Behind lays out the economic challenges posed by our
ailing infrastructure, provides a comparative look at the smart investments being
made by our international competitors, and suggests a series of recommendations
for crafting new innovative transportation policies in the U.S.
A Mounting Crisis
This report frames the state of our infrastructure in terms of the new economic
realities of the 21st-century economy and presents the challenges we currently
face. The surge in global trade has realigned Americas business transport
needs, complicating supply chains and increasing the need for
sophisticated intermodal transportation. Our economically vital gateways
and corridors now operate over capacity, imposing costs of $200 billion a
year. Our passenger transport system, especially in our major
metropolitan regions, is also burdened with costly congestion as
passenger travel increases. Largely run on gasoline, our transportation
system is environmentally, politically, and economically unsustainable. We
have the worlds worst air traffic congestion, in part because we are still using the
radar-based air traffic control system developed in the 1950s.
Causes global escalatory conflicts
Burrows (counselor in the National Intelligence Council (NIC), PhD in

European History from Cambridge University) and Jennifer Harris (a member
of the NICs Long Range Analysis Unit) April 2009 Revisiting the Future:
Mathew J.
Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis

http://www.twq.com/09april/docs/09apr_Burrows.pdf
Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes the
future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and interlocking forces.
With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ample opportunity for
unintended consequences, there is a growing sense of insecurity. Even so, history
may be more instructive than ever. While we continue to believe that the
Great Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be drawn
from that period include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies and
multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and on the
sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nations in the same
period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the twenty-first as
much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in which the
potential for greater conflict could grow would seem to be even more apt
in a constantly volatile economic environment as they would be if change
would be steadier. In surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood that
terrorism and nonproliferation will remain priorities even as resource issues move
up on the international agenda. Terrorisms appeal will decline if economic
growth continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced. For
those terrorist groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of
technologies and scientific knowledge will place some of the worlds most
dangerous capabilities within their reach. Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a
combination of descendants of long established groupsinheriting organizational
structures, command and control processes, and training procedures necessary to
conduct sophisticated attacksand newly emergent collections of the angry and
disenfranchised that become self-radicalized, particularly in the absence of
economic outlets that would become narrower in an economic downturn.
The most dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of
U.S. military presence would almost certainly be the Middle East. Although Irans
acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, worries about a nuclear-armed Iran
could lead states in the region to develop new security arrangements with external
powers, acquire additional weapons, and consider pursuing their own nuclear
ambitions. It is not clear that the type of stable deterrent relationship that existed
between the great powers for most of the Cold War would emerge naturally in the
Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity conflict and terrorism
taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an unintended escalation
and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states involved are not well
established. The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals combined with
underdeveloped surveillance capabilities and mobile dual-capable Iranian missile
systems also will produce inherent difficulties in achieving reliable indications and
warning of an impending nuclear attack. The lack of strategic depth in neighboring
states like Israel, short warning and missile flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian
intentions may place more focus on preemption rather than defense, potentially
leading to escalating crises Types of conflict that the world continues to
experience, such as over resources, could reemerge, particularly if
protectionism grows and there is a resort to neo-mercantilist practices.
Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity will drive countries to take actions
to assure their future access to energy supplies. In the worst case, this
could result in interstate conflicts if government leaders deem assured
access to energy resources, for example, to be essential for maintaining
domestic stability and the survival of their regime. Even actions short of war,
however, will have important geopolitical implications. Maritime security
concerns are providing a rationale for naval buildups and modernization
efforts, such as Chinas and Indias development of blue water naval capabilities. If
the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries indeed turns inward, one of the
most obvious funding targets may be military. Buildup of regional naval
capabilities could lead to increased tensions, rivalries, and
counterbalancing moves, but it also will create opportunities for multinational
cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also becoming scarcer in
Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is
likely to be increasingly difficult both within and between states in a more dogeat-dog world.
Substantially expanding investment in transportation

infrastructure is key to economic growth
Ruane, 11 - President and CEO, American Road & Transportation Builders'

Association (Pete, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
Hearing - "Building American Transportation Infrastructure Through Innovative
Funding.", 7/20, Congressional Documents and Publications lexis)//DH
One of the most attractive benefits of major public investments in
transportation infrastructure is they create tangible capital assets that are
long-lived. In addition to creating jobs and generating tax revenues
throughout the economy during the construction cycle, these investments
provide infrastructure improvements that foster and facilitate continuing
economic growth over many years beyond the initial investment.
The greatest long-term economic returns can often be found in strategic
investments that facilitate business activity, especially in industries that depend on
the transportation network. Infrastructure investments aimed at reducing
traffic congestion or providing faster point-to-point travel, for example, can
increase productivity by reducing travel time.
Given the recent economic recession and the challenges our country continues to
face in terms of unemployment, particularly in the construction sector, passing a
robust federal surface transportation bill will help sustain and create jobs
and support future economic growth.
Current transportation infrastructure investments generate over $380
billion in annual economic activity for the nation - which is nearly 3 percent of
U.S. Gross Domestic Product. This activity supports nearly 3.4 million jobs
throughout the U.S. economy with a payroll of over $159.3 billion. This includes
approximately 1.7 million direct jobs for transportation construction workers and
supplier firms. As those 1.7 million people spend their wages by going out to
restaurants, buying cars or trucks, purchasing groceries or consuming housing, their
spending supports an additional 1.7 million jobs in other sectors of the U.S.
economy.
Unfortunately, the politicization of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act
(ARRA) has led some to question the job creation/sustaining benefits of federal
transportation investment. While there have been a great deal of flawed claims that
the ARRA's transportation investments did not work, the simple fact is that
transportation is virtually the only construction activity that did not suffer
a downturn during the recent recession--almost solely because of the
Recovery Act. The measure provided a critical one-time injection of federal
investment into transportation improvements. In so doing, it preserved thousands of
jobs that would otherwise have disappeared and the improvements resulting from
the 14,000 Recovery Act construction projects will benefit communities and
businesses for years to come. But the full potential of the Act was undermined
by the collapse of private sector construction activity and cuts in state
and local transportation construction investment over the last two years. In
fact, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office publication references a

preliminary U.S. Department of Transportation report that found 21 states did not
meet the ARRA's maintenance of effort requirement and reduced dedicated
revenues for transportation at the same time the Recovery Act boosted federal
transportation investment.
But direct employment is only the tip of the iceberg. Even more important are the
jobs and economic activity that could not exist without our nation's modern
transportation infrastructure. Every manufacturing plant in the U.S., every
retail store, every plumber and service worker, every trucker and millions of other
jobs depend on highways, airports and railroads for inputs and to deliver
products to customers. If we let our transportation system decay,
American workers across the economy will be hurt. There are approximately
78.6 million American jobs in just tourism, manufacturing, transportation and
warehousing, agriculture, general construction, mining, retailing and wholesaling
alone that are dependent on the work done by the U.S. transportation construction
industry. These dependent industries provide a total payroll in excess of
$2.8 trillion.
The U.S. is experiencing intense competition from emerging economies
around the world. Our transportation infrastructure is critical to our
competitiveness. We have started with a great advantage - the investment
America made in the Interstate Highways. But we are losing that advantage as
China, India and Europe are all investing more in new capacity than we are because
they recognize the importance of transportation infrastructure to their economic
competitiveness.
In China, infrastructure spending has increased an average of 20 percent each year
over the last two decades. China, which is roughly the same size as the continental
U.S., has built over 30,000 miles of new expressways in the last 10 years. Their
highway system is expected to extend over 53,000 miles by 2020, surpassing the
current 47,000 miles of Interstate in the United States. n2
One of the most powerful things Congress can do to support existing jobs,
create new jobs and strengthen the foundation of U.S. economic
competitiveness is to pass a robust multi-year reauthorization of the
federal highway and transit programs in 2011.
Infrastructure spending creates a short term stimulus

This failure to keep pace with the worlds innovators in transportation is
already costing us money, jobs, profits, and opportunities i n the rich and
growing export market, and risks putting us further and further behind in the
global economy. To avoid that fate, we must invest in cuttingedge
transportation infrastructure in ways that will jump-start job creation in
the short-term and stimulate the long-term growth that our economy
needs to compete in the 21st century.
Infrastructure projects can create jobs the economy needs right now. The
Federal Highway Administration estimates that every billion dollars of federal
spending creates 27,822 jobs in construction and supporting industries. 1 Federal
investment in public transportation generates even more jobs: every
billion dollars supports 36,100 jobs. 2 And an investment in transportation
projects will generate even more long-term growth. Infrastructure is a
smart investment: every $1 spent on infrastructure projects spurs
economic activity, raising the level of GDP by about $1.59. 3
1ac oil advantage

The current roads focus in transportation policy exacerbates
oil dependence
Sandalow, 7 - David Sandalow is Energy and Environment Scholar at The
Brookings Institution (Ending Oil Dependence, 1/22,
http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/fellows/sandalow20070122.pdf)
Americans are driving more and enjoying it less. Between 1993 and 2003,
vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. increased 26%. Drivers report spending more time
in their cars each day up from 49 minute average in 1990 to 62 minutes today.
Traffic congestion is a growing frustration for millions. 32
More sensible growth patterns could help improve quality of life while
reducing oil dependence. Transit-oriented development building mixeduse communities around transit stations is one increasingly popular
approach. A recent study found that doubling ridership on mass transit
nationally could save 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline per year. 33
Longstanding federal subsidies for urban highway construction have
contributed to the current mix of traffic congestion, driver unhappiness
and oil consumption. Ironically, repeated experiences in major U.S. cities
demonstrate that building more roads fails to solve traffic congestion. One
expert summed it up by saying: Trying to cure traffic congestion by building more
roads is like trying to cure obesity by loosening your belt. 34 The most recent
federal highway bill, passed in August 2005, provides four times more
funding for highways than mass transit. 35
Federal support for mass transit is vital to shifting away from new road
construction its vital to substantially decreasing oil
dependence
Nelder, 9 - Chris Nelder is an energy analyst and consultant who has written about
energy and investing for more than a decade (Is Obama's Infrastructure Plan Built
to Last?, Energy & Capital, 1/14, http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/obamainfrastructure-energy/813)//DH
It is abundantly clear to me, as it is to any student of peak oil or anybody who has
read my column or my books, that rail is the obvious priority for the future of
transportation. Rail is by far the cheapest and most fuel-efficient form of
transport, requiring about a third less fuel than air for personal travel, and
as little as 3% of the energy for freight.
Yet, our current rail system is a joke compared to the rest of the developed world. As
James Howard Kunstler has remarked, even Bulgaria would be ashamed of our rail
system. Destinations are limited, especially in the West, and most of the trains run
on diesel. Our fastest train, Amtrak's Acela, only does about 100 mph on its short
run from Boston to D.C., less than half the speed of modern high-speed trains
elsewhere.
If we really intend to have an infrastructure that survives peak oil, we
have to transform it to run on renewably generated electricity. We also have to
expand it massively and take millions of cars and transport trucks off the
road. Doing so would probably cost trillions of dollars and would be worth every
penny. For example, a high-speed rail corridor for the Northeast would run about
$32 billion. Laying high-speed rail between the major cities of California would cost
north of $40 billion.
So far, however, I have seen little suggestion of such an ambitious transformation.
The funding package approved in October by Congress would grant a paltry $13
billion to passenger rail over five years, of which three-fourths would go to Amtrak.
Another $5 billion is currently proposed by the House transportation and
infrastructure committee for intercity rail. That's not transformation spending; that's
barely better than maintenance spending.
In fact, despite Obama's pledge to devote funds to projects beyond "roads and
bridges," it's now looking like the states might hijack those funds and try to
pour much of the Obama stimulus package money into roads and cars.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Missouri plans to spend $750 million of it on
highways and nothing on mass transit. Utah would devote 87% of its share to new
roads, and Arizona would spend $869 million on highways. Presumably, other states
have similar priorities.
I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of the states. Saddled with declining
revenues due to the recession and a crumbling road, bridge and airport
infrastructure badly in need of repair, they have to do something. In the
absence of strong federal leadership into mass transit, they have little
choice but to try to maintain what they have.
A spokesman for House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman
James Oberstar quoted in the Bloomberg article was blunt: "We like the
environmentally friendly way of doing things but the charge we were given was to
come up with something that can happen quickly," he said. "We can't lose sight of
what the primary goal here is, and that is to put people to work."
Not Just Jobs, but the Right Jobs
Which brings us to the key point: Instead of seeking "shovel ready" projects that can
be started within 180 days to create new jobs ASAP, the Obama team should be
looking at the long view on energy and ensuring what we build now is truly built to
last. Roadsespecially new roadsare definitely not that.
According to the director of Washington-based Building America's Future, some
$16.5 billion in mass transit projects can be started within a year. (By
comparison, tens of billions of dollars have already been committed to high-speed
electric rail in Europe and Asia.) Those projects should be our immediate
national priority, followed by some deep and serious planning for a longterm transportation infrastructure that will survive $150 oil and declining
supply. President Roosevelt created just such a planning board as part of the New
Deal, which eventually resulted in the interstate highway system.
By planning for it now, we could achieve a somewhat orderly transition
away from liquid fuels and toward efficient electric transport. We'll still
create millions of new jobs, only they'll be theright jobs. Jobs that won't
disappear the next time oil spikes.
Oil dependence escalates multiple flashpoints globally
Mark Rosen (Deputy General Counsel at the Center for Naval Analyses &
Professor of Homeland Security Law and Policy at George Washington University)
2010 Energy Independence and Climate Change: The Economic and National
Security Consequences of Failing to Act University of Richmond Law Review, Lexis
There is a growing consensus in U.S. national security circles that American
dependence on imported oil constitutes a threat to the United States
because a substantial portion of those oil reserves are controlled by
governments that have historically pursued policies inimical to U.S.
interests. For example, Venezuela, which represents eleven percent of U.S.
oil imports, "regularly espouses anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric
both at home and abroad ... [and] ... promotes ... [an] anti-U.S. influence in parts of
Latin and South America ..." 72 that retards the growth of friendly political and
economic ties among the United States, Venezuela, and a few other states in Latin
and South America. This scenario plays out in many different regions. Russia, for
example, has used its oil leverage to exert extreme political pressure upon
Ukraine and Belarus. 73 Longstanding Western commercial relations with
repressive regimes in the Middle East - i.e., Iran, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia raise similar issues because of the mixed strategic messages that are being sent.
Of course, large wealth [*989] transfers have allowed the Taliban in Saudi Arabia to
bankroll terrorism. 74 A. Chokepoints and Flashpoints For the foreseeable future,
the U.S. military will most likely be involved in protecting access to oil
supplies - including the political independence of oil producers - and the global
movements of using oil to help sustain the smooth functioning of the
world economy. The security challenges associated with preserving access
to oil are complicated by geographical "chokepoints," through which oil flows
or is transported, but which are vulnerable to piracy or closure. 75
"Flashpoints" also exist as a result of political - and sometimes military - competition
to secure commercial or sovereign access to oil in the face of disputed maritime and
land claims that are associated with oil and gas deposits. Together, these
challenges have necessitated that the United States and its allies maintain
costly navies and air forces to protect sea lanes, ocean access, and
maintain a presence to deter military competition in disputed regions. A
selection of today's chokepoints and flashpoints follow. The Strait of Hormuz. This
strait is the narrow waterway that allows access from the Indian Ocean into the
Persian Gulf. Two-thirds of the world's oil is transported by ocean, and a very large
percentage of that trade moves through Hormuz. The northern tip of Oman forms
the southern shoreline of the strait. 76 Hormuz is protected by the constant transits
of the U.S. Navy and its allies. Even though the strait has not been closed, the
Persian Gulf has been the scene of extensive military conflict. 77 On September 22,
1980, Iraq invaded Iran, initiating an eight-year war between the two countries that
featured the "War of the Tankers," in which 543 ships, including the USS Stark, were
attacked, while the U.S. Navy provided escort services to protect tankers [*990] that
were transiting the Persian Gulf. 78 There have been past threats by Iran to
militarily close the strait. 79 Additionally, there are ongoing territorial
disputes between the United Arab Emirates and Iran over ownership of three
islands that are located in approaches to the strait. 80 Closure of the strait would
cause severe disruption in the movements of the world's oil supplies and,
at a minimum, cause significant price increases and perhaps supply shortages in
many regions for the duration of the closure. 81 During the War of the Tankers, oil
prices increased from $ 13 per barrel to $ 31 a barrel due to supply disruptions and
other "fear" factors. 82 Bab el-Mandeb. The strait separates Africa (Djibouti and
Eritrea) and Asia (Yemen), and it connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean via the
Gulf of Aden. The strait is an oil transit chokepoint since most of Europe's crude oil
from the Middle East passes north through Bab el-Mandeb into the Mediterranean
via the Suez Canal. 83 Closure of the strait due to terrorist activities or for
political/military reasons, could keep tankers from the Persian Gulf from reaching
the Suez Canal and Sumed Pipeline complex, diverting them around the southern tip
of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope). 84 This would add greatly to transit time and
cost, and would effectively tie-up spare tanker capacity. Closure of the Bab elMandeb would effectively block non-oil shipping from using the Suez Canal. 85 In
October 2002 the French-flagged tanker Limburg was attacked off the coast of
Yemen by terrorists. 86 During the [*991] Yom Kippur War in 1973, Egypt closed the
strait as a means of blockading the southern Israeli port of Eilat. 87 The Turkish
Straits and Caspian Oil. The term "Turkish Straits" refers to the two narrow straits in
northwestern Turkey, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, which connect the Sea of
Marmara with the Black Sea on one side and the Aegean arm of the Mediterranean
Sea on the other. Turkey and Russia have been locked in a longstanding dispute
over passage issues involving the Turkish Straits. 88 The 1936 Montreux Convention
puts Turkey in charge of regulating traffic through the straits; 89 yet Turkey has
been hard pressed to stop an onslaught of Russian, Ukrainian, and Cypriot tankers,
which transport Caspian Sea oil to markets in Western Europe. 90 Because of the
very heavy shipping traffic and very challenging geography, there have been many
collisions and groundings in the past, creating terrible pollution incidents and death.
91 Thus far, none of these incidents have been attributed to state-on-state-conflict
or terrorism; 92 however, the confined waterway is an especially attractive
target because of the grave economic and environmental damage that
would result from a well-timed and well-placed attack on a loaded tanker.
The issues surrounding the straits are also a subset of larger problems associated
with the exploitation of Caspian oil, including severe pollution of the Caspian Sea as
a result of imprudent extraction techniques, as well as the ever-present potential for
conflict among the various claimants to the Caspian's hydrocarbon resources due to
an inability of the various Caspian littoral states to agree on their maritime
boundaries - and their [*992] legal areas in which to drill. 93 Any one of these
problems could become a major flashpoint in the future. China vs. Japan. The
Daiyu/Senkaku islands located in the East China Sea have become an increasingly
contentious dispute because both claimants have, in the past, used modern military
platforms to patrol the areas of their claims in which there are suspected oil and gas
deposits in the seabed. 94 In September 2005, for example, China dispatched five
warships to disputed waters surrounding its oil and gas platforms, which were
spotted by a Japanese maritime patrol aircraft. 95 There have been other similar
military-to-military encounters. 96 Given the fact that both countries have
modern armed forces and are comparatively energy starved, it is not difficult to
envision serious conflict erupting over these disputed areas. The Arctic
Super Highway. Traditionalists would probably not include the Arctic as a security
chokepoint. The oil connection is reasonably well known: "22 percent of the world's
undiscovered energy reserves are projected to be in the region (including 13
percent of the world's petroleum and 30 percent of natural gas)." 97 However, given
the very small margins that transporters earn transporting oil from point A to B, 98
shipping companies are always in search of shorter routes to transport oil to market.
As the thawing of the Arctic Ocean continues as a result of climate change, 99
this may create new shipping routes that transporters of [*993] oil and
other goods will use to maximize their profits and minimize their transit times. As
supplies of readily exploitable crude oil are reduced, the probability increases that
some of this trade will result from exploitation activities in the land and littoral areas
adjacent to the Arctic Sea. This development is concerning for a number of reasons:
(1) the area is very remote and could provide a safe haven to pirates
seeking to hijack cargoes; (2) the environmental sensitivity of the area, and the
concomitant difficulty of mounting a cleanup effort, means that an oil spill in that
marine environment will be much more persistent than an oil spill in temperate
waters; 100 (3) the Arctic presents unique navigational difficulties due to the lack of
good charts, navigational aids, and communications towers, as well as the impacts
of extreme cold on the operational effectiveness of systems; 101 (4) the unsettled
nature of claims by various countries, including the United States, to the seabed
continental shelf resources in the littoral areas off their coastlines creates the
potential for military competition and conflict over these claims. 102 The
International Maritime Organization ("IMO") is now circulating draft guidelines for
ships operating in Arctic areas to promote - but not require - ship hardening against
an iceberg strike, better crew training, and environmental protection measures. 103
These guidelines are merely advisory and can only be implemented via the flag
states. 104 Also, neither IMO nor any of the UN Law of the Sea Institutions have
mandatory jurisdiction over any of the flashpoint issues relating [*994] to
competing continental shelf claims in the Arctic, 105 meaning that any disputes will
remain unresolved for a long time. The above is only a selected list of potential
flashpoints in which oil is the main culprit. Disputes between China and six
other nations of the Spratly Islands, and other territories in the South China
Sea, remain unresolved. 106 The Spratly Islands could become a flashpoint
in the future, involving the United States or its allies, because of the proximity of
those areas to the major sea routes to Japan and Korea. 107 The strategic straits
of Malacca, Lombok, and Sunda in Southeast Asia are absolutely essential
to the movement of raw materials to Japan, Korea, and China. 108 Because of
Lombok's depth and strategic location, it is a major transit route for very large
crude carriers that move between the Middle East and Asia. 109 Lombok is an
undefended waterway that is only eighteen kilometers in width at its southern
opening, making it an attractive chokepoint for hijacking or eco-terrorism in which
the waters of the environmentally sensitive Indonesian archipelago would be held
hostage. 110
Extinction
Lendman (Research Associate of the Centre for Research on

Globalization) 2007 Resource Wars - Can We Survive Them
Stephen
http://www.rense.com/general76/resrouce.htm
With the world's energy supplies finite, the US heavily dependent on imports,
and "peak oil" near or approaching, "security" for America means assuring a
sustainable supply of what we can't do without. It includes waging wars to
get it, protect it, and defend the maritime trade routes over which it
travels. That means energy's partnered with predatory New World Order
globalization, militarism, wars, ecological recklessness, and now an
extremist US administration willing to risk Armageddon for world dominance.
Central to its plan is first controlling essential resources everywhere, at
any cost, starting with oil and where most of it is located in the Middle East and
Central Asia. The New "Great Game" and Perils From It The new "Great Game's"
begun, but this time the stakes are greater than ever as explained above. The old
one lasted nearly 100 years pitting the British empire against Tsarist Russia when
the issue wasn't oil. This time, it's the US with help from Israel, Britain, the West,
and satellite states like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan challenging Russia and China
with today's weapons and technology on both sides making earlier ones look like
toys. At stake is more than oil. It's planet earth with survival of all life on it
issue number one twice over. Resources and wars for them means militarism
is increasing, peace declining, and the planet's ability to sustain life front and
center, if anyone's paying attention. They'd better be because beyond the point of
no return, there's no second chance the way Einstein explained after the atom was
split. His famous quote on future wars was : "I know not with what weapons World
War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Under
a worst case scenario, it's more dire than that. There may be nothing left but
resilient beetles and bacteria in the wake of a nuclear holocaust meaning
even a new stone age is way in the future, if at all. The threat is real and once
nearly happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962. We later learned
a miracle saved us at the 40th anniversary October, 2002 summit meeting in
Havana attended by the US and Russia along with host country Cuba. For the first
time, we were told how close we came to nuclear Armageddon. Devastation was
avoided only because Soviet submarine captain Vasily Arkhipov countermanded his
order to fire nuclear-tipped torpedos when Russian submarines were attacked by US
destroyers near Kennedy's "quarantine" line. Had he done it, only our imagination
can speculate what might have followed and whether planet earth, or at least a big
part of it, would have survived.
1ac warming advantage

Warming happening now rising water temperatures prove
USA Today 11 leader in news, the widest circulated print newspaper in the
United States (Wendy Koch, 1/29/11, " Arctic waters are warmest in 2000 years:
Study ", http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011/01/arcticwaters-warmest-2000-years/1)
Water flowing into the Arctic Ocean from the North Atlantic is now the warmest in at
least 2,000 years, reports a new international study that's bad news for climate
change as well as polar bears needing sea ice for survival. Waters of the Fram
Strait, which runs between Greenland and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, have
warmed about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 100 years, according to the
study published in the Jan. 28 issue of the journal Science. Temperatures are about
2.5 degrees higher than during the Medieval Warm Period, a time of elevated
warmth from A.D. 900 to 1300. "Such a warming of the Atlantic water in the Fram
Strait is significantly different from all climate variations in the last 2,000 years,"
study lead author Robert Spielhagen of the Academy of Sciences, Humanities and
Literature in Mainz, Germany, said in announcing the findings. "Cold seawater is
critical for the formation of sea ice, which helps to cool the planet by reflecting
sunlight back to space," said study co-author Thomas Marchitto, a
paleoclimatologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The Arctic lost sea ice
larger than the state of Alaska between 1979 and 2009 and could become ice-free
during the summers within the next several decades, according to UC's National
Snow and Ice Data Center.
Plan is a credible international signal of the need to reduce

warming and is modeled
Burwell, 10 Director of the Energy and Climate Program at Carnegie (David,
TransportationThe Leading Cause of Global Warming, 4/15,
http://carnegieendowment.org/2010/04/15/transportation-leading-cause-of-globalwarming/2fr2)//DH
How do U.S. efforts to reduce transportations impact on atmospheric warming
relate to global climate negotiations?
The United States consumes 25 percent of the worlds petroleum and thats
primarily because of the way we travel. Seventy percent of oil
consumption in the United States is transportation and that is because were
spread out, we drive everywhere, and we have over 700 cars per 1,000
people in order to support our driving habits.
The rest of the world is much less dependent on cars and much more efficient
consumers of petroleum. If we dont adopt measures that reduce our need to
travelfor our own benefitwe cant expect the rest of the world not to
behave in the same way.
By addressing the way we travel, by helping ourselves, by giving ourselves more
transportation choices, by connecting transportation to land use
development, we are not only helping ourselves, but we are providing a model
for the rest of the world of how they can develop in a way that is
sustainable, low carbon, and provides more choices for everybody.
If the United States passed a climate bill that priced transportation carbon and
linked it to a transportation bill that would reinvest the revenues into a
green transportation system, the United States would be on track to meet its
stated obligation of a 17 to 20 percent absolute decrease in greenhouse gas
emissions by 2020.
That would give comfort to other countriesparticularly China, India, and
other emerging economiesthat the United States is serious about
reducing its transportation carbon and it would contribute to the
likelihood of a global climate agreement.
Left unchecked, warming will cause extinction
Sify 2010 Sydney newspaper citing Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, professor at

University of Queensland and Director of the Global Change Institute, and John
Bruno, associate professor of Marine Science at UNC (Sify News, Could unbridled
climate changes lead to human extinction?, http://www.sify.com/news/couldunbridled-climate-changes-lead-to-human-extinction-news-internationalkgtrOhdaahc.html
The findings of the comprehensive report: 'The impact of climate change on the
world's marine ecosystems' emerged from a synthesis of recent research on the
world's oceans, carried out by two of the world's leading marine scientists. One of
the authors of the report is Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, professor at The University of
Queensland and the director of its Global Change Institute (GCI). 'We may see
sudden, unexpected changes that have serious ramifications for the overall wellbeing of humans, including the capacity of the planet to support people. This is
further evidence that we are well on the way to the next great extinction event,'
says Hoegh-Guldberg. 'The findings have enormous implications for mankind,
particularly if the trend continues. The earth's ocean, which produces half of the
oxygen we breathe and absorbs 30 per cent of human-generated carbon dioxide, is
equivalent to its heart and lungs. This study shows worrying signs of ill-health. It's
as if the earth has been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day!,' he added. 'We are
entering a period in which the ocean services upon which humanity depends are
undergoing massive change and in some cases beginning to fail', he added. The
'fundamental and comprehensive' changes to marine life identified in the report
include rapidly warming and acidifying oceans, changes in water circulation and
expansion of dead zones within the ocean depths. These are driving major changes
in marine ecosystems: less abundant coral reefs, sea grasses and mangroves
(important fish nurseries); fewer, smaller fish; a breakdown in food chains; changes
in the distribution of marine life; and more frequent diseases and pests among
marine organisms. Study co-author John F Bruno, associate professor in marine
science at The University of North Carolina, says greenhouse gas emissions are
modifying many physical and geochemical aspects of the planet's oceans, in ways
'unprecedented in nearly a million years'. 'This is causing fundamental and
comprehensive changes to the way marine ecosystems function,' Bruno warned,
according to a GCI release. These findings were published in Science
1ac plan
The United States federal government should substantially increase its investment
in mass transit in the United States.
1ac solvency
Expanding federal infrastructure investment will substantially
expand mass transit key to leveraging private sector
investment and altering current pro-highway federal
incentives
Puentes, 8 - Fellow and Director, Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative Brookings
Institution (Robert, "Strengthening the Ability of Public Transportation to Reduce Our
Dependence on Foreign Oil Congressional Testimony, 9/9,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/testimony/2008/9/09%20transport
ation%20puentes/0909_transportation_puentes.pdf)//DH
2. Yet, most metropolitan areas are beset with limited transit and overall travel
options
In addition to these struggles, the reality is that the availability and
accessibility of public transportation across the country's 100 largest
metro areas is seriously lacking.
Although nearly every metropolitan area enjoys bus service, more than half is
concentrated in just 10 large metros like New York, Miami, and Seattle. Heavy rail
also referred to as subwaysexist in only 11 metros like Philadelphia and San
Francisco. Commuter rail is in only 14 metropolitan areas, primarily in the
Northeast and California. And light rail can be found in only 26, like Salt Lake City,
Charlotte, and Denver. Therefore, based simply on the amount of transit
infrastructure available, 54 of the 100 largest metros do not have any rail
transit service and also have relatively weak bus systems. This includes
large metros like Orlando and Indianapolis; fast growing metros like Raleigh and
Jacksonville, FL and slow growing metros like Youngstown and Rochester, NY.
This lack of metropolitan travel options means tens of millions of
Americans are tethered to their cars for their daily travel needs. That is,
assuming they can afford the high costs of owning a car. As employment has
dispersed throughout metropolitan America, lower income workers are finding
themselves increasingly isolated and therefore need to spend higher proportions of
their income to reach their jobs. Many simply have no choice but to spend $4 for a
gallon of gas.
Information drawn from the three most recent years of the American Housing
Survey shows that only 55 percent of respondents reported that transit is
even available to them. More disturbing is that only one-third of respondents in
newly-constructed housing reported that transit was present. Transit was much
more readily available in center cities (82 percent) than in suburbs (52 percent). 21
One reason the metropolitan transportation systemwhich should serve as
the connective tissue within and between metropolitan areasis woefully
incomplete, is due to flaws in federal policy. Federal transportation policy
has long favored highway building over transit investments. 22 Transit
projects are evaluated and funded differently than highways. The pot of available
federal transit funding is so small that the federal government oversees a
competitive process for new transit funding, requiring multiple
hypercompetitive bureaucratic reviews that demonstrate a project's cost-
effectiveness. Funding is also subject to annual congressional appropriations.

Highways do not undergo the same level of scrutiny or funding uncertainty. Also,
while highways typically receive up to 80 percent of federal funds (and 90
percent for improvements and maintenance), new transit projects' federal
contribution is often less than half of the project cost. 23
Taken together, these biases ensure that state transportation policy
pursued under federal law works against many metropolitan areas' efforts
to maintain modern and integrated transportation networks 3. The
investments that have been made in transit are not having the effect they could At
the convergence of these trends is the realization that a substantial market exists
for a new form of walkable, mixed-use urban development around transit stops in
real estate markets as diverse as suburban New Jersey, Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago.
Overall, transit-oriented developments (TODs) are designed to weave
transit stations into the fabric of the surrounding community, and to
increase the role of transit in the transportation system, and more generally
the day-to-day life of the surrounding area.
These transit-oriented developments have the potential to lower household
transportation expenses, reduce environmental and energy impacts, and provide
real alternatives to traffic congestion. Residents who live in transit-oriented housing
typically use transit 2 to 5 times more than other commuters in the region. In
addition, those households are twice as likely to not own a car at all, and generally
own half as many cars as similar households not living in transit rich neighborhoods.
24
Other research shows the benefit of TOD on household budgets. In just eight cities,
more than 100,000 federally assisted housing units sheltering more than 300,000
individuals are located in transit rich neighborhoods. Approximately 65,500 of these
units are covered by federal rental assistance contracts expiring before the end of
2012. 25
A recent federal transit administration study shows that families that live in TOD
neighborhoods spend just 9 percent of their household budget on transportation,
compared to 25 percent for those in automobile-dependent suburbs. 26 While the
share of spending on housing is equal, the transportation savings are critically
important to low income families for whom transportation eats up a
disproportionately large share of their annual income.
The benefits of TOD could be bolstered by synergies with other policies, notably
policies that encourage urban infilling, such as the rejuvenation of brownfields, the
development of urban enterprise zones, locating new federal buildings in promising
mixed-use, higher-density commercial areas, and the use of alternative mortgage
products such as energy efficient and locationally efficient mortgages. The results
will give metropolitan areas more flexibility and the nation expanded options for
addressing large-scale challenges. However, many of these benefits are not being
realized. Although TOD is now starting to be recognized as a viable type of
development, there is still a widespread lack of understanding of its nature, its
potential, the challenges it faces, and the tools needed to overcome these
challenges.
For one, there is no universally accepted premise about exactly what TOD should
accomplish, nor are there standard benchmarks for success. For example, some
developments are labeled TOD by virtue of their proximity to a transit station,
regardless of how well they capitalize on that proximity or capture the increase in
land value. In addition, there are multiple actors engaged in TOD projects including
the transit agency, riders, neighbors, developers, lenders, and government at all
levels. They often bring different goals to the table, pursue strategies that work at
cross-purposes to each other, and lack unifying policy objectives. 27
In short, TOD requires synergy among many different uses and functions that is
difficult to achieve. As a result, TOD almost always involves more complexity,
greater uncertainty, and higher costs than other forms of infill development. We
need to make TOD easy and non-leveraged investments hard. In other words, we
need to flip the system.
The federal government can play a critical role in supporting the planning
of such projects and corridors, coordinating with private sector developers
and lenders, and promoting metropolitan diversity in project selection.
Such considerations would catalyze the nearly $75 billion in public dollars
invested in rail transit over the past 11 years and go a long way to
reducing energy consumption as an explicit national goal.
Federal action is key to investor predictability the private

sector wont lend for transit infrastructure without
consistent federal support
Melaniphy, 12 - President & CEO American Public Transportation Association
(Michael, Testimony efore The Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban
Development, and Related Agencies of the Senate Committee on Appropriations,
3/21,
http://www.apta.com/gap/testimony/2012/Pages/120319_SenateTestimony.aspx)
APTAs highest priority continues to be the enactment of a well-funded, multi-modal
surface transportation authorization bill. We recognize the challenge that the
absence of an authorization bill places on the Appropriations Committee, yet we
must stress the tremendous needs that persist for public transportation agencies
throughout the country, and remind Congress that investment in transportation
infrastructure puts Americans to work. Failure to invest will force private
sector businesses in the transit industry and other industries to lay off
employees and to invest overseas, while increased federal investment
addresses the need for much-needed capital investments and the growth
of the industry. For the nations tens of millions of transit riders, any cuts will
mean less service, fewer travel options, higher costs and longer
commutes. Americans took 10.4 billion trips on public transportation in 2011, a
2.31% increase from 2010 and the second highest annual ridership total since 1957.
Only ridership in 2008, when gas rose to more than $4 a gallon, surpassed last
years ridership, and today gas prices are continuing to rise.
About APTA
APTA is a nonprofit international association of 1,500 public and private member
organizations, including transit systems and high-speed, intercity and commuter rail
operators; planning, design, construction, and finance firms; product and service
providers; academic institutions; transit associations and state departments of
transportation.
Overview of FY 2013 Funding Requests
First, let me applaud the Senate for its work on passing the Moving Ahead for
Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), with strong bipartisan support. It has
been more than two years since the expiration of SAFETEA-LU, and we are excited
to see progress being made towards a new authorization law. However, in the
absence of a finalized piece of legislation, APTA continues to look towards existing
law, appropriations, and current budget proposals for appropriations request
guidance.
It is important that steady and growing investment continue despite
economic or fiscal situations, as demand and long-term planning
requirements for transportation investment continue as well. In the Obama
Administrations FY 2013 Budget Proposal, along with their proposed six-year
surface transportation authorization proposal, the President requests $10.8 billion
for public transportation programs in FY 2013 and would additionally include $50
billion for a one-time state of good repair investment program, spread across
highway and transit programs. The Presidents proposal also requests $2.5 billion
for high-speed and intercity passenger rail. APTA applauds the Presidents proposed
public transportation budget request.
While we recognize the growing pressures that are impacting general fund budget
authority allocations, APTA urges Congress to resist efforts to make further cuts to
general fund components of the federal transit program, such as Capital Investment
Grants and research, as these are important elements of federal surface
transportation investment. In particular, many in the transit industry were
particularly concerned about cuts in FY 2012 to the Transit Cooperative Research
Program (TCRP), an important program that produces basic research that is used by
transit agencies nationwide to improve efficiency, safety and technical capacity.
Finally, we encourage Congress to fund the Rail Safety Technology Grants program
(Section 105) of the Rail Safety Improvement Act (RSIA) at a level significantly
higher than the $50 million authorized annually through FY 2013, to assist with the
implementation of congressionally mandated positive train control systems. The
federal deadline for implementation of positive train control systems is rapidly
approaching, and to date, Congress has not provided the necessary funding to
support implementation of this important safety program.
The Need for Federal Transit Investment
In previous testimony to this subcommittee, APTA presented the case for increasing
federal investment in public transportation. The U.S. Department of Transportation
estimates that a one-time investment $78 billion is needed to bring
currently operating transit infrastructure up to a state of good repair, and
this does not include annual costs to maintain, expand or operate the existing
system. Research on transit needs shows that capital investment from all
sources - federal, state, and local - should be doubled if we are to prepare
for future ridership demands.
APTAs overall funding recommendation continues to be informed by our
recommendations for surface transportation authorization and the estimated federal
funding growth required to meet at least 50 percent of the $60 billion in annual
transit capital needs. These levels are intended to support a projected doubling of
transit ridership over the next 20 years. It is important to stress that the demand
for public transportation and the need for federal leadership will not
diminish in the months and years ahead. As gasoline prices continue to
increase, Americans are turning to public transportation in record
numbers, just as they did in 2008 when gas reached an average price of $4.11 per
gallon. Public transportation is a vital component of the nations total
transportation infrastructure picture, and with ridership projected to
grow, dependable public transportation systems will be vital to the
transportation needs of millions of Americans. While Congress continues to

consider how to proceed on a well-funded, multi-modal surface transportation bill, it
remains critically important that annual appropriations bills support both current
and growing needs.
Federal Transit Administration Programs
Capital Investment Grants (New Starts) APTA was pleased to see the Senate
continue to support the New Starts program in MAP-21. The New Starts program is
the primary source of federal investment in the construction or expansion of heavy
rail, light rail, commuter rail, and bus rapid transit projects. The success of these
major, multi-year capital projects requires predictable support by
Congress and the FTA. Congress established Full Funding Grant Agreements
(FFGAs) to provide this predictability. A continued commitment to federal
investment will also influence the willingness of private financial markets
to finance public transportation projects and it will help ensure that the
bond ratings will remain high and interest rates will remain low.
We urge the Congress to recognize the importance of long-term,
predictable funding for all highway and transit programs, including New
Starts. APTA believes that the New Starts program should grow at the same rate as
the rest of the transit program, as it is essential to enhancing our nations mobility,
accessibility and economic prosperity, while promoting energy conservation and
environmental quality.
Expanding mass transit facilitates higher density land use

multiple studies prove
Hodges, 9 - Office of Budget and Policy Federal Transit Administration, U.S. DOT
(Tina, Public Transportations Role in Responding to Climate Change, January,
http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/PublicTransportationsRoleInRespondingToClimate
Change.pdf)//DH
Public transportation reduces emissions by facilitating higher density
development, which conserves land and decreases the distances people
need to travel to reach destinations. In many cases, higher density
development would be more difficult without the existence of public
transportation because more land would need to be devoted to parking
and travel lanes. By facilitating higher density development, public
transportation can shrink the footprint of an urban area and reduce
overall trip lengths. In addition, public transportation supports increased
foot traffic, street-level retail, and mixed land uses that enable a shift
from driving to walking and biking. Public transportation can also facilitate trip
chaining, such as combining dry-cleaning pick-up, shopping, and other errands on
the way home from a station. Finally, households living close to public
transportation tend to own fewer cars on average, as they may not need a car for
commuting and other trips. A reduced number of cars per household tends to lead
to reduced car use, and driving may cease to be the habitual choice for every trip.'
Multiple studies have quantified this relationship between public
transportation, land use, and reduction in travel. The studies show that for
every additional passenger mile traveled on public transportation, auto
travel declines by 1.4 to 9 miIes. In other words, in areas served by public
transportation, even non-transit users drive less because destinations are
closer together. A recent study used modeling to isolate just the effect of public
transportation on driving patterns (rather than that effect combined with denser
land use creating a need for improved public transportation). That study, conducted
by consulting firm ICF and funded through the Transit Cooperative Research
Program, found that each mile traveled on U.S. public transportation reduced
driving by 1.9 miles. It concluded that public transportation reduces U.S. travel
by an estimated 102.2 billion vehicle miles traveled (VMT) each year or 3.4%
of annual U.S. VMT A study published by the Urban Land Institute found that within
areas of compact development, driving is reduced 20% to 40% compared to
average U.S. development patterns."
Increasing land use density reduces emissions and leads to

sustainable travel a stronger mass transit investment is
key
The U.S. transportation system today consumes 70 percent of the nation's
oil and is almost entirely dependent upon petroleum-based fuels. 2 This
demand is contributing, in part, to the global rise in the price of oil and the major hit
on Americans' pocketbooks. Yet we do not come close to producing the oil we
consume and that figure is declining over time, decreasing 17.0 percent since 2000.
3 Only one-quarter of the crude oil consumed in the U.S. is domestically produced.
Twice as much is imported and the majority of that from countries considered to be
in danger of "state failure" based on a range of social, economic, and political
factors. 4 In addition, the transportation sector is responsible for one-third of
the nation's carbon emissions and the U.S. continues to rank first among
major world economies in per-capita carbon dioxide emissions, roughly
double the rate of the United Kingdom and Germany. 5
A recent Brookings study found that the density of land use patterns in
metropolitan areas and transit availability play an important role in
determining energy consumption, travel behavior and carbon emissions in
our major economic centers. 6 With the right policies in place, denser,
walkable, and transit-friendly communities can help reduce vehicle miles
traveled (VMT) and therefore help create more affordable and energyefficient travel options for Americans. Studies show that household VMT varies
with residential density and access to public transit. 7 Higher residential and
employment densities, mixed land-use, and jobshousing balance are associated
with shorter trips and lower automobile ownership and use. 8 In comparing two
households that are similar in all respects except residential density, the household
in a neighborhood with 1,000 fewer housing units per square mile drives almost
1,200 miles more and consumes 65 more gallons of fuel per year over its peer
household in a higher-density neighborhood. 9 Large metropolitan areas such as
Riverside, Nashville, and Harrisburg rank among the highest in terms of their
amount of VMT and carbon emissions per capita. New York, Chicago, and Portland,
OR rank among the lowest (see Table 1). 10 With the U.S. set to add another 120
million people by 2050 our energy pressures are likely to intensify. As a result of this
growth, America will require an additional 213 billion square feet of homes, retail
facilities, office buildings, and other built space. 11 How and where we
accommodate that growth carries far-reaching implications for our energy security,
our economic stability, and the health of our environmentand will go a long way to
determining how these places will be able to compete globally in the 21st century.
Unfortunately, as a program with its roots in the middle of the last century, the
federal surface transportation program is outdated and out-of-step with
the energy and environmental constraints of our time. 12 The broader
transportation system in the United States is no longer aligned with the way we live
or work, nor with the major economic, energy, and environmental challenges facing
the country. For example, federal transportation dollars continue to be distributed to
its grantees based on archaic funding and distributional formulas. There is no
reward for reducing the demand for driving, nor overall spending. In fact at the
same time Americans are seeking to drive less due to energy and climate concerns,
federal formulas actually reward consumption and penalize conservation.
There also continues to be almost no focus on outcomes or performance.
So at this moment of transportation crisis, billions and billions of federal
transportation dollars are disbursed without meaningful direction or
connection to advancing national interests on critical issues such as
reducing our dependence on foreign oil. 13
II. CURRENT TRANSPORTATION TRENDS
A healthy national economy depends on healthy metropolitan economies
and enhancing mobility for residents by expanding transit options is a
critical component. Therefore, for our transportation system to continue to
provide a competitive edge, reducing energy consumption by i mproving
the movement of people by multiple means both within and between
metropolitan areas should continue to be an explicit national priority. We
are already seeing transformations of dramatic scale and complexity when it comes
to our transportation system and how Americans are traveling. We know most
people can't stop traveling altogethernor should theybut some can change how
they travel.
Expanding mass transit investments solves energy

dependence and warming

III. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Federal policy can and should play a powerful role in helping metropolitan
areasand so the nationreduce energy consumption through targeted and
prioritized investments in public transit and support of transitoriented
development. The cross-boundary challenges justify a more decisive federal policy
that helps metropolitan areas promote energy- and location-efficient development.
Mr. Chairman, to do that I believe we need a systemic change in the way we think
about, design, and implement transportation policies. This means the development
of a three-pronged strategy to lead, empower, and maximize performance across

the nation.
First, the federal government must LEAD and develop a coherent national
vision for transportation, and focus on specific areas of national
importance such as reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Second, the
federal government should EMPOWER states and metropolitan areas to
grow in energy-efficient and sustainable ways. Third, the federal
government should OPTIMIZE Washington's own performance and that of
its partners in order to spend taxpayer dollars better and implement the
vision.
In the short term, the proposed transit provisions of the substitute energy bill are
consistent with this overriding frame.
Emergency transit funding to accelerate capital investments is needed to
accommodate ridership increases and provide adequate service to the
vast reaches of the country without it. Additional formula funding is
needed is avoid service cuts at the precise moment that Americans try riding the
bus or train for the first time and evaluate their options. The program to boost the
energy efficiency of transit systemsthereby cutting operating costs and helping
curb dependence on foreign oilis also a critically important component. The
proposed Transit-Oriented Development Corridors grant program also
provides an empowering model through a competitive process to
metropolitan actors with proposals for growing differently. The
considerations for evaluating grant recipients are, I believe, the right ones: clear
justification and outcome orientation that includes reducing energy consumption;
ensuring a metropolitan-wide perspective on choosing the location of the project;
coordinating with all actors and promoting public/private partnerships; mixing uses
and housing types; and harmonizing transportation with other policy areas such as
housing, economic development, and land use.
Over the long term, the upcoming reconsideration of the Safe, Accountable,
Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU)
provides the perfect opportunity for reenvisioning how transportation policy should
help solve the nation's energy and climate challenges.
The federal government should take the lead and establish a clear vision
for transportation that includes energy and climate change concerns, and
levels the playing field between the modes so energy-efficient investments
can become more feasible. A National Infrastructure Bank, which has been
championed by this committee, is an important window through which the federal
government can partner with states, metropolitan areas, and localities to implement
this national vision.
Inherency
Federal mass transit spending decreasing

The House just gutted mass transit funding

enhances our nations prosperity and quality of life (BAF Strongly Opposes House
Effort to Slash Mass Transit Funding, 2/3, http://www.bafuture.org/news/pressrelease/baf-strongly-opposes-house-effort-slash-mass-transit-funding)
The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee overturned 30 years of
bipartisan policy today by removing the certainty of funding for our public
transit systems. This change will make it impossible for transit systems to
plan for the future and serve their ever growing constituencies.
In response, Building Americas Future co-chairs Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I-NYC)
and former Governor Ed Rendell (D-PA) issued the following:
Mayor Bloomberg: "The bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee today
illustrates once again how dysfunctional Congress has become. By removing the
gas tax as the method of funding mass transit, House leadership is
threatening the future of a program, in place since the Reagan administration
that is actually working well. The lifeblood of New York City is our buses, subways
and commuter rails. Eight million people take mass transit every day in New York
which helps to cut traffic, reduce pollution, spur our economy and improve public
health. The bill passed today ignores the needs of cities across the country
by relegating transit to an "alternative" transportation with an uncertain
funding stream. Our country is being left behind as the world races ahead with
21st century infrastructure investments, this bill would take us even further from
our competitors.
Former Governor Rendell: Transit has had a vital role to play in our nations
transportation system. At a time when our roads are choking under growing traffic
congestion, it makes no sense to take away a dedicated source of funding and force
public transportation to compete against education and other important programs
for increasingly scarce dollars. A transportation bill without transit is no
transportation bill at all. The nations millions of transit riders deserve better than
this.
Mass transit limited now

Only half of the US has access to mass transit

The lack of vision, lack of funding, and lack of accountability have left
every mode of transportation in the United Stateshighways and railroads,
airports and seaports stuck in the last century and ill-equipped for the
demands of a fast-paced global economy. Only 30 of the largest 100
metropolitan areas have light rail or subway systems. 9 Only half of
Americans have access to public transit. 10 With few mobility options around
cities and metropolitan regions, the costs of traffic seem unavoidable.
Economy advantage
Infrastructure declining now

US transportation infrastructure cant keep pace with rising
demand will cause business flight
And its not just business that has changed faster than our infrastructure.
Americas transportation network is not set up to accommodate the needs
of our 21st-century lives. Passenger travel is expected to rise as the
economy recovers and our population grows, with total vehicle-miles traveled likely
to increase by 80% in the next 30 years. 11 An additional one billion commercial air
passengers are expected to fly each year by 2015, a 36% increase from 2006. 12
The vast majority of this increased traffic will occur in the urban centers
and surrounding suburbs where the U.S. populationand its economic
activityis overwhelmingly concentrated. The 100 largest U.S. metropolitan
regions house almost two-thirds of the population and generate nearly
threequarters of our GDP. In 47 stateseven those traditionally considered rural,
like Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowathe majority of GDP is generated in metropolitan
areas. 13 And over the next 20 years, 94% of the nations economic growth will
occur in metropolitan areas. 14
Metropolitan areas are already home to the most congested highways, the
oldest roads and bridges, and the most overburdened transit systems
and the strains on the transportation system are only bound to get worse.
By 2035, an estimated 70 million more people will live in U.S. metropolitan regions.
More people bring more commerce and greater transportation demands. Every
American accounts for about 40 tons of freight to be hauled each yearso an
additional 2.8 billion tons of freight will be moved to and from major metropolitan
regions in 2035. 15 Our transportation system is simply not up to the task.
Our transportation system has also not adapted to the energy realities of the 21st
century. Air pollution and carbon emissionsthe majority of which in the United
States are generated by transportationthreaten the environment. Reliance on
foreign oil has imperiled our national security. And fluctuating gas prices are making
Americans car-dependent lifestyles simply unaffordable. We are increasingly aware
that for all these reasons a transportation system largely run on gasoline is
environmentally and economically unsustainable.
In a global economy, businesses need access to manufacturing plants and
distribution centers, to international gateways like ports and airports, and
to consumers in both metropolitan and rural regions. People need reliable
and efficient ways to commute to work and go about their daily lives. We
need a modern infrastructure system if we are to meet both needs. And if we dont
create a transportation system that functions reliably and cost-effectively
in the 21st century, companies operating in this globalized world can
simply choose to do their business elsewheretaking U.S. jobs and
revenues with them.
US transportation infrastructure is in decline and will threaten

the economy
Strauss, 12 - associate director of Renewing America Publications at the Council on

Foreign Relations (Rebecca, Road to Nowhere: Federal Transportation Infrastructure
Policy, June, http://www.cfr.org/united-states/road-nowhere-federal-transportationinfrastructure-policy/p28419)//DH
Concerns over the state of U.S. transportation infrastructure are higher on the
federal policy agenda than at any time since President Dwight D. Eisenhower
championed the creation of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. A
generation of U.S. infrastructure built fifty years ago is reaching the end
of its lifecycle, and new construction has not kept pace with population
growth. Meanwhile, international competitors, particularly China, are making
massive investments in state-of-the-art transportation systems.
Moving people and goods efficiently matters for the U.S. economy. The
economic cost of traffic congestion alone in wasted time and fuel was
estimated at $101 billion, or $713 per commuter, in 2010.1 According to one
estimate, the countrys economic growth would have been 0.2 percentage points
higher in 2011 if necessary transportation infrastructure maintenance and
improvements had been made.2 If current spending levels persist, by 2020
the drag on growth could be 1.2 percentage points. With interest rates
remaining at historic lows and unemployment near double-digit highs, an
opportunity exists to marry shorter-term job creation with investments
that will pay longer-term benefits to U.S. economic competitiveness.
Infrastructure investment key to the economy

Transportation infrastructure is key to the economy
Treasury Department, 12 - A REPORT PREPARED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF THE

TREASURY WITH THE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS (A NEW ECONOMIC
ANALYSIS OF INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT, MARCH 23, 2012,
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/economicpolicy/Documents/20120323InfrastructureReport.pdf)
Gallatin spoke in terms of infrastructure shortening distances and easing
communications, even when the only means to do so were roads and canals. Every
day, Americans use our nations transportation infrastructure to commute to work,
visit their friends and family, and travel freely around the country. Businesses
depend on a well-functioning infrastructure system to obtain their
supplies, manage their inventories, and deliver their goods and services to
market. This is true for companies whose businesses rely directly on the
infrastructure system, such as shippers like UPS and BNSF, as well as others whose
businesses indirectly rely on the infrastructure system, such as farmers who use
publicly funded infrastructure to ship crops to buyers, and internet companies that
send goods purchased online to customers across the world. A modern
transportation infrastructure network is necessary for our economy to
function, and is a prerequisite for future growth. President Eisenhowers
vision is even more relevant today than it was in 1955, when he said in his State of
the Union Address, "A modern, efficient highway system is essential to meet the
needs of our growing population, our expanding economy, and our national
security." Today, that vision would include making not only our highways, but our
nations entire infrastructure system more efficient and effective.
Our analysis indicates that further infrastructure investments would be
highly beneficial for the U.S. economy in both the short and long term.
First, estimates of economically justifiable investment indicate that American
transportation infrastructure is not keeping pace with the needs of our
economy. Second, because of high unemployment in sectors such as
construction that were especially hard hit by the bursting of the housing
bubble, there are underutilized resources that can be used to build
infrastructure. Moreover, states and municipalities typically fund a
significant portion of infrastructure spending, but are currently strapped
for cash; the Federal government has a constructive role to play by
stepping up to address the anticipated shortfall and providing more
efficient financing mechanisms, such as Build America Bonds. The third key
finding is that investing in infrastructure benefits the middle class most of all.
Finally, there is considerable support for greater infrastructure investment among
American consumers and businesses.
Many studies confirm the link

The United States has a rich history of investing in infrastructure and reaping the
long-term economic benefits. Influential research by David Aschauer and others has
explored the link between public infrastructure investment and economic growth.
2,3,4 Aschauers research and numerous other studies have found
evidence of large private sector productivity gains from public
infrastructure investments, in many cases with higher returns than private
capital investment. Since much of the public capital stock is owned by state and
local authorities, more recent research has compared the economic benefits of
infrastructure investments between regions in the United States, generally finding
smaller but economically significant benefits in comparison to Aschauers estimates.
5
Investments in infrastructure allow goods and services to be transported
more quickly and at lower costs, resulting in both lower prices for
consumers and increased profitability for firms. Major transportation
infrastructure initiatives include the building of the national railroad system in the
19th century and the creation of the Eisenhower Interstate System in the 1950s and
1960s. Observers have concluded that in both of these cases there was a causal link
running from infrastructure investments to subsequent private sector productivity
gains. 6 Alternatively, it is possible that infrastructure investments occur when
productivity gains are also likely to follow but for unrelated reasons. Determining
causality is difficult.
A study by John Fernald makes progress on establishing causality by
comparing the impact of infrastructure investment on industries that a
priori should experience different benefits from infrastructure spending. 7
He finds that the construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950s and
1960s corresponded with a significant increase in the productivity of vehicleintensive industries (such as transportation and gas utilities), relative to industries
that do not depend on vehicles (such as apparel and textiles and industrial
machinery). Fernalds findings suggest that previous investments in
infrastructure led to substantial productivity gains, and highlight the
potential for further increases in productivity through additional, welltargeted investments.
The economic impact is massive

Lovaas, 11 Natural Resources Defense Council (Deron, New Report: Failure to
Invest in Transportation Infrastructure Will Cost Jobs, Shrink GDP, 7/28,
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dlovaas/new_report_failure_to_invest_i.html)//DH
In a new report released this week (covered by streetsblog and the WashPost among
other outlets), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) takes a closer look at
how our deteriorating surface transportation infrastructure which earned a D
grade from ASCE in 2009 -- affects American families, businesses, and our national
competitiveness.
As you might guess, its not pretty. ASCE calculates that the impact of
deteriorating roads, rails, bridges and transit amounts to 870,000 jobs lost
and $3.1 trillion in GDP lost by 2020.
Crumbling, congested roads and a lack of transportation options means
American families and business are spending more time, using more fuel,
and spending more money to get where they need to go. One interesting
note for the large amount of traffic on interstate highways in urban areas -- 47
percent of that traffic is on deficient roads, versus only 15 percent of rural interstate
traffic. And no matter where you happen to be traveling, the longer we delay
infrastructure improvements, the worse it gets.
By 2020, ASCE calculates, American businesses will be spending an extra
$430 billion on transportation costs, leading to a lag in productivity, a
drop in exports, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. Families
would see incomes drop by $7,000 over that 10-year period.
Knowledge workers, who have grown into a key part of our advanced economy,
would suffer -- by far -- the most. An economist involved with the study tells me that
three reasons underpin this finding:
1. Lower business income due to lower productivity and more income
diverted to transportation costs requires cutting back on hiring and
other productivity-enhancing investments;
2. Less household income means fewer purchases of electronics and
professional services; and
3. Commuting difficulties create more workplace inefficiencies,
especially in high-wage sectors.
The upshot: We cant afford NOT to invest in transportation. The costs to
our economy, especially in high-wage industries, are simply too high. This
report adds to a number of studies which have come to the same
conclusion. Even conservatives agree that we need to invest in our national
transportation infrastructure, not cut it off at the knees.
How, in these fiscally constrained times, do we move forward? We need to design a
transportation program with clear, national goals, which includes an oil-savings
target and prioritizes critical repairs and maintenance. We need to find new ways to
generate revenue for infrastructure projects, through tools such as an oil-security
fee and an infrastructure bank. And we need to ensure that our investments are
smart, performance-based choices that will make the best use of limited funds.
Infrastructure is key to the economy

Americans see the consequences of inadequate infrastructure everyday: when we
get stuck in traffic jams on our way to work; when we get stuck at the airport
because our flights are delayed; when mass transit options are too few or too
expensive; when our electric grid fails and leaves us in the dark; when our ports are
too small to handle modern cargo ships; and when our bridges must be closed or
torn down as a result of structural deficiencies. As individual cases, these
deficiencies can be daily annoyances. Together, they form a national crisis.
The strength of every countrys economy derives from the productivity of
its human capital and natural resources. We have an abundance of both. But
what these great gifts produce is meaningless unless they find their way to
the marketplace. That is what infrastructure does. It increases human
mobility and facilitates efficiency. It enables a healthy economy to channel

the flow of goods and services around the corner and around the globe.
Done right, infrastructure helps us open new markets to goods and
services, drops the costs of transportation, speeds deliveries, and lowers
prices for consumers. Capital and jobs flow to the most efficient markets,
and the most efficient markets are dependent on modern, reliable, hightech infrastructure.
The infrastructure past generations built for usand the good policy making
that built itis a key reason America became an economic superpower. But
many of the great decisions which put us on that trajectory are now a half-century
old. In the last several decades, our political system has failed us.
Increasing transportation infrastructure investment increases

export led growth
American firms rely on infrastructure to enable efficient supply chain

management and the transportation of goods to the point of sale.
Investments in transportation infrastructure would allow firms in all 50
states to have the opportunity to benefit from growth in foreign markets.
According to an analysis by the Brookings Institution, exports account for 8 percent
of total U.S. employment 48 ; smart investments in infrastructure have the
potential to create more jobs in export-oriented U.S. companies. The
Presidents National Export Initiative calls for the Departments of Commerce and
Transportation [to enter] into a Memorandum of Understanding to work together
and with stakeholders to develop and implement a comprehensive,
competitiveness-focused national freight policy. The resulting policy will foster endto-end U.S. freight infrastructure improvements that facilitate the movement of
goods for export and domestic use. 49 Moreover, the Department of Transportation
estimates that population growth, economic development, and trade will almost
double the demand for rail freight transportation by 2035. 50 Export growth has
been strong during the recovery. In 2011, exports were up over 33 percent from
2009, meaning that America is ahead of schedule in meeting the Presidents goal of
doubling exports over 2009 levels by the end of 2014.
Infrastructure investment is key to US competitiveness

By most measures, the United States is investing less in infrastructure than
other nations. While there are reasons for this disparity, international comparisons
can offer a useful benchmark to assess our investment decisions. We spend

approximately 2 percent of GDP on infrastructure, a 50 percent decline from 1960.
65,66 China, India and Europe, by contrast, spend close to 9 percent, 8 percent, and
5 percent of GDP on infrastructure, respectively. 67 To be clear, these simple crosscountry comparisons do not account for differences in the current public capital
stock, differences in demographics and population densities, and different
transportation preferences across nations. However, it is clear that persistent
neglect of our infrastructure will impact Americas competitive position
vis--vis the rest of the world. Indeed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce noted in
their Policy Declaration on Transportation Infrastructure that, Longterm
underinvestment in transportation infrastructure is having an increasingly
negative effect on the ability of the United States and its industries to
compete in the global economy.
Transportation infrastructure is vital to the US economy

Caldwell, 11 - ASCE President The American Society of Civil Engineers (Kathy,
CQ Congressional Testimony, 3/30, lexis)
Surface transportation infrastructure is a critical engine of the nation's
economy. It is the thread which knits the nation together. To compete in the
global economy, improve our quality of life and raise our standard of living, we
must successfully rebuild America's public infrastructure. Faced with that
task, the nation must begin with a significantly improved and expanded
surface transportation system. A surface transportation authorization must be
founded on a new paradigm; instead of focusing on the movement of cars and
trucks from place to place, it must be based on moving people, goods, and services
across the economy. Beyond simply building new roads or transit systems, an
intermodal approach must be taken to create a new vision for the future.
Transportation investment is key to jobs and economic growth

Caldwell, 11 - ASCE President The American Society of Civil Engineers (Kathy,
CQ Congressional Testimony, 3/30, lexis)
Benefits of Multi-Year Surface Transportation Legislation

Money invested in essential public works can create jobs, provide for
economic growth, and ensure public safety through a modern, wellengineered transportation system. By improving the nation's deteriorating
surface transportation system both economic and job creation opportunities will be
provided, while creating a multi- modal transportation system for the Twenty-First
Century. The nation's transportation infrastructure system has an annual
output of $120 billion in construction work and contributes $244 billion in
total economic activity to the nation's gross domestic product. In addition to
the significant economic benefits for the entire nation, the Federal Highway
Administration estimates that every $1 billion invested in the nation's highways
supports 27,823 jobs, including 9,537 on-site construction jobs, 4,324 jobs in
supplier industries, and 13,962 jobs throughout the rest of the economy.
The job creation potential of infrastructure investment is only one
contributing factor toward how surface transportation allows for the
nation to compete on in the global marketplace. Equally, important are the
benefits to the region's long term growth and productivity. A significant

challenge to this economic growth is increased congestion, which contributes to the
deterioration of the nation's infrastructure, Therefore, the importance of freight
movement and the impacts of congestion on the nation's economy must be
emphasized.
--A2 Resilient
No resiliency its try or die now
Roubini (professor of economics at New York University's Stern School

of Business, is co-founder and chairman of Roubini Global Economics (RGE)) and
Michael Moran (RGE's vice president, executive editor, and chief geostrategy
analyst) October 11, 2010 Avoid the Double Dip
Nouriel
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/11/avoid_the_double_dip?page=0,0
Roughly three years since the onset of the financial crisis, the U.S. economy
increasingly looks vulnerable to falling back into recession. The United
States is flirting with "stall speed," an anemic rate of growth that, if it
persists, can lead to collapses in spending, consumer confidence, credit,
and other crucial engines of growth. Call it a "double dip" or the Great
Recession, Round II: Whatever the term, we're talking about a negative
feedback loop that would be devilishly hard to break. If Barack Obama wants
a realistic shot at a second term, he'll need to act quickly and decisively to prevent
this scenario. Near double-digit unemployment is the root of the problem.
Without job creation there's a lack of consumer spending, which
represents 40 percent of domestic GDP. To date, the U.S. government has
responded creatively and massively to the near collapse of the financial system,
using a litany of measures, from the bank bailout to stimulus spending to low
interest rates. Together, these policies prevented a reprise of the Great
Depression. But they also created fiscal and political dilemmas that limit
the usefulness of traditional monetary and fiscal tools that policymakers
can turn to in a pinch. With interest rates near zero percent already, the Federal
Reserve has few bullets left in its holster to boost growth or fend off
another slump. This lack of available good options was patently on display in
August when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke with a tinge of resignation about
new "quantitative easing" interventions in the mortgage and bond markets -- a
highly technical suggestion that, until the recent crisis, amounted to heresy among
Fed policymakers. It certainly hasn't helped that the U.S. federal deficit has reached
heights that make additional stimulus spending, of the kind that helped kindle the
mini-recovery of early 2010, politically impossible.
No resiliency now is different
Gary Clyde Hufbauer et al (Reginald Jones Senior Fellow at the Peterson

Institute for International Economics in 1998, Previously he was the Marcus
Wallenberg Professor of International Financial Diplomacy at Georgetown University,
and served in the U.S. Treasury Department from 1974 to1980), Jacob Funk
Kirkegaard (Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics), Woan
Foong Wong (research analyst at the Peterson Institute) and Jared Woollacott March
2010 US Protectionist Impulses in the Wake of the Great Recession

http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/hufbauer201003.pdf
The U.S. unemployment rate more than doubled between the onset of the
Great Recession in December 2007 and December 2009, and is now hovering just
below 10 percent (figure 1). 1 Considering that this discouraging figure likely
understates broader deterioration in the U.S. labor market, 2 the absence
of sustained Congressional pressure for largescale protectionist
measures, beyond Buy American provisions and several smaller companions (all
examined in this report), is in some ways surprising. 3 At least part of the
explanation for the restrained political response is the simultaneous large
improvement in the U.S. trade balance during 2008 and early 2009. Figure 1
illustrates how the total U.S. deficit in goods and services trade was nearly cut in
half during this period, creating a political obstacle to kneejerk protectionism. As we
will elaborate in section IV, during recessions an improving external balance
(from imports falling faster than exports) often acts an automatic
international economic stabilizer, which temporarily fulfills an equivalent
economic function to a Keynesian government stimulus package. The external
sector of the U.S. economy during the early quarters of the Great Recession
provided an automatic offset to sliding U.S. economic activity. This probably
caused policymakers to think twice about succumbing to shortterm
protectionist instincts However, figure 1 also shows how the improvement in the
U.S. trade balance has been only temporary and indeed began to reverse as the
U.S. economy exited the Great Recession during the second half of 2009. Crucial
for the political threat of protectionism, economic forecasts indicate that
the U.S. unemployment rate will probably remain at very high levels over
the medium term, despite President Obamas emphasis on jobs, jobs, jobs in his
State of the Union Address delivered on January 27 th , 2010. 4 A time lag of at least
12 to 18 months probably separates the point at which the U.S. trade balance
showed maximum improvement (spring 2009) and the expected drop in measured
unemployment well below 10 percent (fall 2010). Absent the feel good factor
of an improving trade balance, but facing continuing high unemployment
levels, protectionist sentiment in the U.S. Congress may increase in the
coming months, especially as the November 2010 midterm election draws near.
This is particularly so, as current economic forecasts suggest a more robust U.S.
economic recovery in the coming years, relative to other industrial trading partners
(table 1). A large and growing deficit in the U.S. external balances will likely persist
for some time, while the external balances of other major trading partners could
hold steady or even improve. If the United States thus returns to its precrisis role
as the worlds importer/consumer of last resort, protectionist impulses in the
U.S. Congress are destined to escalate. 5 Fresh U.S. protectionist
initiatives, at a time when the U.S. economy is growing at a decent pace, will
likely invite inkind retaliation by Americas trading partners, despite the
relatively muted reaction to the original Buy American provisions in early 2009
and other protectionist measures implemented since then. No longer facing a
newlyelected U.S. president, who entered office with considerable global appeal in
the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis, foreign leaders are unlikely to
give the U.S. an easy pass on future new instances of U.S. protectionism
--Impacts
Lowers threshold for conflict makes multiple nuclear wars
inevitable
Michael Panzner (Faculty Member at the New York Institute of Finance, 25-year
veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets who has worked in New
York and London for HSBC, Soros Funds, ABN Amro, Dresdner Bank, and JPMorgan
Chase) 2008 Financial Armageddon: Protect Your Future from Economic Collapse,
p. 137-138
Rising angst will also wreak havoc with links among markets, financial systems,
economies, and countries. Many people could find themselves subject to stricter
government controls or even find avenues closed off as a result of attempts to
stem contagion effects. The widespread urge to withdraw will feed rising
xenophobia, already inflamed by illegal immigration, unfair trade practices, and
leaking borders. Playing to populist sentiment, politicians around the country
will respond enthusiastically to calls for restrictions on foreigners. This
will further feed a brain drain, as scientists, students, and other temporary
visa holders are left with little choice but to uproot and go elsewhere,
further sapping Americas economic resiliency. Continuing calls for curbs on
the flow of finance and trade will inspire the United States and other nations to
spew forth protectionist legislation like the notorious Smoot-Hawley bill.
Introduced at the start of the Great Depression, it triggered a series of tit-for-tat
economic responses, which many commentators believe helped turn a serious
economic downturn into a prolonged and devastating global disaster. But if history
is any guide, those lessons will have been long forgotten during the next collapse.
Eventually, fed by a mood of desperation and growing public anger, restrictions on
trade, finance, investment, and immigration will almost certainly intensify.
Authorities and ordinary citizens will likely scrutinize the cross-border movement of
Americans and outsiders alike, and lawmakers may even call for a general
crackdown on nonessential travel. Meanwhile, many nations will make transporting
or sending funds to other countries exceedingly difficult. As desperate officials try to
limit the fallout from decades of ill-conceived, corrupt, and reckless policies, they
will introduce controls on foreign exchange. Foreign individuals and companies
seeking to acquire certain American infrastructure assets, or trying to buy property
and other assets on the cheap thanks to a rapidly depreciating dollar, will be
stymied by limits on investment by noncitizens. Those efforts will cause spasms
to ripple across economies and markets, disrupting global payment,
settlement, and clearing mechanisms. All of this will, of course, continue to
undermine business confidence and consumer spending. In a world of
lockouts and lockdowns, any link that transmits systemic financial pressures across
markets through arbitrage or portfolio-based risk management, or that allows
diseases to be easily spread from one country to the next by tourists and wildlife, or
that otherwise facilitates unwelcome exchanges of any kind will be viewed with
suspicion and dealt with accordingly. The rise in isolationism and protectionism
will bring about ever more heated arguments and dangerous confrontations
over shared sources of oil, gas, and other key commodities as well as factors
of production that must, out of necessity, be acquired from less-than-friendly
nations. Whether involving raw materials used in strategic industries or basic
necessities such as food, water, and energy, efforts to secure adequate

supplies will take increasing precedence in a world where demand seems
constantly out of kilter with supply. Disputes over the misuse, overuse, and pollution
of the environment and natural resources will become more commonplace. Around
the world, such tensions will give rise to full scale military encounters, often
with minimal provocation. In some instances, economic conditions will serve as a
convenient pretext for conflicts that stem from cultural and religious differences.
Alternatively, nations may look to divert attention away from domestic problems by
channeling frustration and populist sentiment toward other countries and cultures.
Enabled by cheap technology and the waning threat of American retribution,
terrorist groups will likely boost the frequency and scale of their horrifying attacks,
bringing the threat of random violence to a whole new level. Turbulent conditions
will encourage aggressive saber rattling and interdictions by rogue nations running
amok. Age-old clashes will also take on a new, more heated sense of urgency. China
will likely assume an increasingly belligerent posture toward Taiwan, while Iran may
embark on overt colonization of its neighbors in the Mideast. Israel, for its part, may
look to draw a dwindling list of allies from around the world into a growing number
of conflicts. Some observers, like John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the
University of Chicago, have even speculated that an intense confrontation
between the United States and China is inevitable at some point. More than a
few disputes will turn out to be almost wholly ideological. Growing cultural
and religious differences will be transformed from wars of words to battles
soaked in blood. Long-simmering resentments could also degenerate
quickly, spurring the basest of human instincts and triggering genocidal
acts. Terrorists employing biological or nuclear weapons will vie with
conventional forces using jets, cruise missiles, and bunker-busting bombs
to cause widespread destruction. Many will interpret stepped-up conflicts
between Muslims and Western societies as the beginnings of a new world war.
Interdependence makes the probability of your impacts zero

Only we can access war
Hillebrand (Professor of Diplomacy at University of Kentucky and a

Senior Economist for the Central Intelligence Agency) 2010 Deglobalization
Evan E.
Scenarios: Who Wins? Who Loses? Global Economy Journal, Volume 10, Issue 2
2010
A long line of writers from Cruce (1623) to Kant (1797) to Angell (1907) to Gartzke
(2003) have theorized that economic interdependence can lower the
likelihood of war. Cruce thought that free trade enriched a society in general and
so made people more peaceable; Kant thought that trade shifted political power
away from the more warlike aristocracy, and Angell thought that economic
interdependence shifted cost/benefit calculations in a peace-promoting
direction. Gartzke contends that trade relations enhance transparency among
nations and thus help avoid bargaining miscalculations. There has also been a
tremendous amount of empirical research that mostly supports the idea of
an inverse relationship between trade and war. Jack Levy said that, While
there are extensive debates over the proper research designs for investigating
this question, and while some empirical studies find that trade is associated
with international conflict, most studies conclude that trade is associated
with peace, both at the dyadic and systemic levels (Levy, 2003, p. 127). There is
another important line of theoretical and empirical work called Power Transition
Theory that focuses on the relative power of states and warns that when rising
powers approach the power level of their regional or global leader the chances of
war increase (Tammen, Lemke, et al, 2000). Jacek Kugler (2006) warns that the
rising power of China relative to the United States greatly increases the chances of
great power war some time in the next few decades. The IFs model combines the
theoretical and empirical work of the peacethrough trade tradition with the work of
the power transition scholars in an attempt to forecast the probability of interstate
war. Hughes (2004) explains how he, after consulting with scholars in both camps,
particularly Edward Mansfield and Douglas Lemke, estimated the starting
probabilities for each dyad based on the historical record, and then forecast future
probabilities for dyadic militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) and wars based on the
calibrated relationships he derived from the empirical literature. The probability
of a MID, much less a war, between any random dyad in any given year is very
low, if not zero. Paraguay and Tanzania, for example, have never fought and are
very unlikely to do so. But there have been thousands of MIDs in the past and
hundreds of wars and many of the 16,653 dyads have nonzero probabilities. In 2005
the mean probability of a country being involved in at least one war was
estimated to be 0.8%, with 104 countries having a probability of at least 1 war
approaching zero. A dozen countries12, however, have initial probabilities over 3%.
model predicts four great power wars in the deglobalization scenario vs. 2 in the
globalization scenario.16 The globalization scenario projects that the probability for
war will gradually decrease through 2035 for every countrybut not every dyad-that had a significant (greater than 0.5% chance of war) in 2005 (Table 6). The
decline in prospects for war stems from the scenarios projections of rising levels of
democracy, rising incomes, and rising trade interdependenceall of these factors
figure in the algorithm that calculates the probabilities. Not all dyadic war
probabilities decrease, however, because of the power transition mechanism that is
also included in the IFs model. The probability for war between China and the US,
for example rises as Chinas power13 rises gradually toward the US level but in
these calculations the probability of a China/US war never gets very high.14
Deglobalization raises the risks of war substantially. In a world with much
lower average incomes, less democracy, and less trade interdependence, the
average probability of a country having at least one war in 2035 rises from 0.6% in
the globalization scenario to 3.7% in the deglobalization scenario. Among the top-20
war-prone countries, the average probability rises from 3.9% in the globalization
scenario to 7.1% in the deglobalization scenario. The model estimates that in the
deglobalization scenario there will be about 10 wars in 2035, vs. only 2 in the
globalization scenario15. Over the whole period, 2005-2035, the IV. Winners and
Losers Deglobalization in the form of reduced trade interdependence, reduced
capital flows, and reduced migration has few positive effects, based on this analysis
with the International Futures Model. Economic growth is cut in all but a handful of
countries, and is cut more in the non-OECD countries than in the OECD countries.
Deglobalization has a mixed impact on equality. In many non-OECD countries, the
cut in imports from the rest of the world increases the share of manufacturing and
in 61 countries raises the share of income going to the poor. But since average
productivity goes down in almost all countries, this gain in equality comes at the
expense of reduced incomes and increased poverty in almost all countries. The only
winners are a small number of countries that were small and poor and not well
integrated in the global economy to begin withand the gains from deglobalization
even for them are very small. Politically, deglobalization makes for less stable
domestic politics and a greater likelihood of war. The likelihood of state failure
through internal war, projected to diminish through 2035 with increasing
globalization, rises in the deglobalization scenario particularly among the non-OECD
democracies. Similarly, deglobalization makes for more fractious relations
among states and the probability for interstate war rises.
These endless boom and bust cycles and mercantilism make

economic nationalism and war inevitable
Jeffrey E. Garten (Juan Trippe Professor in the Practice of International Trade,

Finance and Business at Yale University since July 1, 2005, having served as the
Dean of the Yale School of Management since 1995) March 2009 The Dangers of
Turning Inward
http://www.business.illinois.edu/aguilera/Teaching/WSJ09_Dangers_of_Turning_Inwar
d.pdf
The last time we saw sustained economic nationalism was in the 1930s, when
capital flows and trade among countries collapsed, and every country went its own
way. World growth went into a ditch, political ties among nations deteriorated, nationalism and
populism combined to create fascist governments in Europe and Asia, and a world war took place. It
took at least a generation for globalization to get back on track. There have been some
bouts of inwardlooking governmental action since then, such as the early 1970s when the U.S.
cut the dollar from its gold base and imposed export embargoes on soybeans and
steel scrap. However, the economic conditions were not sufficiently bad for the
trend to sustain itself. The kind of economic nationalism we are seeing today is not yet
extreme.
It is also understandable. The political pressures could hardly be worse. Over the last decade, the global economy grew on average about 4% to 5%, and this year it will come to a grinding halt: 0.5%
according to the International Monetary Fund, where projections usually err on the optimistic side. World trade, which has grown much faster than global gross domestic product for many years, is projected to decline this year for the
first time since 1982. Foreign direct investment last year slumped by 10% from 2007. Most dramatically, capital flows into emerging market nations are projected to drop this year by nearly 80% compared to 2007. The aggregate
figures don't tell the story of what is unraveling in individual countries. In the last quarter of 2008, U.S. GDP dropped by 6.2% at an annual rate, the U.K. by 5.9%, Germany by 8.2%, Japan by 12.7% and South Korea by 20.8%.
Mexico, Thailand and Singapore and most of Eastern Europe are also in deep trouble. In every case, employment has been plummeting. So far popular demonstrations against government policies have taken place in the U.K., France,
Greece, Russia and throughout Eastern Europe. And the governments of Iceland and Latvia have fallen over the crisis. Governments could therefore be forgiven if they are preoccupied above all with the workers and companies within
officials don't know what to do because they haven't seen this level of
distress before. They are living from day to day, desperately improvising and trying to
hold off political pressure to take severe measures they know could be satisfying
right now but cause bigger damage later. Thinking about how their policies might affect other
their own borders. Most
countries is not their main focus, let alone taking the time to try to coordinate them internationally. Besides,
whether it's in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Beijing, Brazilia or Tokyo, it is hard to find many top officials who
wouldn't say that whatever measures they are taking that may undermine global commerce are strictly temporary .
They all profess that when the crisis is over, they will resume their support for globalization. They
underestimate, however, how hard it could be to reverse course. Political figures take
comfort, too, from the global institutions that were not present in the 1930s -- the IMF, the
World Bank and the World Trade Organization, all of which are assumed to be
keeping globalization alive. This is a false sense of security, since these institutions are
guided by sovereign countries. Government officials often feel that because they
are going to endless crisis summit meetings -- the next big one is in London on April
2, when the world's top 20 nations will be assembling -- that some international
coordination is actually taking place. This is mostly an illusion. With a few exceptions, such as the so-called Plaza
Agreements of 1984 when currencies were realigned, it is difficult to point to a meeting where anything major has been said and subsequently implemented. But as the pressure on politicians mounts, decisions are being made on an
incremental and ad hoc basis that amounts to a disturbing trend. Classic trade protectionism is on the rise. In the first half of 2008, the number of investigations in the World Trade Organization relating to antidumping cases -- selling
below cost -- was up 30% from the year before. Washington has recently expanded sanctions against European food products in retaliation for Europe's boycott against hormonetreated American beef -- an old dispute, to be sure, but
one that is escalating. In the last several months, the E.U. reintroduced export subsidies on butter and cheese. India raised tariffs on steel products, as did Russia on imported cars. Indonesia ingenuously designated that just a few of its
ports could be used to import toys, creating a trade-blocking bottleneck. Brazil and Argentina have been pressing for a higher external tariff on imports into a South American bloc of countries called Mercosur. Just this week, the E.U.
agreed to levy tariffs on American exports of biodiesel fuel, possibly a first shot in what may become a gigantic trade war fought over different environmental policies -- some based on taxes, some on regulation, some on cap and trade
-- being embraced by individual countries. Much bigger problems have arisen in more non-traditional areas and derive from recent direct intervention of governments. The much-publicized "Buy America" provision of the U.S.
stimulus package restricts purchases of construction-related goods to many U.S. manufacturers, and although it is riddled with exceptions, it does reveal Washington's state of mind. The bailout of GM and Chrysler is a purely national
deal. Such exclusion against foreign firms is a violation of so-called "national treatment" clauses in trade agreements, and the E.U. has already put Washington on notice that it will pursue legal trade remedies if the final bailout
package is discriminatory. Uncle Sam is not the only economic nationalist. The Japanese government is offering to help a broad array of its corporations -- but certainly not subsidiaries of foreign companies in Japan -- by purchasing
the stock of these firms directly, thereby not just saving them but providing an advantage over competition from non-Japanese sources. The French government has created a sovereign wealth fund to make sure that certain "national
champions," such as carparts manufacturer Valeo and aeronautics component maker Daher, aren't bought by foreign investors. Government involvement in financial institutions has taken on an anti-globalization tone. British
regulators are pushing their global banks to redirect foreign lending to the U.K. when credit is sorely needed and where it can be monitored. Just this past week, the Royal Bank of Scotland announced it was closing shop in 60 foreign
countries. Western European banks that were heavily invested in countries such as Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltics have pulled back their credits, causing a devastating deflation throughout Eastern Europe. The Swiss are
reportedly considering more lenient accounting policies for loans their banks make domestically as opposed to abroad. This de-globalizing trend could well be amplified by Washington's effort to exercise tight oversight of several big
financial institutions. Already AIG's prime Asian asset, American International Assurance Company, is on the block. As the feds take an ever bigger stake in Citigroup, they may well force it to divest itself of many of its prized global
holdings, such as Banamex in Mexico and Citi Handlowy in Poland. It appears that new legislation under the Troubled Asset Relief Program will also restrict the employment of foreign nationals in hundreds of American banks in
which the government has a stake. Whether or not it goes into bankruptcy, General Motors will be pressed to sell many of its foreign subsidiaries, too. Even Chinese multinationals such as Haier and Lenovo are beating a retreat to
their own shores where the risks seem lower than operating in an uncertain global economy. The government in Beijing is never far away from such fundamental strategic decisions. Then there is the currency issue.
Economic nationalists are mercantilists. They are willing to keep their currency
cheap in order to make their exports more competitive. China is doing just that. A big question is
whether other Asian exporters that have been badly hurt from the crisis -- Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand, for example -- will follow suit.
Competitive devaluations were a major feature of the 1930s. It's no accident that the European Union has called an emergency summit for this
Sunday to consider what to do with rising protectionism of all kinds. There are a number of reasons why economic
nationalism could escalate. The recession could last well beyond this year. It is also worrisome that
the forces of economic nationalism were gathering even before the crisis hit, and have deeper roots than
most people know. Congress denied President Bush authority to negotiate trade agreements two years ago, fearing that America was not benefiting enough from open trade, and an effort to reform immigration
was paralyzed for years. Globally, international trade negotiations called the Doha Round collapsed well before Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers did. Concerns that trade was worsening income distribution were growing in every
major industrial nation since the late 1990s. Whenever countries turned inward over the past half-century, Washington was a powerful countervailing force, preaching the gospel of globalization and open markets for goods, services
and capital. As the Obama administration works feverishly to fire up America's growth engines, patch up its financial system and keep its housing market from collapsing further, and as its major long-term objectives center on health,
education and reducing energy dependence on foreign sources, the country's preoccupations are more purely domestic than at any time since the 1930s. In the past, American business leaders from companies such as IBM, GE,
voices are muted, some silenced. It is not easy

to find anyone in America who has the stature and courage to press for a more open global economy in
the midst of the current economic and political crosswinds. And given that the global rot started in the U.S. with
Goldman Sachs and, yes, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch beat the drum for open global markets. As their share prices collapse, some
egregiously irresponsible lending, borrowing and regulation, America's brand of capitalism is in serious disrepute around the world. Even if
President Obama had the mental bandwidth to become a cheerleader for globalization, America's do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do leadership has been
badly compromised . If economic nationalism puts a monkey wrench in the wheels of global
commerce, the damage could be severe.
The U.S. is a good example. It is inconceivable that Uncle Sam could

mount a serious recovery without a massive expansion of exports -- the very activity that was responsible for so much of America's economic
growth during the middle of this decade. But that won't be possible if other nations block imports. For generations, the deficits that we have run
this past decade and the trillions of dollars we are spending now mean we will be highly dependent on foreign loans from China, Japan and other
parts of the world. But these will not be forthcoming at prices we can afford without a global financial system built on deep collaboration
between debtors and creditors -- including keeping our market open to foreign goods and services. The Obama administration talks about a
super-competitive economy, based on high-quality jobs -- which means knowledgeintensive jobs. This won't happen if we are not able to continue to bring in the brightest
people from all over the world to work and live here. Silicon Valley, to take one
example, would be a pale shadow of itself without Indian, Chinese and Israeli brain
power in its midst. More generally, without an open global economy, worldwide
industries such as autos, steel, banking and telecommunications cannot be rationalized and
restructured efficiently, and we'll be doomed to have excessive capacity and booms
and busts forever. The big emerging markets such as China, India, Brazil, Turkey and
South Africa will never be fully integrated into the world economy , depriving them and us of future economic
growth. The productivity of billions of men and women entering the global workforce will be stunted to everyone's detriment. Of course, no one would say that globalization is without its problems. Trade surges and products made by
low-priced labor can lead to job displacement and increasing income inequality. Proud national cultures can be undermined. But these challenges can be met by reasonable regulation and by domestic policies that provide a strong
social safety net and the kind of education that helps people acquire new skills for a competitive world. With the right responses of governments, the benefits should far outweigh the disadvantages. For thousands of years,
globalization has increased global wealth, individual choice and human freedom. The point is, economic nationalism, with its implicit autarchic and save-yourself character, embodies exactly the wrong spirit and runs in precisely the
. As happened in the 1930s, economic nationalism

is also sure to poison geopolitics. Governments under economic pressure have far
fewer resources to take care of their citizens and to deal with rising anger and social
tensions. Whether or not they are democracies, their tenure can be threatened by popular
resentment. The temptation for governments to whip up enthusiasm for something
that distracts citizens from their economic woes -- a war or a jihad against
unpopular minorities, for example -- is great. That's not all. As an economically enfeebled
South Korea withdraws foreign aid from North Korea, could we see an even more irrational activity
from Pyongyang? As the Pakistani economy goes into the tank, will the government be more likely to
compromise with terrorists to alleviate at least one source of pressure? As Ukraine strains under the weight of an IMF
wrong direction from the global system that will be necessary to create the future we all want
bailout, is a civil war with Cold War overtones between Europe and Russia be in the cards? And beyond all that, how will economically embattled
and inward-looking governments be able to deal with the critical issues that need global resolution such as control of nuclear weapons, or a treaty
to manage climate change, or help to the hundreds of millions of people who are now falling back into poverty?
Oil advantage
Oil dependence impacts

Oil conflicts escalate globally
Jim Cabral (teaches international relations and political science in the Social
Science Department at Landmark College in Putney, Vt.) August 12, 2010 Beyond
BP: Michael Klare on US Energy Policy http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?
aid=12165
The preoccupation of states with securing the reliability of energy through
exploration and extraction might seem benign enough (leaving aside for a moment the weighty issues of
is
inextricably bound up with military proliferation. Hence Klare's "new geopolitics
of energy" is fraught with the potential for conflict, especially given the urgency that
state leaders attach to finding new sources of energy. Energy competition among what Klare calls the
"energy deficit" states typically involves arms-for-energy tradeoffs with their
suppliers, the "energy surplus" states. In the case of oil, arms transfers to the governments of surplus states
diminishing and increasingly remote supplies). But understood as a matter of state security, energy procurement
pave the way for the deficit states' NOCs (and any IOCs headquartered in their countries) both to exploit their hosts'
oilfields and to search for new ones. For deficit states, the top priority accorded to "energy security" renders
considerations of surplus states' integrity (Do they respect international norms? Do they allow their citizens to
the accelerating
militarization of energy procurement increases the possibilities for armed
international conflict. Klare explains how nationalism lends momentum to this
process: "The long-term risk of escalation is growing even more potent because major energy importers and
exercise civil liberties?) irrelevant, for the most part. Not surprisingly,
exporters regularly appeal to that most dangerous of emotions, nationalism, in making their claim over the
Nationalistic appeals, once they have gripped a populace, almost

invariably promote fierce emotion and irrationality. Add to this fact that the leaders
of most countries involved in the great energy race have come to view the
struggle over hydrocarbon assets as a 'zero-sum' contestone in which a gain for
management of energy flows.
one country almost always represents a loss for others. A zero-sum mentality leads to a loss of flexibility in crisis
situations, while the lens of nationalism turns the pursuit of energy assets into a sacred obligation of senior
The "competitive arms transfers" that represent the

militarization of energy procurement also have another disturbing upshot:
government officials."
strengthening and legitimizing repressive, corrupt foreign regimes. In the case of U.S. arms recipients, the list is
It includes long-time allies in the Persian Gulf regionmost

notably Saudi Arabiawhose anachronistic social policies effectively reduce women to the status of
long and growing.
second-class citizens; corruptible African governments in Nigeria, Chad, and Angola, wherealong with off-shore
drilling sites along the continent's west coastU.S.-based oil companies such as Exxon and Chevron currently
operate; and more recent allies in the energy-rich Caspian Sea region, including those Klare refers to as the
the governments of the oilrich Persian Gulf have long been wooed with energy deficit countries'
military largess, the emergence of the Caspian Sea region's governments as coveted allies may come as a
bit of a surprise to some. Klare soberly sketches out a "three-way struggle for
geopolitical advantage" in the Caspian Sea basin, as the U.S., Russia (Caspian states having formerly
"autocratic regimes" of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. While
been Soviet republics) and China funnel arms and other forms of military assistance into the region in competition
for influence there. Again stressing the dangers of an escalation of conflict , Klare notes
that "This three-way struggle...is militarizing the Caspian basin, inundating the region with advanced arms and an
ever-growing corps of military advisers, instructors, technicians, and combat-support personnel. [ It
will]
heighten traditional suspicions and rivalries that have long plagued the
region. The Great Powers are not only adding tinder to possible future fires, but
also increasing the risk that they will be caught in any conflagration ."
US oil dependence makes resource wars inevitable

Michael Klare, Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at
Hampshire, 11/1/2001, Multinational Monitor
MM: Is U.S. entanglement in resource wars inevitable so long as the nation relies so heavily on oil? Klare: I think resource wars are
inevitable so long as we rely so heavily on imported oil to make up for the shortfall in our own production and to the degree that
we do not engage in some kind of international system of resource allocation that's reasonably equitable. The problem is tha t we use a vast
amount of oil and we also want to engineer local politics in other countries to be friendly to serving that need. We want
local governments to be amenable to providing the U.S. with as much energy as we want at low prices. That means we get involved in
local politics, and very often we get involved in local politics in areas where there are a lot of pre-existing divisions - religious,
ethnic and political. We wind up taking sides and we get enmeshed in conflicts, which is what has happened in Saudi Arabia. The U.S.
has also risked getting involved in local conflicts in other countries because of its interest in their petroleum resources.
We've been enmeshed in the internal politics of Iran - we were very close to the Shah, and when the Shah was overthrown, there was a backlash
against us. Historically, we've been involved in conflicts in Mexico over oil. We're now involved in Colombia in a conflict that's as much about
oil as it is about drugs.
perceived need for control of energy to meet demand causes

resource wars and conflict with China
New Statesman, 9/8/2003
In the 1990s, the faith of Spencer and Marx was repackaged and sold to governments. Given a spurious rigour by economists, it became the
intellectual basis for the global free market. Yet its influence over policy has never extended to defence planning. Bien-pensants economists
can babble on as much as they like about the pacifying effects of free markets, but military strategists continue to assume
that secure access to energy sources is a strategic imperative. Advanced industrial societies would collapse if they
were cut off from them for more than a few months. No new technology can prevent such a disaster. Talk of new sources of
energy replacing oil in the long run is all very well, but history is one short run after another. The first Gulf war was waged to protect western
oil supplies, and for no other reason. Iraq's vast oil reserves are not the only reason that country was invaded, but they are a vitally important
factor. If - as some strategists believe is likely - military conflict breaks out between China and the United States over the next
few decades, it will be partly because they are the chief competitors for the world's shrinking reserves of cheap oil.
The rising demand for energy has become a cause of war. Contrary to the theories of progress bequeathed to us from the 19th
century, worldwide industrialisation is not banishing scarcity in the necessities of existence and ushering in a new era of peace. It is
creating new scarcities and triggering new conflicts. Without oil, the energy-intensive agriculture on which we rely so
heavily could not exist. A steady supply of oil is as important in our lives as good weather was in the agrarian societies of the past.
Oil dependence forces US increased US regional military

presence
Michael
Renner, Senior Researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, January
2004, http://www.fpif.org/papers/03petropol/war.html
Corporate interests are only part of the picture. Demand has prompted governments of major oil importing countries to apply increasing
pressure for access to oil in the Middle East and elsewhere. Only the European nations have managed to keep the growth of their oil
consumption in check. With the help of North Sea oil, the continent has reduced net imports by about 8% to a little more than 8 million barrels
per day. Runaway consumption in the United States caused it to surpass Europe in net oil imports in the early 1990s. The United States, for the
first time, imported more oil from the Persian Gulf region than Europe did in 2001. U.S. oil imports have increased by a whopping 65% over
the last decade. Meanwhile, China is entering the skirmish. As its economy surges, domestic supplies are incapable of satisfying the rapidly
rising demand, and it is becoming more and more import dependent. The Middle East is of growing interest to Beijing, and Chinas state oil
companies recently took steps toward securing a stake in oil from Central Asias Caspian Sea basin. Outside the Middle East, major industrial
powers and leading international oil companies are vying for access to oil in the West African countries of Nigeria, Angola, and Chad, as well
as in the Caspian region. As the industrial powers increasingly rely on imported oil, the rivalry could lead to confrontations and interventions to
ensure compliant regimes in exporting countries. Both in the Middle East and in other regions, securing access to oil, pipelines,
and shipping lanes go hand-in-hand with a fast-expanding U.S. military presence. From Pakistan to Central Asia to the
Caucasus, and from the eastern Mediterranean to the Horn of Africa , a dense network of U.S. military facilities has emerged,
with many bases established in the name of the war on terror. In South America, the United States is getting more and more
drawn into the civil war in Colombia. The Bush administration decided to provide training and equipment for Colombian troops
protecting an oil export pipeline against frequent bombings by rebel forces.
Independence prevents militaristic posturing over supply lines
Benjamin K. Sovacool (an Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of
Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He is also a Research Fellow in
the Energy Governance Program at the Centre on Asia and Globalization) 2007
Oil Independence Possible for U.S. by 2030 http://scitizen.com/authors/BenjaminK.-Sovacool-a-899_s_08b456d033fcee27acbc8caf208135e8.html
Oil independence is possible for the U.S. if comprehensive and aggressive
energy policies are implemented aimed at reducing demand for oil, increasing
supply, and promoting alternative fuels. default textContrary to what most people
might think, oil independence is possible for the United States by 2030. The news is
especially important when one considers that, between 1970 and 2000, economists
estimate that the costs of American dependence on foreign supplies of oil have
ranged between $5 and $13 trillion dollars. Thats more than the cost of all wars
fought by the U.S. (adjusted for inflation) going all the way back to the
Revolutionary War. The trick is to start by thinking about oil independence a
little differently. Oil independence should not be viewed as eliminating all
imports of oil or reducing imports from hostile or unstable oil producing states.
Instead, it should entail creating a world where the costs of the countrys
dependence on oil would be so small that they would have little to no
effect on our economic, military, or foreign policy. It means creating a world
where the estimated total economic costs of oil dependence would be less than one
percent of U.S. gross domestic product by 2030. Conceived in this way (and
contrary to much political commentary these days), researchers at the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory (ORNL) have calculated that if the country as a whole
reduced their demand for oil by 7.22 million barrels per day (MBD) and
increased supply by 3 MBD, oil independence would be achieved by 2030 with
a 95 percent chance of success. By reducing demand for oil, increasing its
price elasticity, and increasing the supply of conventional and
unconventional petroleum products, ORNL researchers noted that the country
would be virtually immune from oil price shocks and market uncertainty. If
large oil producing states were to respond to the U.S. by cutting back production,
their initial gains from higher prices would also reduce their market share, in turn
further limiting their ability to influence the oil market in the future. So if
decreasing American demand for oil by 7.22 MBD and increasing supply by 3 MBD
would enable the U.S. to achieve oil independence in 2030, which combination of
policies offers an optimal strategy? Policymakers, for instance, could lower demand
for oil by making automobiles more efficient (by legislating more stringent fuel
economy standards for light and heavy duty vehicles or lowering the interstate
speed limit), promoting alternatives in mode choice (such as mass transit, light rail,
and carpooling), or establishing telecommuting centers and incentives for
commuters to work from home. They could also promote rigorous standards for tire
inflation and reduce oil consumption in other sectors of the economy. Alternatively,
they could increase alternative domestic supplies of oil, develop better
technologies for the extraction of oil shale, mandate the use of advanced oil
recovery and extraction techniques, and promote alternatives to oil such as
ethanol, bio-diesel, and Fischer-Tropsch fuels. Taken together, such policies could
reduce demand for oil by 8.266 to 12.119 MBD and increase American oil supply by
8.939 and 12.119 MBD by 2030well over the target set by the ORNL study. Thus,
to insulate the American economy from the vagaries of the world oil market,
policymakers need not focus only geopolitical power structures in oil producing
states. Instead, attempts to change the behavior of the countrys automobile
drivers, industrial leaders, and homeowners could greatly minimize reliance on
foreign supplies of oil. To battle the oil problem policymakers need not talk
only about sending more troops to Iraq or Saudi Arabia nor drafting new
contracts with Nigeria and Russia. They could also focus on curbing American
demand for oil and expanding domestic conventional and alternative
supplies.
Oil dependence causes resources wars
New Statesman, 9/8/2003
The unprecedented power failures of the past few weeks reveal a deeper truth. Human ambitions may be limitless, but the earth's
resources are irrevocably finite. Our present way of life cannot renew itself without cheap energy; but the resources from which
energy is extracted are becoming inexorably scarcer and more expensive. At the same time, they are becoming a
focus of conflict between states. As countries such as Britain and the US become ever more dependent on energy originating
in faraway regions, they are drawn increasingly into trying to secure control of them by military means. Conflict in the
Middle East has an extremely complex history, but anyone who tells you that western intervention in the region has nothing to do with oil
is a fool or a liar. In central Asia, the Great Game has been resumed, with the major powers vying for access to the
region's reserves of oil and natural gas. Behind all the rhetoric about humanitarian intervention, the hard realities of classical
geopolitics have returned.
Warming advantage
--Impact Calc
Warming risks extinction, turns every impact
Cummins and Allen 10 (Ronnie, Intl. Dir. Organic Consumers Association, and
Will, Policy Advisor Organic Consumers Association, Climate Catastrophe:
Surviving the 21st Century, 2-14, http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/146)
The hour is late. Leading climate scientists such as James Hansen are literally
shouting at the top of their lungs that the world needs to reduce emissions by 2040% as soon as possible, and 80-90% by the year 2050, if we are to avoid climate
chaos, crop failures, endless wars, melting of the polar icecaps, and a
disastrous rise in ocean levels. Either we radically reduce CO2 and carbon dioxide equivalent
(CO2e, which includes all GHGs, not just CO2) pollutants (currently at 390 parts per million and rising 2 ppm per year) to 350 ppm, including agriculture-
, or else survival for the present and future

generations is in jeopardy. As scientists warned at Copenhagen, business as
usual and a corresponding 7-8.6 degree Fahrenheit rise in global temperatures
means that the carrying capacity of the Earth in 2100 will be reduced to one billion
people. Under this hellish scenario, billions will die of thirst, cold, heat,
disease, war, and starvation. If the U.S. significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions, other countries will follow. One hopeful
derived methane and nitrous oxide pollution
sign is the recent EPA announcement that it intends to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Unfortunately we are going to
have to put tremendous pressure on elected public officials to force the EPA to crack down on GHG polluters (including industrial farms and food
processors). Public pressure is especially critical since "just say no" Congressmen-both Democrats and Republicans-along with agribusiness, real estate
developers, the construction industry, and the fossil fuel lobby appear determined to maintain "business as usual."
Prefer our impactmost likely because its scientifically

backed
Sullivan 7 (Gen. Gordon, Chair of CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board and
Former Army Chief of Staff, in "National Security and the Threat of Climate Change",
http://securityandclimate.cna.org/report/National%20Security%20and%20the
%20Threat%20of%20Climate%20Change.pdf)
We seem to be standing by and, frankly, asking for perfectness in science,
Gen. Sullivan said. People are saying they want to be convinced, perfectly. They
want to know the climate science projections with 100 percent certainty.
Well, we know a great deal, and even with that, there is still uncertainty. But the
trend line is very clear. We never have 100 percent certainty, he said. We
never have it. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is
going to happen on the battlefield. Thats something we know. You have to act with
incomplete information. You have to act based on the trend line. You have to
act on your intuition sometimes. In discussing how military leaders manage
risk, Gen. Sullivan noted that significant attention is often given to the low
probability/high consequence events. These events rarely occur but can have
devastating consequences if they do. American families are familiar with these
calculations. Serious injury in an auto accident is, for most families, a low
probability/high consequence event. It may be unlikely, but we do all we can to
avoid it. During the Cold War, much of Americas defense efforts focused on
preventing a Soviet missile attackthe very definition of a low
probability/high consequence event. Our effort to avoid such an unlikely
event was a central organizing principle for our diplomatic and military
strategies. When asked to compare the risks of climate change with those
of the Cold War, Gen. Sullivan said, The Cold War was a specter, but
climate change is inevitable. If we keep on with business as usual, we will
reach a point where some of the worst effects are inevitable . If we dont
act, this looks more like a high probability/high consequence scenario , he
added. Gen. Sullivan shifted from risk assessment to risk management. In the Cold
War, there was a concerted effort by all leadershippolitical and military, national
and internationalto avoid a potential conflict, he said. I think it was well known
in military circles that we had to do everything in our power to create an
environment where the national command authoritythe president and his senior
adviserswere not forced to make choices regarding the use of nuclear weapons.
Even 1% risk outweighs

Strom 7 (Robert, Prof. Emeritus Planetary Sciences @ U. Arizona and Former Dir.
Space Imagery Center of NASA, Hot House: Global Climate Change and the Human
Condition, Online: SpringerLink, p. 246)
Keep in mind that the current consequences of global warming discussed in
previous chapters are the result of a global average temperature increase
of only 0.5 'C above the 1951-1980 average, and these consequences are
beginning to accelerate. Think about what is in store for us when the average
global temperature is 1 C higher than today. That is already in the pipeline,
and there is nothing we can do to prevent it. We can only plan strategies for dealing
with the expected consequences, and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by
about 60% as soon as possible to ensure that we don't experience even higher
temperatures. There is also the danger of eventually triggering an abrupt
climate change that would accelerate global warming to a catastrophic
level in a short period of time. If that were to happen we would not stand
a chance. Even if that possibility had only a 1% chance of occurring, the
consequences are so dire that it would be insane not to act. Clearly we cannot afford to
delay taking action by waiting for additional research to more clearly define what awaits us. The time for action is now.
Makes nuke war inevitable
Campbell et al 2007 [Kurt, The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and
National Security Implications of Global Climate Change, CSIS, November, p. 3,
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/071105_ageofconsequences.pdf]
In the case of severe climate change, corresponding to an average increase in
global temperature of 2.6C by 2040, massive non-linear events in the global
environment give rise to massive nonlinear societal events. In this scenario,
addressed in Chapter IV, nations around the world will be overwhelmed by
the scale of change and pernicious challenges, such as pandemic disease.
The internal cohesion of nations will be under great stress, including in the
United States, both as a result of a dramatic rise in migration and changes in
agricultural patterns and water availability. The flooding of coastal
communities around the world, especially in the Netherlands, the United States,
South Asia, and China, has the potential to challenge regional and even
national identities. Armed conflict between nations over resources, such as
the Nile and its tributaries, is likely and nuclear war is possible. The social
consequences range from increased religious fervor to outright chaos. In
this scenario, climate change provokes a permanent shift in the relationship of
humankind to nature.
--Yes Warming
Fast anthropogenic warming now
Rahmstorf 8 Professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University

(Richard. Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto. Edited by Ernesto Zedillo.
Anthropogenic Climate Change? Page 42-49)
It is time to turn to statement B: human activities are altering the climate. This can
be broken into two parts. The first is as follows: global climate is warming. This is by
now a generally undisputed point (except by novelist Michael Crichton), so we deal
with it only briefly. The two leading compilations of data measured with
thermometers are shown in figure 3-3, that of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and that of the
British Hadley Centre for Climate Change. Although they differ in the details, due to the inclusion of different data sets and use of
show a consistent picture, with a global

mean warming of 0.8C since the late nineteenth century. Temperatures over the
past ten years clearly were the warmest since measured records have been
available. The year 1998 sticks out well above the longterm trend due to the
occurrence of a major El Nino event that year (the last El Nino so far and one of the
strongest on record). These events are examples of the largest natural climate
variations on multiyear time scales and, by releasing heat from the ocean, generally
cause positive anomalies in global mean temperature. It is remarkable that the year
2005 rivaled the heat of 1998 even though no El Nino event occurred that year. (A bizarre
different spatial averaging and quality control procedures, they both
curiosity, perhaps worth mentioning, is that several prominent "climate skeptics" recently used the extreme year 1998 to claim in
the media that global warming had ended. In Lindzen's words, "Indeed, the absence of any record breakers during the past seven
the more
recent portion of the global warming trend (since 1979) is also documented by
satellite data. It is not straightforward to derive a reliable surface temperature trend from satellites, as they measure
years is statistical evidence that temperatures are not increasing.")33 In addition to the surface measurements,
radiation coming from throughout the atmosphere (not just near the surface), including the stratosphere, which has strongly cooled,
and the records are not homogeneous' due to the short life span of individual satellites, the problem of orbital decay, observations
Current analyses of these satellite data show

trends that are fully consistent with surface measurements and model simulations."
at different times of day, and drifts in instrument calibration.'
If no reliable temperature measurements existed, could we be sure that the climate is warming? The "canaries in the coal mine" of
We know, both from old

photographs and from the position of the terminal moraines heaped up by the
flowing ice, that mountain glaciers have been in retreat all over the world during the past
climate change (as glaciologist Lonnie Thompson puts it) ~are mountain glaciers.
century. There are precious few exceptions, and they are associated with a strong increase in precipitation or local cooling.36 I have
inspected examples of shrinking glaciers myself in field trips to Switzerland, Norway, and New Zealand. As glaciers respond
sensitively to temperature changes, data on the extent of glaciers have been used to reconstruct a history of Northern Hemisphere
Cores drilled in tropical glaciers show signs of

recent melting that is unprecedented at least throughout the Holocene-the past
10,000 years. Another powerful sign of warming, visible clearly from satellites, is
the shrinking Arctic sea ice cover (figure 3-5), which has declined 20 percent since
temperature over the past four centuries (see figure 3-4).
satellite observations began in 1979. While climate clearly became warmer in the twentieth century, much discussion particularly in
the popular media has focused on the question of how "unusual" this warming is in a longer-term context. While this is an interesting
question, it has often been mixed incorrectly with the question of causation. Scientifically, how unusual recent warming is-say,
compared to the past millennium-in itself contains little information about its cause. Even a highly unusual warming could have a
natural cause (for example, an exceptional increase in solar activity). And even a warming within the bounds of past natural
variations could have a predominantly anthropogenic cause. I come to the question of causation shortly, after briefly visiting the
evidence for past natural climate variations. Records from the time before systematic temperature measurements were collected
are based on "proxy data," coming from tree rings, ice cores, corals, and other sources. These proxy data are generally linked to
local temperatures in some way, but they may be influenced by other parameters as well (for example, precipitation), they may
have a seasonal bias (for example, the growth season for tree rings), and high-quality long records are difficult to obtain and
therefore few in number and geographic coverage. Therefore, there is still substantial uncertainty in the evolution of past global or
hemispheric temperatures. (Comparing only local or regional temperature; as in Europe, is of limited value for our purposes,' as
regional variations can be much larger than global ones and can have many regional causes, unrelated to global-scale forcing and
climate change.) The first quantitative reconstruction for the Northern Hemisphere temperature of the past millennium, including an
error estimation, was presented by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes and rightly highlighted in the 2001 IPCC report as one of the major
new findings since its 1995 report; it is shown in figure 3_6.39 The analysis suggests that, despite the large error bars, twentieth-
century warming is indeed highly unusual and probably was unprecedented during the past millennium. This result, presumably
because of its symbolic power, has attracted much criticism, to some extent in scientific journals, but even more so in the popular
media. The hockey stick-shaped curve became a symbol for the IPCC, .and criticizing this particular data analysis became an avenue
for some to question the credibility of the IPCC. Three important things have been overlooked in much of the media coverage. First,
even if the scientific critics had been right, this would not have called into question the very cautious conclusion drawn by the IPCC
from the reconstruction by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes: "New analyses of proxy data for the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the
increase in temperature in the twentieth century is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years." This
conclusion has since been supported further by every single one of close to a dozen new reconstructions (two of which are shown in
figure 3-6). Second, by far the most serious scientific criticism raised against Mann, Hughes, and Bradley was simply based on a
mistake. 40 The prominent paper of von Storch and others, which claimed (based on a model test) that the method of Mann,
Bradley, and Hughes systematically underestimated variability, "was [itself] based on incorrect implementation of the reconstruction
procedure."41 With correct implementation, climate field reconstruction procedures such as the one used by Mann, Bradley, and
Hughes have been shown to perform well in similar model tests. Third, whether their reconstruction is accurate or not has no
bearing on policy. If their analysis underestimated past natural climate variability, this would certainly not argue for a smaller
climate sensitivity and thus a lesser concern about the consequences of our emissions. Some have argued that, in contrast, it would
point to a larger climate sensitivity. While this is a valid point in principle, it does not apply in practice to the climate sensitivity
estimates discussed herein or to the range given by IPCC, since these did not use the reconstruction of Mann, Hughes, and Bradley
or any other proxy records of the past millennium. Media claims that "a pillar of the Kyoto Protocol" had been called into question
were therefore misinformed. As an aside, the protocol was agreed in 1997, before the reconstruction in question even existed. The
overheated public debate on this topic has, at least, helped to attract more researchers and funding to this area of paleoclimatology;
its methodology has advanced significantly, and a number of new reconstructions have been presented in recent years. While the
science has moved forward, the first seminal reconstruction by Mann, Hughes, and Bradley has held up remarkably well, with its
main features reproduced by more recent work. Further progress probably will require substantial amounts of new proxy data, rather
than further refinement of the statistical techniques pioneered by Mann, Hughes, and Bradley. Developing these data sets will
require time and substantial effort. It is time to address the final statement:
most of the observed warming
over the past fifty years is anthropogenic.
A large number of studies exist that have taken different

approaches to analyze this issue, which is generally called the "attribution problem." I do not discuss the exact share of the
The first
and crucial piece of evidence is, of course, that the magnitude of the warming is
what is expected from the anthropogenic perturbation of the radiation balance, so
anthropogenic forcing is able to explain all of the temperature rise . As discussed
here, the rise in greenhouse gases alone corresponds to 2.6 W/tn2 of forcing. This
by itself, after subtraction of the observed 0'.6 W/m2 of ocean heat uptake, would
Cause 1.6C of warming since preindustrial times for medium climate sensitivity (3"C). With a current "best guess';
anthropogenic contribution (although this is an interesting question). By "most" I imply mean "more than 50 percent.
aerosol forcing of 1 W/m2, the expected warming is O.8c. The point here is not that it is possible to obtain the 'exact observed
number-this is fortuitous because the amount of aerosol' forcing is still very' uncertain-but that the expected magnitude is roughly
Depending on
aerosol forcing and climate sensitivity, it could explain a large fraction of the
warming, or all of it, or even more warming than has been observed (leaving room
for natural processes to counteract some of the warming). The second important
piece of evidence is clear: there is no viable alternative explanation. In the scientific
literature, no serious alternative hypothesis has been proposed to explain the
observed global warming. Other possible causes, such as solar activity, volcanic
activity, cosmic rays, or orbital cycles, are well observed, but they do not show
trends capable of explaining the observed warming. Since 1978, solar irradiance has been measured
right. There can be little doubt that the anthropogenic forcing is large enough to explain most of the warming.
directly from satellites and shows the well-known eleven-year solar cycle, but no trend. There are various estimates of solar
variability before this time, based on sunspot numbers, solar cycle length, the geomagnetic AA index, neutron monitor data, and,
carbon-14 data. These indicate that solar activity probably increased somewhat up to 1940. While there is disagreement about the
variation in previous centuries, different authors agree that solar activity did not significantly increase during the last sixty-five
years. Therefore, this cannot explain the warming, and neither can any of the other factors mentioned. Models driven by natural
factors only, leaving the anthropogenic forcing aside, show a cooling in the second half of the twentieth century (for an example,
The only way

out would be either some as yet undiscovered unknown forcing or a warming trend
that arises by chance from an unforced internal variability in the climate system.
The latter cannot be completely ruled out, but has to be considered highly unlikely.
No evidence in the observed record, proxy data, or current models suggest that
such internal variability could cause a sustained trend of global warming of the
observed magnitude. As discussed, twentieth century warming is unprecedented over
See figure 2-2, panel a, in chapter 2 of this volume). The trend in the sum of natural forcings is downward.
the past 1,000 years (or even 2,000 years, as the few longer reconstructions available now suggest), which does not 'support the
idea of large internal fluctuations. Also, those past variations correlate well with past forcing (solar variability, volcanic activity) and
thus appear to be largely forced rather than due to unforced internal variability." And indeed, it would be difficult for a large and
sustained unforced variability to satisfy the fundamental physical law of energy conservation. Natural internal variability generally
shifts heat around different parts of the climate system-for example, the large El Nino event of 1998, which warmed, the atmosphere
by releasing heat stored in the ocean. This mechanism implies that the ocean heat content drops as the atmosphere warms. For
past decades, as discussed, we observed the atmosphere warming and the ocean heat content increasing, which rules out heat
release from the ocean as a cause of surface warming. The heat content of the whole climate system is increasing, and there is no
plausible source of this heat other than the heat trapped by greenhouse gases. A completely different approach to attribution is to
analyze the spatial patterns of climate change. This is done in so-called fingerprint studies, which associate particular patterns or
"fingerprints" with different forcings. It is plausible that the pattern of a solar-forced climate change differs from the pattern of a
change caused by greenhouse gases. For example, a characteristic of greenhouse gases is that heat is trapped closer to the Earth's
studies have
used different data sets and have been performed by different groups of
researchers with different statistical methods. They consistently conclude that the
observed spatial pattern of warming can only be explained by greenhouse gases.49
surface and that, unlike solar variability, greenhouse gases tend to warm more in winter, and at night. Such
Overall, it has to be considered, highly likely' that the observed warming is indeed predominantly due to the human-caused increase
in greenhouse gases. ' This paper discussed the evidence for the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration and the
this anthropogenic increase is proven beyond reasonable

doubt and that a mass of evidence points to a CO2 effect on climate of 3C 1.59C
global-warming for a doubling of concentration. (This is, the classic IPCC range; my personal assessment is that, in-the light
effect of CO2 on climate, finding that
of new studies since the IPCC Third Assessment Report, the uncertainty range can now be narrowed somewhat to 3C 1.0C)
This is based on consistent results from theory, models, and data analysis, and,
even in the absence-of any computer models, the same result would still hold based
on physics and on data from climate history alone. Considering the plethora of
consistent evidence, the chance that these conclusions are wrong has to be
considered minute. If the preceding is accepted, then it follows logically and
incontrovertibly that a further increase in CO2 concentration will lead to further
warming. The magnitude of our emissions depends on human behavior, but the climatic
response to various emissions scenarios can be computed from the information presented here. The result is the famous range of
future global temperature scenarios shown in figure 3_6.50 Two additional steps are involved in these computations: the
consideration of anthropogenic forcings other than CO2 (for example, other greenhouse gases and aerosols) and the computation of
concentrations from the emissions. Other gases are not discussed here, although they are important to get quantitatively accurate
results. CO2 is the largest and most important forcing. Concerning concentrations, the scenarios shown
basically assume that ocean and biosphere take up a similar share of our emitted CO2 as in the past. This could turn out to be an
optimistic assumption; some models indicate the possibility of a positive feedback, with the biosphere turning into a carbon source
rather than a sink under growing climatic stress. It is clear that even in the more optimistic of the shown (non-mitigation) scenarios,
global temperature would rise by 2-3C above its preindustrial level by the end of this century. Even for a paleoclimatologist like
myself, this is an extraordinarily high temperature, which is very likely unprecedented in at least the past 100,000 years. As far as
we would have to go back about 3 million years, to the Pliocene, for

comparable temperatures. The rate of this warming (which is important for the ability of ecosystems
the data show,
to cope) is also highly unusual and unprecedented probably for an even longer time. The last major global warming trend occurred
when the last great Ice Age ended between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago: this was a warming of about 5C over 5,000 years, that is,
a rate of only 0.1 C per century. 52 The expected magnitude and rate of planetary warming is highly likely to come with major risk
and impacts in terms of sea level rise (Pliocene sea level was 25-35 meters higher than now due to smaller Greenland and Antarctic
ice sheets), extreme events (for example, hurricane activity is expected to increase in a warmer climate), and ecosystem loss. The
second part of this paper examined the evidence for the current warming of the planet and discussed what is known about its
that global warming is already a measured and-well-established

fact, not a theory. Many different lines of evidence consistently show that most of
the observed warming of the past fifty years was caused by human activity. Above all,
causes. This part showed
this warming is exactly what would be expected given the anthropogenic rise in greenhouse gases, and no viable alternative
the very strong evidence

accumulated from thousands of independent studies, has over the past decades
convinced virtually every climatologist around the world (many of whom were
initially quite skeptical, including myself) that anthropogenic global warming is a
reality with which we need to deal.
explanation for this warming has been proposed in the scientific literature. Taken together.,
Warming is real, anthropogenic and accelerating prefer

reverse biased sources
Robinson, 11 [10/25/11. Eugene, opinion, Washington Post, Citing extensively Muller a physicist at UC
Berkely, The scientific finding that settles the climate-change debate,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-scientific-finding-that-settles-the-climate-changedebate/2011/03/01/gIQAd6QfDM_story.html]
For the clueless or cynical diehards who deny global warming, its getting awfully cold out
there. The latest icy blast of reality comes from an eminent scientist whom the
climate-change skeptics once lauded as one of their own . Richard Muller, a respected
physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, used to dismiss alarmist climate research as
being polluted by political and activist frenzy. Frustrated at what he considered shoddy science, Muller
launched his own comprehensive study to set the record straight. Instead, the record
set him straight. 99 percent bogus Global warming is real, Muller wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal.
Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the neo-Luddites who are turning the GOP into the anti-science party
should pay attention. When
we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate

issues, and we didnt know what wed find , Muller wrote. Our results turned out to be
close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly
been careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that .
In other words, the deniers claims about the alleged sloppiness or fraudulence of climate science
are wrong. Mullers team, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, rigorously explored the
specific objections raised by skeptics and found them groundless. Muller and his fellow
researchers examined an enormous data set of observed temperatures from monitoring
stations around the world and concluded that the average land temperature has
risen 1 degree Celsius or about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since the mid-1950s. This agrees
with the increase estimated by the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Mullers figures also
conform with the estimates of those British and American researchers whose catty e-mails were the basis for the alleged
The Berkeley groups research even

confirms the infamous hockey stick graph showing a sharp recent temperature rise that
Muller once snarkily called the poster child of the global warming community. Mullers new graph isnt just
similar, its identical. Muller found that skeptics are wrong when they claim that a heat
island effect from urbanization is skewing average temperature readings ;
monitoring instruments in rural areas show rapid warming, too . He found that skeptics are
wrong to base their arguments on the fact that records from some sites seem to
indicate a cooling trend, since records from at least twice as many sites clearly
indicate warming. And he found that skeptics are wrong to accuse climate scientists of
cherry-picking the data, since the readings that are often omitted because they
are judged unreliable show the same warming trend. Muller and his colleagues examined
five times as many temperature readings as did other researchers a total of 1.6
billion records and now have put that merged database online. The results have not yet been subjected to peer review, so
technically they are still preliminary. But Mullers plain-spoken admonition that you should not be
a skeptic, at least not any longer has reduced many deniers to incoherent grumbling or stunned silence. Not so, I
Climategate scandal, which was never a scandal in the first place.
predict, with the blowhards such as Perry, Cain and Bachmann, who, out of ignorance or perceived self-interest, are willing to play
politics with the Earths future. They may concede that warming is taking place, but they call it a natural phenomenon and deny that
human activity is the cause. It is true that Muller made no attempt to ascertain how much of the warming is due to humans. Still,
We know
that the rise in temperatures over the past five decades is abrupt and very large . We
know it is consistent with models developed by other climate researchers that posit
greenhouse gas emissions the burning of fossil fuels by humans as the cause.
And now we know, thanks to Muller, that those other scientists have been both careful and
honorable in their work. Nobodys fudging the numbers. Nobodys manipulating data
to win research grants, as Perry claims, or making an undue fuss over a naturally
occurring warm-up, as Bachmann alleges. Contrary to what Cain says, the science
is real. It is the know-nothing politicians not scientists who are committing an
unforgivable fraud.
the Berkeley groups work should help lead all but the dimmest policymakers to the overwhelmingly probable answer.
Warming is real prefer recent and rigorous scientific study
Muller, 11 [OCTOBER 21, 2011 The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism There were good reasons for
doubt, until now., Mr. Muller is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of
"Physics for Future Presidents" (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008).,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576594872796327348.html]
As many as 757 stations in the United States recorded net surface-temperature cooling
over the
past century. Many are concentrated in the southeast, where some people attribute tornadoes and hurricanes to
warming.
The temperature-station quality is largely awful . The most important stations in the
U.S. are included in the Department of Energy's Historical Climatology Network. A careful survey of these stations
by a team led by meteorologist Anthony Watts showed that 70% of these stations have such poor
siting that, by the U.S. government's own measure, they result in temperature
uncertainties of between two and five degrees Celsius or more . We do not know how
much worse are the stations in the developing world.
Using data from all these poor stations, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change estimates an average global 0.64C temperature rise in the past 50
years, "most" of which the IPCC says is due to humans . Yet the margin of error for the stations
is at least three times larger than the estimated warming.
We know that cities show anomalous warming, caused by energy use and building materials; asphalt, for instance,
absorbs more sunlight than do trees. Tokyo's temperature rose about 2C in the last 50 years. Could that rise, and
increases in other urban areas, have been unreasonably included in the global estimates? That warming may be
real, but it has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect and can't be addressed by carbon dioxide reduction.
the three major temperature analysis groups (the U.S.'s NASA and National Oceanic and
analyze only a small
fraction of the available data, primarily from stations that have long records. There's a logic to that
Moreover,
Atmospheric Administration, and the U.K.'s Met Office and Climatic Research Unit)
practice, but it could lead to selection bias. For instance, older stations were often built outside of cities but today
are surrounded by buildings. These groups today use data from about 2,000 stations, down from roughly 6,000 in
1970, raising even more questions about their selections.
Enlarge Image
On top of that, stations have moved, instruments have changed and local environments
have evolved. Analysis groups try to compensate for all this by homogenizing the data, though there are
plenty of arguments to be had over how best to homogenize long-running data taken from around the world in
varying conditions. These adjustments often result in corrections of several tenths of one degree Celsius, significant
fractions of the warming attributed to humans.
And that's just the surface-temperature record . What about the rest? The number of named
hurricanes has been on the rise for years, but that's in part a result of better detection technologies (satellites and
buoys) that find storms in remote regions. The number of hurricanes hitting the U.S., even more intense Category 4
and 5 storms, has been gradually decreasing since 1850. The number of detected tornadoes has been increasing,
possibly because radar technology has improved, but the number that touch down and cause damage has been
decreasing. Meanwhile, the short-term variability in U.S. surface temperatures has been decreasing since 1800,
suggesting a more stable climate.
Without good answers to all these complaints , global-warming skepticism seems

sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic , at least not any
longer.
Over the last two years, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project has looked
deeply at all the issues raised above. I chaired our group, which just submitted four detailed papers on
our results to peer-reviewed journals. We have now posted these papers online at www.BerkeleyEarth.org to solicit
even more scrutiny.
Our work covers only land temperature not the oceansbut that's where warming
appears to be the greatest. Robert Rohde, our chief scientist, obtained more than 1.6
billion measurements from more than 39,000 temperature stations around the
world. Many of the records were short in duration, and to use them Mr. Rohde and a team of esteemed scientists
and statisticians developed a new analytical approach that let us incorporate fragments of records. By using
data from virtually all the available stations, we avoided data-selection bias. Rather
than try to correct for the discontinuities in the records, we simply sliced the records
where the data cut off, thereby creating two records from one.
We discovered that about one-third of the world's temperature stations have recorded
cooling temperatures, and about two-thirds have recorded warming. The two-to-one ratio
reflects global warming. The changes at the locations that showed warming were typically between 1-2C, much
greater than the IPCC's average of 0.64C.
To study urban-heating bias in temperature records, we used satellite

determinations that subdivided the world into urban and rural areas . We then conducted a
temperature analysis based solely on "very rural" locations, distant from urban ones. The result showed a
temperature increase similar to that found by other groups . Only 0.5% of the globe is
urbanized, so it makes sense that even a 2C rise in urban regions would contribute negligibly to the global
average.
What about poor station quality? Again, our statistical methods allowed us to
analyze the U.S. temperature record separately for stations with good or acceptable
rankings, and those with poor rankings (the U.S. is the only place in the world that ranks its
temperature stations). Remarkably, the poorly ranked stations showed no greater
temperature increases than the better ones. The mostly likely explanation is that while low-quality
stations may give incorrect absolute temperatures, they still accurately track temperature changes.
When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues , and we
didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by
prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in
their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed
to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections .
Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate
debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no
independent assessment of that.
Feedbacks are net positivemust act now to prevent runaway

warming
Hansen, 8 head of NASA Goddard Institute and professor of Environmental

Sciences, Columbia University (James E. Hanson. Head of the NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies in New York City and adjunct professor in the Department
of Earth and Environmental Science at Columbia University. Al Gores science
advisor. Introductory chapter for the book State of the Wild. Tipping point:
Perspective of a Scientist. April.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/StateOfWild_20080428.pdf)
Fast feedbackschanges that occur quickly in response to temperature changeamplify the initial
temperature change, begetting additional warming. As the planet warms , fast
feedbacks include more water vapor, which traps additional heat, and less snow and
sea ice, which exposes dark surfaces that absorb more sunlight . Slower feedbacks
also exist. Due to warming, forests and shrubs are moving poleward into tundra regions.
Expanding vegetation, darker than tundra, absorbs sunlight and warms the environment.
Another slow feedback is increasing wetness (i.e., darkness) of the Greenland and West
Antarctica ice sheets in the warm season. Finally, as tundra melts, methane, a powerful
greenhouse gas, is bubbling out. Paleoclimatic records confirm that the long-lived
greenhouse gases methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxideall increase with the warming of
oceans and land. These positive feedbacks amplify climate change over decades, centuries, and longer. The
predominance of positive feedbacks explains why Earths climate has historically undergone large swings:
feedbacks work in both directions , amplifying cooling, as well as warming, forcings. In the past,
feedbacks have caused Earth to be whipsawed between colder and warmer
climates, even in response to weak forcings, such as slight changes in the tilt of Earths axis.2 The second
fundamental property of Earths climate system, partnering with feedbacks, is the great inertia of oceans and ice
sheets. Given the oceans capacity to absorb heat, when a climate forcing (such as increased greenhouse gases)
impacts global temperature, even after two or three decades, only about half of the eventual surface warming has
occurred. Ice sheets also change slowly, although accumulating evidence shows that they can disintegrate within
The upshot of the combination of inertia and feedbacks is

that additional climate change is already in the pipeline: even if we stop
centuries or perhaps even decades.
increasing greenhouse gases today, more warming will occur. This is sobering when one
considers the present status of Earths climate. Human civilization developed during the Holocene (the past 12,000
years). It has been warm enough to keep ice sheets off North America and Europe, but cool enough for ice sheets to
global temperature
is at its warmest level in the Holocene.3 The warming that has already occurred, the
positive feedbacks that have been set in motion, and the additional warming in the pipeline
together have brought us to the precipice of a planetary tipping point. We are at the
tipping point because the climate state includes large, ready positive feedbacks
provided by the Arctic sea ice, the West Antarctic ice sheet, and much of Greenlands ice. Little additional
forcing is needed to trigger these feedbacks and magnify global warming. If we go over the
edge, we will transition to an environment far outside the range that has been
experienced by humanity, and there will be no return within any foreseeable future generation.
remain on Greenland and Antarctica. With rapid warming of 0.6C in the past 30 years,
Casualties would include more than the loss of indigenous ways of life in the Arctic and swamping of coastal cities.
An intensified hydrologic cycle will produce both greater floods and greater droughts. In the US, the semiarid states
from central Texas through Oklahoma and both Dakotas would become more drought-prone and ill suited for
agriculture, people, and current wildlife. Africa would see a great expansion of dry areas, particularly southern
Africa. Large populations in Asia and South America would lose their primary dry season freshwater source as
glaciers disappear. A major casualty in all this will be wildlife.
The peer reviewed studies corroborating our warming claims

are bestprefer them over hackery cloaked as
skepticism
Davies 8 6/11, Author and Geophysicist at the Australian National University
[Dr. Geoff Davies, June 11 2008, Science Alert, Why listen to scientists?,
<http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20081106-17474.html>]
Professor Don Aitkins recent promotion (PDF 258KB) of the sceptical view of global
warming and the ensuing heated debates on several web sites bring to the fore the
question of what authority attaches to the published conclusions and judgments of
climate scientists. Professor Aitkin, who is not a scientist, is in no doubt himself that the
more outspoken climate scientists have a quasi-religious attitude. That is the mild end of
the spectrum of opinions of sceptics/denialists/contrarians. Most of the media and many politicians seem to have the
view that scientists are just another interest group , and that scientists opinions are
just opinions, to be heard or discarded like any others. The Australian government seems to credit only the very conservative
end of climate scientists warnings, because it is acting as though we have many decades in which to adjust, and many years before
The big difference between scientists professional

conclusions and those of others is that science has a pervasive and well-developed
quality-control process. The first stage is called peer review. Any paper that is
published in a reputable scientific journal must be given the OK by several other
scientists in the same field. Furthermore, after publication a paper will be read critically
by many more scientists, and it is not uncommon for conclusions to be challenged in
subsequent publications. For a paper to become widely acknowledged it must
survive such scrutiny for a reasonable period, typically several years. All of this is on top of the fact that a
anything serious needs to be under way.
scientific paper is based on observations of the world and on a large accumulation of well-tested regularities, such as the laws of
Few other groups have any comparable process. Certainly the media,
politicians and climate sceptics have no such process. Most of the studies referred
to by sceptics have either not been published in a relevant peer-reviewed
scientific journal or have subsequently been challenged and found wanting in
other peer-reviewed studies. The peer-review process is far from perfect, but it yields a
product distinctly less unreliable than all the other opinions flying around. The
process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) adds another layer of caution.
Basically the IPCC gets a large number of relevant scientists to step back from the
front-line disputes and ask What can most of us agree on?. Sceptics who dismiss all of the
physics.
science because there are many disputes miss or obfuscate this basic aspect of IPCC assessments.
There is a degree of judgment involved in the IPCC process, and in virtually any public summary by a climate scientist. Some would
claim judgment is not the job of scientists; it is the job of politicians and others. But scientists are the best placed to judge the state
of knowledge in their field. If their conclusions are potentially of great import, then they have a responsibility to state their best
professional judgment. The claim by Professor Aitkin and many other sceptics that climate scientists dont discuss the uncertainties
in their conclusions and judgments simply misrepresents or misperceives the abundant information on uncertainties. Even the
IPCCs most terse summary statements clearly acknowledge uncertainty when they say, for example, Most of the observed
increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic
greenhouse gas concentrations [emphasis in original]. The term very likely is specifically defined in the IPCC summaries to mean
the assessed likelihood, using expert judgment, is greater than 90 per cent. Clive Hamilton contrasts the scientific and IPCC
processes with those of many sceptics (see Atkins response here). He traces connections from relatively nave people like Professor
Sceptics love to question the motives

of climate scientists, but rarely mention the motives of the very powerful multitrillion-dollar fossil fuel industry, parts of which are actively promoting doubt and
disinformation in exactly the manner used by the tobacco industry for many years.
Aitkin back to people and web sites funded by ExxonMobil and others.
Observations from the past two or three years, too recent to have been included in the 2007 IPCC Reports, show disturbing signs
that the Earths response to our activities is happening much faster than expected. The most dramatic sign is a sudden acceleration
of the rate of shrinkage of Arctic sea ice. Prominent NASA climate scientist Dr James Hansen is perhaps the most vocal, but far from
alone, in arguing that the Earth may be very close to a tipping point beyond which large, unstoppable and irreversible climate
Scientific issues are not settled by appeals to authority, nor by a vote.

That is not the issue here. The issue is whether scientists professional judgments
have weight. Those in strategic positions in our society , like politicians and journalists, who
treat scientists collective professional judgments as no better than any other
opinion are being seriously irresponsible. You can ignore the IPCC if you want, but
you should realise that its most recent assessment may have seriously understated
the global warming problem. You can ignore James Hansen if you want, but you
should know that his judgments from two or three decades ago are being broadly
vindicated.
change could occur.
Solvency
Federal investment solves

Federal investment in mass transit will substantially decrease
road use
Investing more in mass transit. Two-thirds of the U.S. population lives in our
largest metropolitan areas, and this number is expected to growa recent
survey shows that 77% of Americans under 30 intend to live in an urban core for
most of their lives. Yet only 30 of the largest 100 metropolitan regions in the U.S.
have light rail or subway systems. Only half of Americans have access to mass
transit, and surveys show that most Americans want more local transport options.
But cities and states need more federal support to build the mass transit
alternatives our metropolitan regions need. The federal government
should shift more attention and funding toward building more mass
transit alternatives. Spurring investment in mass transit is a smart use of
federal dollars: new light rail or commuter rail lines can accommodate 8 or
9 times the number of passengers as a new lane of highway, and they can
be built at a fraction of the cost.
Mass transit solves emissions

Mass transit is substantially more fuel efficient will decrease
emissions
Center for Neighborhood Technology, 3 Report prepared for Transit
Cooperative Research Program Transportation Research Board National Research
Council (COMBATING GLOBAL WARMING THROUGH SUSTAINABLE SURFACE
TRANSPORTATION POLICY , March, http://www.travelmatters.org/about/finalreport.pdf)//DH
Of the various modes of transportation that generate emissions, by far and away
the largest segment consisted of the combined emissions of both
automobiles and light trucks; almost 60 percent of transportation-related
carbon emissions come from motor fuel consumed by these two classes of
vehicle. For year 2000, cars generated 38.6 per cent of the U.S. transportation
sector CO2 emissions; light trucks, 20.6 per cent; and buses, 13.7 per cent. The bulk
of growth between 1990 and 2000 in transportation emissions was due to growth in
the use of light-trucks vans, pickups, minivans, and sports utility vehicles. 46
From a purely statistical point of view, then, a strategy for reducing global
carbon dioxide emissions would do well to reduce emissions originating in
the use of automobiles and light trucks in the United States. 47 One way of
accomplishing this, (in addition to increasing the fuel efficiency of new vehicles)
would be to encourage people who would normally drive on any given
occasion to use mass transit, bicycles, or to walk instead. With such a large
proportion of greenhouse gas emissions originating in the transportation
sector, and the largest proportion of those emissions originating in
personal automobiles, improving the competitiveness of transit vis--vis
the automobile could directly and significantly reduce collective CO2
emissions.
The goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector
overlaps with the aims of a variety of programs in urban planning, public policy, and
within federal, state, and municipal transit agencies, all directed towards increasing
public use of mass transportation. In the following chapters, various local strategies
for encouraging the use of mass transit will be examined, including, most
importantly, the land-use practices most supportive of transit use; effective market
incentives, and transit agency policies. While the third chapter offers illustrations of
the conditions necessary for optimal transit efficiency, the fourth chapter illustrates
the concrete economic advantages that new low-emissions technologies can bring
to a transit agency itself. The case of alternative transit technologies will illustrate a
larger principle on a smaller scale: how multiple ends can be achieved through
programs of energy efficiency. Reducing transportation sector greenhouse gas
emissions by increasing transit use has the positive consequence of
reducing regulated pollutants, and reducing transit agency operating
costs.
Linking mass transit explicitly to land use decisions solves


Greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. transportation sector can be
significantly lowered by reducing passenger vehicle miles traveled. One of
the most immediate and practical ways of reducing this figure is by filling
buses and trains with people who would otherwise take their trips by
automobile. Effectuating the shift from car to transit, however, is not as
straightforward as adapting a comprehensive bus system to urban geographies
designed around the automobile. To optimize mass transits competitive
advantage in terms of speed, convenience, and desirability, urban
planning and design are required to support the development of cities
defined by frequent use of transit for work trips, and the greater choice of
mobility options for personal ones. As travel demand research has
demonstrated, the key to an expanded range of mobility options is a higher
density of land use that is coupled with a transit and pedestrian friendly
environment. In highly transportation efficient locations, auto trips are
lower because higher density makes it more economical to make trips on
foot, by bicycle, as well as using public transportation. The presence of
transit can lower emissions not only from workrelated auto trips, but also from local
trips made to meet the everyday needs of city residents. By making transit one of a
number of equally desirable options for individual trip planning, automobile use
and emissions could be greatly reduced.
Their arguments dont account for the plans linkage of mass

transit to land use decisions
The essence of sustainability is the integration of economic development and

environmental improvement. As the Task Force for the Presidents Council on
Sustainable Development (1997) described it, sustainable communities are those
that flourish because they build a mutually supportive, dynamic balance between
social well-being, economic opportunity, and environmental quality. 22 Of the
many aspects of sustainability, transportation is central to the dynamic
balance between economies and environments, since varying
transportation policies have profoundly different effects on the urban
landscape. In particular, the linkage of sustainability with mass transit
now informs a range of policies intended to make more efficient use of
urbanized land, reduce traffic congestion, cut back vehicle emissions, and
improve pedestrian mobility. The examples that follow each illustrate how the
use of transit or other nonmotorized transportation options are enhanced when
travel demand factors are taken into consideration in the planning, marketing,
design, and operation of transit. Aside from the potential economic benefits of
reducing the consumption of resources associated with urban sprawl,
these examples of transit-supported sustainability provide a solid basis
for a range of geographically specific actions to reduce greenhouse gas

emissions in Americas large urban centers. Global issues like climate change
can be addressed by very local, very concrete actions taken to influence the way
people build, and move through, their environment.
Lifecycle emissions from mass transit are substantially lower

than automobiles per passenger mile
Change.pdf)//DH
The more passengers that are riding a bus or train, the lower the
emissions per passenger mile. For instance, U.S. bus transit, which has about
a quarter of its seats occupied on average, emits an estimated 32% lower
greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile than the average U.S.
single occupancy vehicle. The savings increases to 83% for a typical diesel
transit bus when it is full with 40 passengers (see fig. 3).
When expanding transit service as a greenhouse gas reduction strategy,
communities would likely want to ensure that passenger loads are sufficient to
achieve efficiencies over the alternative of driving.2 For example, the average 40passenger diesel bus must carry a minimum of 7 passengers on board to be more
efficient than the average single-occupancy vehicle. Similarly, the average heavy
rail car would need to have at least 19% of seats full to exceed the efficiency of a
automobile carrying an average passenger load.
Most rail transit systems are powered by electricity. Those relying on electricity from
a low emissions source, such as hydroelectric, not surprisingly, have much lower
emissions than those relying on coal power plants. (See Appendix I for emissions
factors). Rail vehicles also vary in terms of energy efficiency due to weight and
engineering factors.
Emissions from bus systems vary due to the use of low carbon fuels, more energy
efficient vehicles, and different operating environments (such as frequent stops in
denser urban areas). In terms of vehicle efficiency for instance, many transit
agencies are replacing older diesel buses with new hybridelectric buses, which
consume 15% to 40% less fuel, and consequently produce 15% to 40% fewer
carbon dioxide emissions.
Taking lifecycle emissions into account also shows emissions savings from transit.
Transit-based greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile are
significantly lower than those from driving, even taking into account
emissions from construction, manufacture, and maintenance.
Life cycle emissions include a full accounting of all emissions generated over the full
life of a transportation system. This includes emissions from building the
highway or rail system, manufacturing the vehicles, maintaining the
infrastructure and vehicles, producing and using the fuel, and eventually
disposing of the vehicles and infrastructure. The previous graphs only showed
tailpipe emissions, or solely the emissions from burning fuel or generating electricity
to move a vehicle.
Shifting to electric power reduces overall emissions greater efficiency

and renewable electricity
Change.pdf)//DH
Most rail transit is powered by electricity, which offers efficiency

improvements over internal combustion engines. Rail agencies are looking
to further reduce energy consumption by lowering the amount of
electricity used in powering vehicles. In Phoenix, for example, the new light
rail system uses regenerative braking to lower electricity consumption. As
the electric power industry shifts to more renewable sources of energy as
being mandated in several states, electric public transportation systems
provide even more emissions reduction benefits. When the electricity is
generated from a zero emissions source, such as wind, hydroelectric,
nuclear, or solar, the public transportation systems that use these power
sources are also zero emission.
Mass transit decreases emissions substantially Portland

empirically proves
Rivera, 11 staff writer (Dylan, Density and mass transit can fight global
warming, study says, The Oregonian,
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/09/density_and_mass_transi
t_can_f.html)
If you want to fight global warming, one good way could be to live in a
more compact neighborhood - with more neighbors and jobs close by, and
where mass transit, biking and walking are accessible alternatives to the car.
That's a main conclusion of a study out this week by the National Research
Council, a unit of the authoritative National Academy of Sciences. The study used
Portland as a case study for how denser development coupled with mass
transit can reduce gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
"The evidence indicates that Portland's policies to steer growth into more compact,
mixed use development have paid off, not only in revitalizing the downtown
and many of its neighborhoods, but also in changing travel behavior, the
primary concern of this study," the report says.
Portland-area residents drive 17 percent less than the U.S. average, because
denser development provides shorter travel distances and higher mass
transit use reduces driving. From 1993 to 2003, the region's mass transit
ridership grew 55 percent and housing density grew 18 percent, while the
population grew 21 percent.
The Congressionally mandated report's findings include:
Making denser residential and employment areas is likely to reduce driving and
fuel consumption.
Doubling residential density across a region could reduce driving by 5 to 12
percent - or as much as 25 percent if accompanied by more employment, mass
transit and mixed-use development.
Obstacles to more mixed use development include reluctance by local

governments to zone for it and a lack of state and regional-level involvement in land
use planning.
Americans' preference for low-density suburban homes also challenges the
potential for denser neighborhoods.
But how much of a difference could denser development make in the growth of
greenhouse gas emissions? A little or a lot?
It could cut emissions by 1 to 11 percent by 2050. That depends on whether
the next generation of neighborhoods is built more compact than the dominant
trend of sprawl across the nation.
AT: People wont use it

Mass transit use is increasing

1. High gas prices are driving Americans to transit
After years and years of steady increases, the total amount of driving in the
U.S. has slowed down dramatically. In fact, monthly dispatches from the federal
highway administration illustrate clearly that as a nation we are driving much less.
Cumulative travel for 2008 has decreased by 42.1 billion vehicle miles, the largest
drop in driving that this nation has ever seen. 14 Without a doubt some of this
decrease is attributable to skyrocketing gas prices which, although they have fallen
in the last two months, are still one dollar per gallon higher than this time last year.
Americans now consume 31 million fewer gallons of gasoline each day in
2008 than they did in 2005. 15 Partly as a result, transit ridership is booming,
increasing by 74 million trips from March 2005 to March 2008a gain of nearly nine
percent. 16 A recent survey found that 92 percent of transit agencies
reported increases in ridership and 91 percent of those attribute at least
part of the increase to the increased fuel costs to American drivers. 17
Amtrak's ridership this past July was its highest in any single month in its history. 18
There is no doubt that these trends are positive for our national quest for energy
independence and climate protection. It is also consistent with recent research
showing the significant contributions public transportation makes to reducing
overall oil and gasoline consumption. 19
Unfortunately, we also know that transit agencies are not immune from the
increases in fuel costs and at the same time are struggling to cope with this
increased demand. Perversely, one in five transit agencies are considering cuts in
service as a result of the increased costs of energy. 20 So at the time when the
nation needs functioning, reliable, mass transit we are finding many
agencies in severe distress.
Ridership is high and explicit regional planning for land use

can increase it

Interest in transit and urban sustainability has grown together with public
transit use: the 1990s were a record decade for transit, with ridership
figures growing by 21 percent nationwide from 1995 to 2000, approaching
levels not reached since the early 1960s. 23 With more people using transit, a
strong rationale exists for capitalizing on this trend as a key strategy in
the effort to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from the

transportation sector. Looking beyond the success of already-existing transit
systems, however, many municipal planners, transportation scholars, and
sustainability advocates have come to realize that new systems are not guaranteed
the high level of ridership enjoyed by their forerunners early in the 20 th century. In
an environment in which transit competes with automobiles, new transit
systems will be effective only when assisted by policy and planning
measures designed to make transit use a feasible and desirable mobility
option for urban residents. Planning for transit-supportive land use,
reducing the provision of parking spaces near transit stations, providing
workplace transit incentives for public and private sector employees, and
designing transit stops and transit area neighborhoods to be as accessible
by foot or bicycle as by car, are a few of the tools available to stitch transit
together with the modern urban fabric. Taken together, these tools amount to
models of urban design that differ fundamentally from the auto-oriented
development predominant since WWII.
2ac obesity addon

Expanding mass transit substantially decreases obesity and
health care costs
If improved infrastructure changed the way Americans live and work,
there would be significant benefits to health and wellness. For example,
MacDonald et al. find that improving neighborhood environments and
increasing the publics use of light rail transit would benefit health to the
extent it causes increased physical activity, a reduction in the incidence of
obesity (body mass index greater than 30), and a reduction in the odds of
becoming obese.44
Using data on individuals before (July 2006 to February 2007) and after (March 2008
to July 2008) the completion of a light rail system in Charlotte, North Carolina, they
find that the use of light rail to commute to work is associated with a
nearly 1.2 point reduction in body mass index as well as an 81 percent
reduction in the odds of becoming obese. Moreover, improved perceptions of
neighborhoods as a result of the availability of light rail were associated with 15
percent lower odds of obesity as well as higher odds of meeting weekly
recommended physical activity levels for walking and vigorous exercise (9 percent
and 11 percent, respectively).
In addition to all of the personal benefits associated with a healthier life style,
overall costs on our health care system are substantially reduced when
obesity rates are lowered, given that health care costs for the obese are
almost twice the rate for normal weight individuals. Finkelstein et al. find that
between 1998 and 2006, the prevalence of obesity in the United States increased
by 37 percent, adding $40 billion dollars to health care costs. 45
Obesity kills millions outweighs war and pandemics
Lalasz, 5 Senior Editor at Population Reference Bureau [May 2005, Robert, Will Rising Childhood Obesity
Decrease U.S. Life Expectancy?
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2005/WillRisingChildhoodObesityDecreaseUSLifeExpectancy.aspx?p=1)
A new study contends that rising childhood obesity rates will cut average
U.S. life expectancy from birth by two to five years in the coming decades a magnitude
(May 2005)
of decline last seen in the United States during the Great Depression.
The study, published in the March 18 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, contradicts recent government
projections that U.S. life expectancy will reach at least the mid-80s by the year 2080.1 Such forecasts, write lead
author S. Jay Olshansky and his nine co-authors, are a "simple but unrealistic extrapolation of past trends in life
expectancy into the future."
In turn, other demographers have characterized the Olshansky team's analysis as largely unsupported by evidence,
and the article has spotlighted a long-standing debate about whether there are biological limits to an individual
human lifespanall amidst a recent flurry of contradictory research about how obesity effects morbidity and
mortality rates. One new study from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even argues that being
overweight has a positive effect on life expectancy.2
But Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois-Chicago, remains convinced
by his team's conclusions. "If anything, we're being conservative in our estimates," he says. "We're assuming no
change in obesity levels from 2000 levels, and actually, they've gotten worse."
Obesity and the Future of Medicine
Projecting life expectancy is more than an academic exercise. Many U.S. government agenciesincluding the Social
Security Administration, Congress, and the militaryuse such forecasts to guide policymaking on issues from tax
rates to the solvency of age-based entitlement programs.
And almost all these projections assume that U.S. life expectancy will continue to rise as steadily as it has since the
1930s, spurred by new medical approaches and technology as well as behavioral shifts towards healthier lifestyles.
But Olshansky and his co-authors question whether medicine and public health interventions can counter the rapid
increases in U.S. obesity rates over the last two decades, especially among children.
The incidence of obesitywhich researchers have linked to an elevated risk of type-2 diabetes, coronary heart
disease, cancer, and other health complicationsrose approximately 50 percent in the United States in both the
1980s and 1990s. Two-thirds of all U.S. adults are now classified as overweight or obese, as are 20 percent to 30
percent of all children under age 15.
Olshansky argues that this rapid rise in obesity rates will cause a "pulse event"
of mortality in the United Statesakin to the large number of deaths caused
by an influenza pandemic or a war, but spread out over the next four or five
decades.
"Any time there's an increase in early-age mortality [deaths before age 50], it has
an effect on overall life expectancy," says Olshansky. "And when these children reach their 20s, 30s,
And
40s, and 50s, they'll face a higher risk of death. It's roughly equivalent to discovering that a large segment of our
young people who never smoked suddenly decided to smoke."
The Surprising Impact of Obesity Today
To demonstrate the future effects of rising obesity levels, Olshansky and his co-authors first calculated how current
rates of adult obesity are diminishing overall U.S. life expectancy. Using studies that argue being obese reduces
your life expectancy by nearly 13 years, the researchers estimated by how much overall rates of death would fall if
every obese person in the United States lost enough weight to reach the optimal Body Mass Index (BMI) of 24.
(Obesity is generally defined as having a BMI of 30 or above.) "In other words, to find out the effects of obesity, we
statistically wiped out obesity," says Olshansky.
They found that obesity now slices one-third to three-quarters of a year off overall life expectancy, depending on
one's race and gender (see figure). These figures don't sound like much, says Olshansky, until you put them into
context. "They are larger than the negative effect of all accidental deaths as well as homicides and suicides," he
says. "If you wiped out cancer, that would only add 3.5 years to overall U.S. life expectancy."
the effect of obesity will only grow , write Olshansky and his co-authors, as its prevalence
further rises and children and young adults "carry and express obesity-related risks
for more of their lifetime than previous generations have done." Even eliminating
a major disease such as cancer, they conclude, would not counter the negative
consequences for life expectancy caused by this wave of deaths. "They will
overwhelm the positive influences of technology," says Olshansky.
And
Obesity causes 300,000 deaths a year

Besharov, 3 (Douglas Besharov, American Enterprises Institute, 2003, Testimony before Committee on
Agriculture, April 3, http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.16861,filter.all/pub_detail.asp)
The growing girth of Americans is a major

health catastrophe. Overweight people are three times more likely to have coronary artery disease.[5] two
Being overweight is not simply a matter of aesthetics.
to six times more likely to develop high blood pressure, [6] more than three times as likely to develop type 2
Obesity, of course, is
more serious, causing an estimated 50 to 100 percent increase in premature deaths
(estimated to be 300,000 deaths per year).[9]
diabetes, [7] and twice as likely to develop gallstones than normal weight people.[8]
2ac answers
AT: States CP - preemption

Federal action is inevitable without the plan, it will conflict
with and preempt the CP
Prum and Catz, 11 - * Assistant Professor, The Florida State University AND **
Director, Center for Urban Infrastructure; Research Associate, Institute of
Transportation Studies, University of California, Irvine (Darren and Sarah,
GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION TARGETS AND MASS TRANSIT: CAN THE
GOVERNMENT SUCCESSFULLY ACCOMPLISH BOTH WITHOUT A CONFLICT? 51 Santa
Clara L. Rev. 935, lexis)
While the federal government appears as a late participant, many states have
taken leadership positions to forge ahead towards a solution. The
approaches taken by Florida and California to force local governments to
directly evaluate and determine environmental impacts from
transportation sources that require reductions in VMTs demonstrate that the
dual goals are compatible. California takes these requirements a step further by
monitoring compliance against identifiable targets. The approaches of both Florida
and California show regulatory actions can start the process of identifying the best
opportunities for mass transit alternatives and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Likewise, the regional "cap-and-trade" initiatives demonstrate the willingness across
international borders and amongst states to work collectively to affect climate
change. While the current targets for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions mainly
focus on electricity generators, the indirect benefit for some mass transit
alternatives, such as fixed guideway systems, will also contribute.
Meanwhile, the federal government still holds all of the cards from a legal
perspective. Upon considering the constitutional aspects, Congress could
easily render the actions taken by states meaningless by passing its
own [*987] legislation and then enforcing it by either the commerce
clause or preemption. Likewise, many of the federal agencies may do the
same through their regulatory functions and by setting policies that
conflict with aggressive actions taken by the states.
Congress can end state efforts
In the struggle to combat greenhouse gas emissions and climate change,
the dark cloud of Congress forever looms over state actions. Congress can
immediately overturn a state's actions by merely inserting language into
legislation asserting its superior authority through the Commerce Clause
or invoking its preemption powers.n156
i. Commerce Clause
Under its enumerated powers, Congress may, "regulate Commerce with foreign
Nations, and among the several States ... ." n157 From its numerous interpretations
of this clause, the Supreme Court created definitions from two different
perspectives: federal regulation of state and local commerce, and state and local
regulation of interstate commerce. n158 Consequently, the Supreme Court has
struggled to define "interstate commerce" over the years; n159 however, in recent
opinions on the subject, the Court repeated its present viewpoint that "where
economic activity [*964] substantially affects interstate commerce, legislation
regulating that activity will be sustained." n160
As applied to the area of environmental law, three cases directly impact Congress's
authority to rightfully enact legislation via the commerce clause. n161 While
Congress actively passed ecologically friendly legislation during the 1970s and
1980s, n162 the main case to test Congress's authority for the plethora of
subsequent regulations associated with all of the environmental laws was Chevron
v. Natural Resources Defense Council. n163 Known mainly for its administrative law
implications, this case instructs a court first to ascertain the ambiguity of a
statute. n164 Should this inquiry reveal that the statute is unambiguous, the inquiry
ceases and the regulation obtains the effect and intent given by
Congress. n165 Otherwise, the court must give deference to the regulations unless
"they are arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute." n166 As a
result, Chevron lessened the number of administrative reversals and became a
primary means for upholding regulations that interpret environmental legislation
where the Commerce Clause provided the main basis for authority. n167
More recently, the Supreme Court revisited this area in a case examining the
Migratory Bird Rule of The Clean Water Act. n168 In SWANCC, the Court held that
"where an otherwise acceptable construction of a statute would raise serious
constitutional problems, the Court will construe the statute to avoid such problems
unless such construction is plainly contrary to the intent of Congress." n169
[*965] Following this approach, the EPA declined to regulate greenhouse gases
until ordered to do so based on the lack of an explicit directive from
Congress. n170Nonetheless, the Supreme Court determined that Congress gave the
EPA statutory authority to regulate the emissions from vehicles under The Clean Air
Act to address global warming, and that the agency must comply with its legislative
mandate. n171
From this Court directive, new efforts from the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas
emissions with regard to all forms of transportation becomes a logical progression.
The EPA already began lowering emission standards on locomotives and could easily
fill the gap between its current proposal for the automobile/light trucks category
and heavy-duty trucks/buses group. This type of movement will further the EPA's
approach in targeting individual emitters, but lacks a comprehensive solution to a
complex national issue.
Nevertheless, Congress and the EPA will need to look for a more comprehensive
approach, which will undoubtedly affect interstate commerce. With this in mind,
Congress could pass legislation to create its own unique solution given that
greenhouse gas emissions correlate very strongly to interstate commerce. For
example, a national "cap-and-trade" program would create uniformity across the
country because the regulatory environment of the Bush Administration encouraged
the development of a patchwork of regional initiatives.
Another option is that the federal government could adopt the California model with
AB 32 and SB 375 on a national basis. n172 The federal government already sets
regional clean air standards and requires Regional Transportation Plans (RTPs) from
the Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), so an additional document
explaining how to meet greenhouse gas emission targets appears as a logical step
within the constructs of the current regulatory structure.
Therefore, by virtue of the directive from the Supreme Court relating to greenhouse
gas emissions, followed by the [*966] EPA's recent determination, Congress and
the EPA's authority under the commerce clause will provide an avenue to directly
regulate all types of transportation emissions and give the agency the wherewithal
to overturn any state actions contrary to the direction the federal government
wishes to proceed.
ii. Preemption
Another constitutional obstacle in tackling these issues includes the Preemption
Doctrine, which creates complications for state and local regulation. n173 This
doctrine traces its roots to the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the Constitution
that makes the federal law the "supreme law of the land." n174 Congress may
preempt state legislation in three different ways, n175 and the executive branch of
the government may trigger preemption while conducting foreign affairs.
The first and most direct approach occurs when Congress chooses to insert
language into a statute that directly and expressly preempts state laws concerning
a specific area of regulation. n176 Another type of preemption may occur if
Congress passes all-encompassing legislation that leaves no room for additional
regulations, such that a court will find that the federal government exclusively
occupies the field. n177 Lastly, preemption may take place when a conflict occurs
between federal and state laws that makes it impossible to comply with
both. n178 In such circumstances, the Supreme [*967] Court explains that the
state laws "stand[] as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full
purposes and objectives of Congress." n179
Notwithstanding any type of congressional engagement, preemption may also occur
in the context of foreign affairs by the executive branch. The Supreme Court
explained that in the scope of traditional areas of foreign policy, a state must yield
to the valid "exercise of the federal executive authority ... where ... there is
evidence of clear conflict between the policies adopted by the two." n180
Accordingly, the state and local governments must enact laws with stronger
requirements or apply them in a broader manner while not disturbing the existing
federal legislation that was set as a base level to avoid the effects of the
preemption doctrine. n181 Recognizing these possible threats, and in conformity
with these requirements, many states enacted legislation to protect their economies
and natural environments. n182
However, given the recent finding by the EPA that greenhouse gases pose an
endangerment to the public health and welfare, n183 the EPA could effortlessly
invoke the preemption doctrine through regulations that make state compliance an
obstacle to complying federally, or by asserting the preemption doctrine through
the Clean Air Act. As the lead agency in this area, the EPA could expand the
endangerment finding very easily into many different aspects of industry and daily
life. While unintended consequences will occur in other areas, the epicenter will
start with the transportation sector because the original finding began with the
emissions of greenhouse gases from vehicles.
Moreover, as Congress continues to evaluate the priority for creating a national
"cap-and-trade" system for dealing [*968] with greenhouse gas emissions, n184 a
countrywide mandate could easily force a different solution upon the states and
supplant any system already in place through preemption. Any of the three
preemption approaches in direct legislation would most likely withstand
constitutional muster, but it could also allow an agency to occupy the entire field or
create regulations that turn the state approaches into an obstacle to accomplishing
the federal goal.
Because the current battleground against climate change appears to be developing
on a state and regional level, each part of these programs will undoubtedly address
an area's own unique economic and physical characteristics, which may contain
meaningful differences. n185 With this in mind, a uniform approach may provide the
nation with a better solution than patchwork regulations and could upend the
systems that individual states and regions have implemented to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions.
Furthermore, many of the regional initiatives also include provinces in Canada and
states in Mexico. n186 In the absence of a foreign policy regarding greenhouse gas
reduction with our North American neighbors, these regional initiatives comply with
the preemption doctrine. However, as foreign policy evolves with these two nations
and others with regard to environmental issues on global warming, preemption may
occur and prevail over the regional compacts and force a change.
Thus, an act of Congress, a program put forward by an agency like the EPA
to create a uniform national approach to benefit the entire country, or a
change in foreign policy by the president each could easily terminate
most, if not all, of the state and regional initiatives previously described.
AT: States CP - budget

State budget shortfalls prevent greater investment
In a swift change in public policy and to comply with a United States Supreme Court
mandate, n2 the Obama Administration altered the course of the federal
government by addressing climate change and greenhouse gas emissions quickly
after taking office. In looking to the transportation sector to return
meaningful and rapid results, one of the components that could create a
dual impact arises out of dependable, affordable, and convenient public
transit alternatives. By encouraging the public to reduce their driving
habits and to switch modes for their various [*936] transportation needs,
the government could accomplish many different goals, such as reducing
greenhouse gases, reducing congestion, and improving our national
security by depending less on foreign oil.
Transportation agencies across the country, however, are sharply cutting
services in the face of harsh fiscal constraints from all levels. n3 These
measures are the latest sign of the fiscal woes in many state and local
agencies across the country that threaten to derail the Obama
Administration's policy change. n4
Federal key state budgets

Finally, it is important to consider the economic situation facing state and
local governments who are significant partners in funding public
infrastructure. During recessions, it is common for state and local
governments to cut back on capital projects such as building schools, roads,
and parks in order to meet balanced budget requirements. At the beginning
of the most recent recession, tax receipts at the state and local level contracted for
four straight quarters; receipts are still below pre-recession levels. Past
research has found that expenditures on capital projects are more than four
times as sensitive to year-to-year fluctuations in state income as is state
spending in general. 30 However, the need for improved and expanded
infrastructure is just as great during a downturn as it is during a boom. Providing
immediate additional federal support for transportation infrastructure
investment would be prudent given the ongoing budgetary constraints
facing state and local governments, the upcoming reduction in federal
infrastructure investment as Recovery Act funds are depleted, and the strong
benefits associated with public investment.
AT: States State spending disad

State budget shortfalls will cause spending cuts
McNichol, 12 - Senior Fellow specializing in state fiscal issues including the

economys impact on state budgets and long-term structural reform of state budget
and tax systems at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (Elizabeth, States
Continue to Feel Recessions Impact, 5/24,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711)
State budget estimates for the upcoming fiscal year continue to show that
states face a long and uncertain recovery. For fiscal year 2013, the fiscal year
that begins July 1, 2012, 30 states have addressed or have projected
shortfalls totaling $54 billion.[1]
The Great Recession that started in 2007 caused the largest collapse in state
revenues on record. Since bottoming out in 2010, revenues have begun to grow
again, but states are still far from fully recovered. As of the fourth quarter of 2011,
state revenues remained 7 percent below pre-recession levels, and are not growing
fast enough to recover fully soon. Meanwhile, states' education and health care
obligations continue to grow. Next year, states expect to educate 350,000 more K12 students and 1.7 million more public college and university students in the
upcoming school year than in 2007-08.[2] And some 5.6 million more people are
projected to be eligible for subsidized health insurance through Medicaid in 2012
than were enrolled in 2008, as employers have cancelled their coverage and people
have lost jobs and wages.[3]
Consequently, even though the revenue outlook is trending upward, states
have addressed large budget shortfalls by historical standards as they
considered budgets for the upcoming year. As the start of the new fiscal year draws
near in most states, many of these shortfalls have been closed through
spending cuts and other measures scheduled to take effect in the next fiscal year.
Other states will soon close these shortfalls in order to meet balancedbudget requirements. To the extent these shortfalls are being closed with
budget cuts, they are occurring on top of past years' deep cuts in critical
public services like education, health care, and human services.
The additional cuts mean that state budgets are poised to continue to be a
drag on the national economy, threatening hundreds of thousands of
private- and public-sector jobs, reducing the job creation that otherwise would
be expected to occur. Potential strategies for lessening the impact of deep spending
cuts include more use of state reserve funds in states that have reserves, more
revenue through tax-law changes, and a greater role for the federal government.
Our survey of state fiscal conditions shows that:
States continue to face a major fiscal challenge. Thirty states have projected (and
in many cases have already closed) budget gaps totaling $54 billion for fiscal year
2013. (See Figure 1.) These shortfalls are all the more daunting because states'
options for addressing them are fewer and more difficult than in recent years.
Temporary aid to states enacted in early 2009 as part of the federal Recovery Act
was enormously helpful in allowing states to avert some of the most harmful
potential budget cuts in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. But the federal
government allowed that aid to largely expire at the end of fiscal year 2011, leading
to some of the deepest cuts to state services since the start of the recession. Far
from providing additional assistance to states, the federal government is
now moving ahead with spending cuts that will very likely make states'
fiscal situation even worse.
This will collapse the economy federal spending is key

Pollack, 9 Economic Policy Institute (Ethan, Dire States: State and Local Budget
Relief Need to Prevent Job Losses and Ensure a Robust Recovery, EPI Briefing
Paper, 11/19 http://epi.3cdn.net/1e7013bc0e4ca00724_0ym6b5yq5.pdf
Widening state and local budget shortfalls present a ticking time bomb for the
economy. If they are not addressed, state and local governments will be forced to
accelerate layoffs, reduce pay, reduce services, and raise taxes and fees. These
moves create a drag on the economy, weaken the recovery, and result in the loss of
millions of public and private-sector jobs.
To prevent or reduce job losses induced by cutbacks at the state and local level and
to ensure a robust recovery, Congress must both extend the state and local budget
relief offered in the recovery act through state fiscal year 2011 and raise the
funding levels. This should be viewed not as a new recovery act, but rather as an
extension of the first one, necessary because the budget relief originally provided is
inadequate to address shortfalls that continue to grow even after the recovery has
begun.
Between the mid-year shortfalls in 2010 and the full shortfalls in 2011, state and
local governments will raise taxes and cut spending by $204 billion.9 Not all of that
can be mitigatedno distribution formula perfectly targets needy state and local
governments, meaning that if the full amount was provided some recipients would
get too much and others would still face shortfalls. While finding an exact number
needed is difficult, at least $150 billion in budget relief should be provided. Without
it, between 1.1 and 1.4 million jobs will be lost. Congress must act before its too
late.
--XT State spending cuts kill the economy

States will have to cut overall spending and it will collapse the
economy
McNichol, 12 - Senior Fellow specializing in state fiscal issues including the
economys impact on state budgets and long-term structural reform of state budget
and tax systems at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (Elizabeth, States
Continue to Feel Recessions Impact, 5/24,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711)
The Consequences of Shortfalls
In states facing budget gaps, the consequences are severe in many cases
for residents as well as the economy. To date, budget difficulties have led at
least 46 states to reduce services for their residents, including some of their
most vulnerable families and individuals.[4] More than 30 states have raised taxes
to at least some degree, in some cases quite significantly.
If revenues remain depressed, as is expected in many states, additional spending
and service cuts are likely. Indeed, a number of states have already made
substantial cuts to balance their budgets for fiscal year 2013. Budget cuts
often are more severe later in a state fiscal crisis, after largely depleted reserves are
no longer an option for closing deficits.[5]
Spending cuts are problematic during an economic downturn because they
reduce overall demand and can make the downturn deeper. When states cut
spending, they lay off employees, cancel contracts with vendors, eliminate or lower
payments to businesses and nonprofit organizations that provide direct services,
and cut benefit payments to individuals. In all of these circumstances, the
companies and organizations that would have received government payments have
less money to spend on salaries and supplies, and individuals who would have
received salaries or benefits have less money for consumption. This directly
removes demand from the economy.
Tax increases also remove demand from the economy by reducing the amount of
money people have to spend. However, to the extent these increases are on upperincome residents, that effect is minimized. This is because these residents tend to
save a larger share of their income, and thus much of the money generated by a tax
increase on upper income residents comes from savings and so does not diminish
economic activity. At the state level, a balanced approach to closing deficits
raising taxes along with enacting budget cuts is needed to close state budget
gaps in order to maintain important services while minimizing harmful
effects on the economy.
Ultimately, the actions needed to address state budget shortfalls place a
considerable number of jobs at risk.
The roughly $54 billion shortfall that states are facing for fiscal year 2013 equals
about 0.35 percent of GDP. Assuming that economic activity declines by one dollar
for every dollar that states cut spending or raise taxes, and based on a rule of
thumb that a one percentage point loss of GDP costs the economy 1 million jobs,
the state shortfalls projected to date could prevent the creation of
350,000 public- and private-sector jobs next year.
The Role of the Federal Government
Federal assistance lessened the extent to which states needed to take

actions that further harmed the economy. The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA), enacted in February 2009, included substantial
assistance for states. The amount in ARRA to help states maintain current
activities was about $135 billion to $140 billion over a roughly 2-year period or
between 30 percent and 40 percent of projected state shortfalls for fiscal years
2009, 2010, and 2011. Most of this money was in the form of increased Medicaid
funding and a "State Fiscal Stabilization Fund." (There were also other streams of
funding in the Recovery Act flowing through states to local governments or
individuals, but these will not address state budget shortfalls.) This money
reduced the extent of state spending cuts and state tax and fee
increases.
In addition, H.R. 1586 the August 2010 jobs bill extended enhanced Medicaid
funding for six months, through June 2011, and added $10 billion to the State Fiscal
Stabilization Fund. Even with this extension, federal assistance largely ended
before state budget gaps had fully abated. The Medicaid funds expired in June
2011, the end of the 2011 fiscal year in most states,[6] and states had drawn down
most of their State Fiscal Stabilization Fund allocations by then as well. So even
though significant budget gaps remained in 2012, there was little federal money
available to close them. Partially as a result, states' final 2012 budgets contain
some of the deepest spending cuts since the start of the recession.
One way to avert these kinds of cuts, as well as additional tax increases, would
have been for the federal government to reduce state budget gaps by extending the
Medicaid funds for as long as state fiscal conditions are expected to be
problematic. But far from extending this aid, federal policymakers are moving
ahead with plans to cut ongoing federal funding for states and localities, thereby
making state fiscal conditions even worse. The federal government has already cut
non-defense discretionary spending by nine percent in real terms since 2010.
Discretionary spending caps established in the federal debt limit deal this past
summer will result in an additional six percent cut by the end of the next decade.
The additional cut by the end of the next decade would grow to 11 percent if
sequestration the automatic, across-the-board cuts also established in the debt
limit deal is allowed to take effect.
Fully one-third of non-defense discretionary spending flows through state and local
governments in the form of funding for education, health care, human services, law
enforcement, infrastructure, and other services that states and localities administer.
Large cuts in federal funding to states and localities would worsen state
budget problems, deepen the size of cuts in spending, increase state
taxes and fees, and thus slow economic recovery even further than is
already likely to occur.
State spending cuts or tax increases will cripple the economy

Mishel, 10 president of the Economic Policy Institute (Lawrence, Congressional
Documents and Publications, 1/21, Testimony before Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related
Agencies, lexis)
Second, Congress should provide more fiscal relief to the states. Helping state and
local governments avoid job cuts is as effective as creating new jobs. Nothing is
more clearly an obstacle to recovery than another round of public employee job
losses and cutbacks in state spending on goods and services contracted out to the
private sector. As Paul Krugman puts it so well, we cannot afford to have the states
become 50 little Herbert Hoovers, cutting back spending and raising taxes as the
economy struggles to recover. With budget gaps expected to exceed $450 billion in
2010 and 2011, the states and local governments need federal revenue sharing as
never before. EPI researcher Ethan Pollack estimates that if Congress does not
intervene, and state and local governments close their budget gaps by cutting
spending, GDP growth will be reduced by about 4.5% over the next two years, at a
cost of more than 3 million jobs.
State funding mechanisms collapse the economy, federal key

Lav and McNichol, 09 *former deputy director at the Center for Budget and
Policy Priorities AND **Senior fellow at the CBPP [Iris and Elizabeth McNichol, New
Fiscal Year Brings No Relief From Unprecedented State Budget Problems, 8/12,
http://governor.mt.gov/news/docs/Center_on_Budget_Policy.pdf)
Unlike the federal government, the vast majority of states are governed under rules
that prohibit them from running a deficit or borrowing to cover their operating
expenses. As a result, states have three primary actions they can take during a
fiscal crisis: draw down available reserves, cut spending, and raise taxes. States
already have begun drawing down reserves; the remaining reserves are not
sufficient to allow states to weather the remainder of the recession. The other
alternatives spending cuts and tax increases can further slow a states
economy during a downturn, which produces a cumulative negative impact on
national recovery as well.
Some states have not been affected by the economic downturn, but the number is
dwindling. Mineral-rich states such as New Mexico, Alaska, and Montana saw
revenue growth as a result of high oil prices. However, the recent decline in oil
prices has begun to affect revenues in some of these states. The economies of a
handful of other states have so far been less affected by the national economic
problems.
In states facing budget gaps, the consequences are severe in many cases for
residents as well as the economy. As the 2009 fiscal year ended and states planned
for 2010, budget difficulties have led some 39 states to reduce services to their
residents, including some of their most vulnerable families and individuals.2
For example, at least 21 states have implemented cuts that will restrict low-income
childrens or families eligibility for health insurance or reduce their access to health
care services. Programs for the elderly and disabled are also being cut. At least 22
states and the District of Columbia are cutting medical, rehabilitative, home care, or
other services needed by low-income people who are elderly or have disabilities, or
significantly increasing the cost of these services.
At least 24 states are cutting or proposing to cut K-12 and early education; several
of them are also reducing access to child care and early education, and at least 32
states have implemented cuts to public colleges and universities.
In addition, at least 41 states and the District of Columbia have made cuts reducing
the size or work time of state government employees. Such cuts not only often
result in reduced access to services residents need, but also add to states woes
because of the impact on the economy from less consumer activity.
If revenue declines persist as expected in many states, additional spending and

service cuts are likely. Budget cuts often are more severe later in a state fiscal crisis,
after largely depleted reserves are no longer an option for closing deficits.
Expenditure cuts and tax increases are problematic policies during an economic
downturn because they reduce overall demand and can make the downturn deeper.
When states cut spending, they lay off employees, cancel contracts with vendors,
eliminate or lower payments to businesses and nonprofit organizations that provide
direct services, and cut benefit payments to individuals. In all of these
circumstances, the companies and organizations that would have received
government payments have less money to spend on salaries and supplies, and
individuals who would have received salaries or benefits have less money for
consumption. This directly removes demand from the economy. Tax increases also
remove demand from the economy by reducing the amount of money people have
to spend though to the extent these increases are on upper-income residents that
effect is minimized because much of the money comes from savings and so does
not diminish economic activity.
The federal government which can run deficits can provide assistance to states
and localities to avert these pro-cyclical actions.
AT: States: Permutation solves

States fail the permutation is best
Corless, 12 - Campaign Director, Transportation for America (James, Local Voters

Need a Partner, National Journals Experts Blog, 5/23,
http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/not-waiting-for-thefeds.php#comments)
Absent strong federal leadership, states, cities and local communities are
indeed stepping out on their own, raising funds from innovative sources, and
doing what they can to make it happen.
But left to shoulder the burden entirely alone, these communities noble
efforts wont be enough to meet the challenges were facing. These
communities are stepping forward, but in the hopes that the federal
government will take the next step with them and support them along the way.
The role for the federal government in transportation is indeed changing, evolving
from being the driving factor that it was during the interstate era to being more of a
partner in helping localities meet their changing needs. And their needs are a
national concern, because they bear on whether Americans have a safe, reliable
way to get to work, and whether goods can get to market. No developed nation in
the world leaves these matters of basic infrastructure entirely to chance.
But there seems little doubt that, for the foreseeable future, federal resources will
be constrained, and that makes it more imperative than ever that we set goals for
the investment, and measure progress toward those goals. Thats why provisions to
do that in the Senates bipartisan transportation bill, MAP-21 bill are so important.
Its time we figure out what matters most, and what will get the best bang for the
buck.
Local communities raising money for transportation are following a tried-and-true
blueprint that rewards accountability and specificity: When they know what
transportation dollars are going to buy this new transit line, that new busway,
this new bridge project and who is accountable for implementation, measures to
fund those projects pass close to 70 percent of the time.
Such was the case with the transit-funding Measure R in Los Angeles, which earned
a two-thirds majority vote. Having passed the tax, Los Angeles is now seeking
federal help with low-cost loans that can build 30 years worth of projects in 10.
Local bootstraps are great for getting off the ground, but they only get
you so far up the ladder if the federal rung is missing.
AT: Federalism net benefit

No risk of encroachment thats substantial enough to alter
federalism
Ernest Young, Law Prof @ Texas, May 2003, Texas Law Review, ln
One of the privileges of being a junior faculty member is that senior colleagues often
feel obligated to read one's rough drafts. On many occasions when I have written
about federalism - from a stance considerably more sympathetic to the States than
Judge Noonan's - my colleagues have responded with the following comment: "Relax.
The States retain vast reserves of autonomy and authority over any number of
important areas. It will be a long time, if ever, before the national
government can expand its authority far enough to really endanger the
federal balance. Don't make it sound like you think the sky is falling."
Courts will check any snowball

Robert F. Nagel, Law Professor, University of Colorado, March 2001, ANNALS
OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, p. 53
In what appears to be an ambitious campaign to enhance the role of the states in the
federal system, the Supreme Court has recently issued a series of rulings that
limit the power of the national government. Some of these decisions, which set
boundaries to Congress's power to regulate commerce and to enforce the provisions
of the Fourteenth Amendment, establish areas that are subject (at least in theory)
only to state regulation. Others protect the autonomy of state governments by
restricting congressional authority to expose state governments to suit in
either state or federal courts and to "commandeer" state institutions for
national regulatory purposes. Taken together, these decisions seem to reflect
a judgment held by a slight majority of the justices that the dramatic expansion
of the national government during the twentieth century has put in jeopardy
fundamental principles of constitutional structure.
States and Federal power arent zero sum --- concurrent regulation is the
norm
Schapiro 06
(Robert, Prof Law Emory, Fordham Law Review, March, Lexis)
The jurisprudence of Justice John Paul Stevens advances a strong vision of national unity. Like Justice
Wiley Rutledge, for whom he clerked, Justice Stevens understands the United States Constitution as a
document fundamentally designed to promote and preserve the union. The primary role of federal
courts is to vindicate constitutional values, including the value of national unity. These background
principles of unity provide the context for Justice Stevens's conception of federalism. In his thirty-five
years on the bench, Justice Stevens has elaborated a robust theory of federalism. His theory,
however, contrasts sharply with the dualist federalism that became the regnant model of the
Rehnquist Court. Dual federalism, the idea that the national government and the states enjoy
exclusive and nonoverlapping spheres of authority, does not describe the actual operation of
government in the United States today. On the contrary, the overlap of national and state activities is
ubiquitous. In areas ranging from narcotics trafficking n1 to securities trading to education,
concurrent federal and state regulation is the norm. With the recent wave of national crises,
including the War on Terrorism and Hurricane Katrina, the growth of state and national power and
the resulting overlap in authority, seems likely to increase. Even in the more rarified atmosphere of
the United States Supreme Court, the normative project of fully dividing state from federal power has
little support. Since the advent of the New Deal Court in 1937, the Court no longer seeks to maintain
strict boundaries between state and federal realms. On the present Court, only Justice Clarence
Thomas has shown any inclination to return to the pre-New Deal conceptions of dual sovereignty.
AT: Federalism no model

No international modeling of federalism
Moravcsik, 05 (Andrew, Dream On America, Newsweek, 1/31,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6857387/site/newsweek/)
Not long ago, the American dream was a global fantasy.
Not only Americans saw themselves

as a beacon unto nations. So did much of the rest of the world. East Europeans tuned into Radio Free Europe.
Chinese students erected a replica of the Statue of Liberty in Tiananmen Square.
You had only to listen to George W. Bush's Inaugural Address last week (invoking "freedom" and "liberty" 49
times) to appreciate just how deeply Americans still believe in this founding myth. For many in the world, the
president's rhetoric confirmed their worst fears of an imperial America relentlessly pursuing its narrow national
But the greater danger may be a delusional Americaone that believes,

despite all evidence to the contrary, that the American Dream lives on, that America
remains a model for the world, one whose mission is to spread the word.
interests.
The gulf between how Americans view themselves and how the world views them was summed up in a poll last
week by the BBC. Fully 71 percent of Americans see the United States as a source of good in the world. More than
half view Bush's election as positive for global security. Other studies report that 70 percent have faith in their
domestic institutions and nearly 80 percent believe "American ideas and customs" should spread globally.
Foreigners take an entirely different view: 58 percent in the BBC poll see Bush's re-election as a threat to world
peace. Among America's traditional allies, the figure is strikingly higher: 77 percent in Germany, 64 percent in
Britain and 82 percent in Turkey. Among the 1.3 billion members of the Islamic world, public support for the
United States is measured in single digits. Only Poland, the Philippines and India viewed Bush's second Inaugural
positively.
Tellingly, the anti-Bushism of the president's first term is giving way to a more general anti-Americanism. A
plurality of voters (the average is 70 percent) in each of the 21 countries surveyed by the BBC oppose sending any
troops to Iraq, including those in most of the countries that have done so. Only one third, disproportionately in the
poorest and most dictatorial countries, would like to see American values spread in their country. Says Doug
Miller of GlobeScan, which conducted the BBC report: "President Bush has further isolated America from the
world. Unless the administration changes its approach, it will continue to erode America's good name, and hence
its ability to effectively influence world affairs." Former Brazilian president Jose Sarney expressed the sentiments
of the 78 percent of his countrymen who see America as a threat: "Now that Bush has been re-elected, all I can
say is, God bless the rest of the world."
others not share America's self-regard,

no longer aspire to emulate the country's social and economic achievements.
The loss of faith in the American Dream goes beyond this swaggering
administration and its war in Iraq. A President Kerry would have had to confront a
similar disaffection, for it grows from the success of something America holds dear: the spread
of democracy, free markets and international institutions globalization, in a word.
Countries today have dozens of political, economic and social models to choose
from. Anti-Americanism is especially virulent in Europe and Latin America, where countries have established
their own distinctive waysnone made in America. Futurologist Jeremy Rifkin, in his recent book "The
European Dream," hails an emerging European Union based on generous social welfare,
cultural diversity and respect for international law a model that's caught on quickly across the
former nations of Eastern Europe and the Baltics. In Asia, the rise of autocratic
capitalism in China or Singapore is as much a "model" for development as
America's scandal-ridden corporate culture. "First we emulate," one Chinese businessman
The truth is that Americans are living in a dream world. Not only do
they
recently told the board of one U.S. multinational, "then we overtake."

Many are tempted to write off the new anti-Americanism as a temporary perturbation, or mere resentment.
Blinded by its own myth, America has grown incapable of recognizing its flaws. For there is much about the
American Dream to fault. If the rest of the world has lost faith in the American modelpolitical, economic,
diplomaticit's partly for the very good reason that it doesn't work as well anymore.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: Once upon a time, the U.S. Constitution was a

revolutionary document, full of epochal innovationsfree elections, judicial review,
checks and balances, federalism and, perhaps most important, a Bill of Rights. In the 19th and 20th
centuries, countries around the world copied the document, not least in Latin America. So did Germany and Japan
Today? When nations write a new constitution, as dozens have in the

past two decades, they seldom look to the American model.
When the soviets withdrew from Central Europe, U.S. constitutional experts rushed
in. They got a polite hearing, and were sent home. Jiri Pehe, adviser to former
president Vaclav Havel, recalls the Czechs' firm decision to adopt a European-style
parliamentary system with strict limits on campaigning. "For Europeans, money
talks too much in American democracy. It's very prone to certain kinds of corruption, or at least
after World War II.
influence from powerful lobbies," he says. "Europeans would not want to follow that route." They also sought to
limit the dominance of television, unlike in American campaigns where, Pehe says, "TV debates and photogenic
looks govern election victories."
So it is elsewhere. After American planes and bombs freed the country, Kosovo opted for a European constitution.
South Africa rejected American-style federalism in

favor of a German model, which leaders deemed appropriate for the social-welfare
state they hoped to construct. Now fledgling African democracies look to South
Africa as their inspiration, says John Stremlau, a former U.S. State Department official who currently heads the
Drafting a post-apartheid constitution,
international relations department at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg: "We can't rely on the
Americans." The new democracies are looking for a constitution written in modern times and reflecting their
progressive concerns about racial and social equality, he explains. "To borrow Lincoln's phrase, South Africa is
now Africa's 'last great hope'."
Much in American law and society troubles the world these days. Nearly all countries reject the United States'
right to bear arms as a quirky and dangerous anachronism. They abhor the death penalty and demand broader
privacy protections. Above all, once most foreign systems reach a reasonable level of affluence, they follow the
this, says Bruce

Ackerman at Yale University Law School, contributes to the growing sense that
American law, once the world standard, has become "provincial." The United
States' refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions to certain terrorist suspects, to
ratify global human-rights treaties such as the innocuous Convention on the Rights
of the Child or to endorse the International Criminal Court (coupled with the
abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo) only reinforces the conviction that
America's Constitution and legal system are out of step with the rest of the world.
Europeans in treating the provision of adequate social welfare is a basic right. All
AT: Privatization CP
Privatization increases costs and decreases service forces new
government takeovers
Keefe and Fine, 10 *associate professor of labor and employment relations, at
the School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University AND ** assistant
professor in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University's
New Brunswick campus (Jeffrey and Janice, In the Public Interest? Safeguarding
New Jerseys Public Investments, 11/1,
http://documents.scribd.com.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/8sldr9jt4wqpqcg.pdf?
t=1289592554
The Task Forces report presumes that privatization will inevitably
produce costs savings. The current empirical research on privatization
however, which was largely ignored by the Task Force, suggests otherwise.
Recent rigorous and comprehensive evaluations of privatization projects
do not find significant benefits from privatization. A variety of explanations
have been advanced to explain the lack of returns to privatization, including:
government, itself, through process improvement can achieve more
significant cost savings; monitoring and contracting costs for privatization
can be as high as 20%, often making privatization an uneconomical
alternative; competitive bidding markets for government contracts often
do not exist; and private contractors collude causing price differences to
erode (Bel and Warner 2007).
Arising from poor service quality and insufficient savings arising from
privatization, many privatization projects result in reverse contracting (insourcing), where government reclaims work formerly privatized. Reverse
contracting is growing. A combination of increased government efficiency,
reverse contracting, and market failures, has stalled the shift toward
privatization in the United States. Government service delivery remains the
dominant method for the provision of twothirds of local public services.
Zero net benefit to privatization it replicates the worst parts

of public agencies
t=1289592554
The research literature increasingly questions the benefits of privatization. For
example, Bel and
Warner (2006) review all econometric studies of costs for waste collection and
efficiency for water
distribution from 1965 to the present and find the majority of studies report no
difference in costs
and efficiency or productivity between public and private production. Similarly, Zullo
(2007) detects
no immediate or long-term economic benefit from contracted bus services.
Studies from the early 1980s reported savings from contracting urban bus
operations; however,
Leland and Smirnova (2009) replicating that research find privately owned
and managed transit
systems are no longer more efficient or effective than government owned
agencies. They
conclude this occurred for several reasons, which may apply more broadly to
privatization. First,
without any serious competition, private transit services remain a
monopoly and operate under the
same conditions as public providers. Second, private firms may have higher
transaction costs in
their financing and business activities that outweigh any initial cost
savings. Third, over time, the
pressure from the public may have intensified and private providers may
have had to adapt to
public demands requiring them to operate with similar constraints as
public providers. This would
also explain the rapid decrease in the sheer number of private providers. If service
provision is no
longer profitable, then many private companies simply have left the
market. The Task Forces mass
transit privatization proposal follows this familiar formula, and is unlikely to lead to
significant
public savings in the long run. It may, however, yield short-term cash for the state,
monopoly
profits for the Academy Bus services, the most likely private bidder for NJ Transits
profitable bus
lines, and higher fares for commuters with no efficiency gains.
Empirically overall service will be cut and it will decrease

ridership and bankrupt the company
Madsen, 8 - contributing writer to the Online Journal (Wayne, The Columbus Dispatch,
No: Private operations cut costs, reduce services for sake of the owners,
http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/article/wayne-madsen-con-should-mass-transitbe-privatized-us)
Calls to privatize mass-transit systems must be seen as part of an overall agenda
that won't be satisfied until it gobbles up every public asset created with taxpayers'
funds. That includes electric and water utilities, community hospitals, public
schools, highways, bridges and other assets that make up the public commons.
A prime example of what happens when mass transit is turned over to
private corporations is Santiago, the sprawling capital of Chile, with a metroarea population of more than 6 million.
A few years ago, the government unwisely decided to turn over the
revamping of Transantiago, the capital's bus system, to a private corporation.
The private company quickly cut back service to poorer neighborhoods
because profits were not as lucrative. The corporate planners also reduced
the number of buses in service and decreased the number of bus stops.
Rides that took 40 minutes soon took two hours. Many commuters were
forced to walk and some others, constantly late for work, lost their jobs. The result
was chaos.
Santiago's smoothly functioning state-run Metro subway system found itself
deluged by former bus riders, stretching its capacity.
In a further display of capitalist hubris, some investors began negatively
speculating on the financial prospects of Transantiago, creating huge
losses for the company. As a result, the cash-flush state-run Metro was
forced to make $300 million in loans to the privatized bus service -beggaring Peter to pay Paul.
In other words, Chilean taxpayers were forced to bail out a poorly run
private enterprise that was formed from proceeds stolen from the
taxpayers' own pockets.
And how did Transantiago react to its poor service and resulting disruption of the
lives of its customers? It ignored the complaints and threatened to raise fares if it
did not get a new infusion of public funds. Commuters reacted by banding together
and suing Transantiago for tens of thousands of dollars each.
The same dismal picture is repeated in virtually every city that succumbed
to the privatization craze.
Buenos Aires' privatized Metro system is overcrowded and poorly
serviced. Plans by the European Union to privatize rail service in France,
Greece, Spain, Portugal and Belgium have resulted in strikes by workers, who
see what is coming: loss of benefits and cuts in service.
British Rail privatized in 1997 and the results have been poorer service
and horrendous safety problems. Outsourcing safety and maintenance work
resulted in a 1999 two-train crash outside London's Paddington Station that killed 31
passengers.
As more and more cities try to switch commuters from greenhouse-causing cars to
greener mass-transit systems, now is scarcely the time for further de-regulation and
privatization. If anything, U.S. commuters need more centralized planning
and tighter government oversight.
It is hoped the lessons of Santiago, Buenos Aires and London will persuade transitpolicy planners in the United States that the public commons and privatization are
mutually exclusive terms.
Americans are best served by transit systems where employees are treated fairly
and receive living wages. If anything, it's time to devote more public funds to urban
mass-transit systems as a first, significant step in the battle to fight global warming.
Privatization fails will collapse infrastructure

Schweitzer, 11 - associate professor in the School of Policy, Planning and
Development at USC (Lisa, Los Angeles Times, For sale: U.S. infrastructure?,
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/13/opinion/la-oe-schweitzer-infrastructure20110713)
The draconian spending proposal, dubbed "the Republican road to ruin" by critics,
comes at a time when groups such as the American Society of Civil Engineers are
saying that the U.S. needs to invest an additional $1 trillion beyond current
levels over the next decade just to maintain and repair existing
infrastructure.
We are facing a road infrastructure crisis, and it is of our own making. The federal
gas tax has been unchanged, at 18 cents, since 1993, even as vehicles have gotten
more fuel efficient. Adjusted for inflation, it amounts to a measly 12 cents today. But
Americans, according to surveys, don't want to raise the tax.
For politicians like Mica, this opens doors to privatization projects. Last month, he
introduced a bill that would put private companies in charge of Amtrak's operations
in the Northeast Corridor. Taking that step, he contended, would be the fastest way
to get high-speed rail up and running in the U.S. because it's clear that President
Obama's federally sponsored rail plan has little support in Congress.
Maybe Mica is right. But rushing to privatize state-owned assets can lead to
terrible infrastructure deals that let private companies walk away with
prime assets and leave taxpayers with no guarantee of better services or
lower fees.
Unlike the Greeks, who must sell to receive bailout funds, we still have a say in our
infrastructure future. But the time for planning ahead and striking strong deals is
dwindling, along with our infrastructure funds.
Many European countries and cities have privatized infrastructure and city
services. You want to use the highway you pay. You want to stroll through a
"public" garden you pay. You can avoid higher taxes, but if you want the services,
you pay the private company that holds the franchise. It is a system that works
fine for those with cash to spend.
Scaling down public ownership of transportation networks also means
carefully selecting which parts of the system to sell or lease out. Private
companies usually desire assets associated with the most demand for
services, such as the Northeast Corridor. But if we sell off or lease these assets to
get private companies to build a high-speed rail system there, we may also be
giving up the only part of a high-speed rail network likely to generate enough cash
in the long term to keep a national system running without taxpayer help.
So far, privately run transportation projects show mixed outcomes. For every
successful privatization story of service improvement and mounting
profits Britain's airport privatization, say there's a disaster story of poor
service and taxpayers left holding the bailout bag: think the Chunnel or
Chicago's privatized parking woes. Privatized transportation projects carry
risks for both sides.
Privatization undermines overall infrastructure and cant meet

future demands
Plumer, 12 - reporter focusing on energy and environmental issues for the
Washington Post (Brad, Washington Post, More states privatizing their
infrastructure. Are they making a mistake?, 4/1,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/more-states-privatizing-theirinfrastructure-are-they-making-a-mistake/2012/03/31/gIQARtAhnS_blog.html)
But before getting too excited about the magical powers of private firms, experts
warn that there are potential pitfalls to these arrangements. For one, as
Robert Puentes of Brookings noted in a recent paper(pdf), these are complicated
multi-decade financial arrangements. And many states, he notes, lack the
technical capacity and expertise to consider such deals and fully protect
the public interest. For another, the deals need to be structured wisely in
Maryland, for instance, Republicans have warned that certain provisions in the
pending Senate bill could allow the government to circumvent the competitive
bidding process. (The bill itself does, however, create several layers of review.)
Moreover, a road thats privately owned for 75 years has the potential to
conflict with other public-policy goals. For instance, as a recent
GAO report (pdf) found, four of the five privately-funded toll road projects in
the last 15 years included non-compete clauses that prevented the
government from building nearby roads. As Tim Lee notes, real-world
privatization schemes are often explicitly protectionist. So what if a state,
say, later decides that it wants to build a rail network that competes with the
private road? All sorts of complications could arise.
Plus, privatization cant work everywhere. Its not a universal tool, says Jonathan
Peters, a professor of finance at the College of State Island who has studied these
partnerships. There are plenty of roads in states like Montana, for starters, that
dont pay for themselves and would be unappealing to private investors. There are
ways around this Madrid, for one, built its subway system by offering formulabased subsidies to private firms, which still bore the risk of a shortfall in rider
demand but its trickier. Few transportation experts think we can fill
our multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure shortfall with private money alone.
Public-private partnerships fail and wont attract investment

Reinhardt and Utt, 12 - William G. Reinhardt is editor and publisher of Public
Works Financing. Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research
Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage
Foundation (Can PublicPrivate Partnerships Fill the Transportation Funding Gap?,
1/13, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/01/can-public-privatepartnerships-fill-the-transportation-funding-gap)//DH
Limited P3 Use to Date
While some P3s have succeeded in adding significant road capacity in a
number of metropolitan areas in recent years, they remain a minor
contributor to overall transportation infrastructure investment. According to a
comprehensive 2011 review of P3s prepared for the American Road and
Transportation Builders Association:[5]
Just eight states accounted for almost 75 percent of the total
contract value ($54.3 billion) of P3 projects over the past 22 years;
Only 11 of the P3 projectstotaling $12.4 billionincluded a financing
component;
The P3 market share of all highway investment since 2008 is about 2 percent;
and
P3 projects, most of which are tolled express lanes next to existing freeways
in heavily congested urban corridors, accounted for 11 percent of capital for
new highway capacity under construction in 2011.
Thus, despite the successes beginning with Denvers E-470 tollway in 1989, P3s are
still a minor part of the surface transportation landscape. Opposition to tolling,
opposition to private profits from operating public infrastructure, and
concern over foreign investment in government assets in the U.S. have
generated political opposition in some states. These challenges need to be
overcome before the P3 concept can become a significant supplement to taxpayer
funding.
As a consequence, policymakers should recognize that P3s are not the solution
to the transportation infrastructure investment gap that threatens to undermine
commerce in the United States. There are too few financially viable P3 projects to
meet the national need for new highway capacity and to modernize
existing roads. No amount of enabling legislation will bring private
investors into projects that are not financeable, and very few highways
could support themselves on tolls alone. Thus, some combination of gas taxes, sales
taxes, fees, and appropriations of state funds is necessary to make a creditworthy publicprivate
partnership.
Privatization substantially increases costs empirically

Nyden, 11 staff writer (Paul, Charleston Gazette, Amtrak Privatization Foes Point
to Britain, http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/10287477/amtrak-privatizationfoes-point-to-britain
But Gary Zuckett, executive director of West Virginia Citizen Action Group, called the
proposal to privatize Amtrak using the British model "the wrong road to go down."
"British privatization ended up costing taxpayers there even more money,
after the railroads went bankrupt, than the public subsidies cost before
privatization," Zuckett said.
"Why are we proposing to go down the same road?" Zuckett added. "I agree with
Congressman Rahall and Sen. Rockefeller that this is not a good idea. We need to
support our rail system, not sell it off."
Reconnecting America, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates for
transit-oriented development, is working to preserve Amtrak.
Today, heavily traveled, profitable rail lines in the Northeast help finance railroad
lines in less populated areas throughout the United States.
"Very few, if any, of the long-distance lines will attract private sector funding," said
John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America. "The focus on
privatizing the Northeast Corridor will weaken the existing national system ...
Removing the profitable Northeast Corridor from the current system of shared
benefits deprives the rest of the nation's rail system of critically needed operating
assistance."
In a report, Reconnecting America wrote that Mica's proposed changes were likely to
"weaken or terminate the intercity rail connections that are the lifelines in small
towns from Montana to West Virginia, as well as big cities such as Chicago and Los
Angeles."
Zuckett said the plan would "allow private entities to cherry pick the
profitable lines and leave the other ones to flounder."
"We need to keep Amtrak intact and support the whole system," he said. "It is good
that profitable areas help areas like West Virginia and western states that really
need rail service."
The legislation proposed by House Republicans to privatize Amtrak would put it on

sale to the highest bidder in the private market.
Reconnecting America says the Republican-backed legislation would put at least
110,000 jobs at risk later this year.
The group also compared Mica's proposed legislation to what happened in Great
Britain.
"The plan is very similar to the United Kingdom's attempt to privatize its
rail network. Taxpayers had to bail out the infrastructure company and
increase their annual subsidy to support the rail network," the group wrote
in the report. "The system is now more expensive than before privatization."
Reconnecting America predicts private investors in the U.S. would show little or no
interest in investing money in railroads anywhere outside the Northeast.
Amtrak has operated its rail system for more than 40 years sharing revenues
between different regions in the country. As a result, Amtrak has political support
from both conservative Southern Republicans and liberal Democrats along the
Northeastern coast.
In Great Britain, Railtrack, the railroad infrastructure and maintenance company,
went bankrupt after five years of private ownership.
"The taxpayer portion of passenger rail funding in the UK increased after
privatization [and] proposed savings did not materialize," Reconnecting
America stated in its report.
Government labor costs are lower unionization is irrelevant

t=1289592554
Although the Task Force never considered the potential benefits, there are large
potential cost savings for in-sourcing currently privately contracted work.
Government has a substantial advantage in supplying its own professional
work since it pays its professional employees considerably less than the
private sector, giving it a substantial economic cost advantage in
providing professional services, such as engineering, law, informational
technology and accounting.
While the Task Force did recognize the importance of public employee involvement
in a competitive contracting process, it failed to understand employee and union
incentives that motivate incumbent at-risk employees through their union
to collaborate with public managers to improve service processes. These
collaborations often result in internal efficiencies greater than those
achieved through privatization. The federal government now requires a
public incumbent employee bid for all competitive contracting processes.
Federal employees have won 90% of all of these competitions.
AT: Coercion extinction o/w

Extinction comes first.
Bok, 1988
[Sissela, Professor of Philosophy, Brandeis, Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, Ed.
David Rosenthal and Fudlou Shehadi]
The same argument can be made for Kants other formulations of the Categorical
Imperative: So act as to use humanity, both in your own person and in the person
of every other, always at the same time as an end, never simply as a means; and
So act as if you were always through actions a law-making member in a universal
Kingdom of Ends. No one with a concern for humanity could consistently will to risk
eliminating humanity in the person of himself and every other or to risk the death of
all members in a universal Kingdom of Ends for the sake of justice. To risk their
collective death for the sake of following ones conscience would be, as Rawls said,
irrational, crazy. And to say that one did not intend such a catastrophe, but that
one merely failed to stop other persons from bringing it about would be beside the
point when the end of the world was at stake. For although it is true that we cannot
be held responsible for most of the wrongs that others commit, the Latin maxim
presents a case where we would have to take such a responsibility seriously
perhaps to the point of deceiving, bribing, even killing an innocent person, in order
that the world not perish.
Role of the ballot is to maximize the lives saved. We should

never sacrifice individuals for abstract market values.
Cummisky 96 (David, professor of philosophy at Bates College, Kantian

Consequentialism, pg. 145)
We must not obscure the issue by characterizing this type of case as the sacrifice of
individuals for some abstract social entity. It is not a question of some persons
having to bear the cost for some elusive overall social good. Instead, the question
is whether some persons must bear the inescapable cost for the sake of other
persons. Robert Nozick, for example, argues that to use a person in this way does not sufficiently respect and
take account of the fact that he is a separate person, that his is the only life he has. But why is this not equally
By emphasizing solely the one who

must bear the cost if we act, we fail to sufficiently respect and take account of the
many other separate persons, each with only one life, who will bear the cost of our
inaction. In such a situation, what would a conscientious Kantian agent, an agent motivated by the
true of all those whom we do not save through our failure to act?
unconditional value of rational beings, choose? A morally good agent recognizes that the basis of all particular
duties is the principle that rational nature exists as an end in itself (GMM 429). Rational nature as such is the
If one truly believes that all rational beings have an

equal value, then the rational solution to such a dilemma involves maximally
promoting the lives and liberties of as many rational beings as possible (chapter 5).
supreme objective end of all conduct.
In
order to avoid this conclusion, the non-consequentialist Kantian needs to justify agent-centered constraints. As we
saw in chapter 1, however, even most Kantian deontologists recognize that agent-centered constraints require a
non-value-based rationale. But we have seen that Kants normative theory is based on an unconditionally valuable
end. How can a concern for the value of rational beings lead to a refusal to sacrifice rational beings even when this
would prevent other more extensive losses of rational beings? If the moral law is based on the value of rational
beings and their ends, then what is the rationale for prohibiting a moral agent from maximally promoting these two
If I sacrifice some for the sake for others, I do not use them arbitrarily,
and I do not deny the unconditional value of rational beings. Persons may have
tiers of value?
dignity, that is, an unconditional and incomparable worth that transcends any market value ( GMM
436)., but persons also have a fundamental equality that dictates that some must
sometimes give way for the sake of others (chapter 5 and 7). The concept of the end-in-itself does
not support th view that we may never force another to bear some cost in order to benefit others. If one
focuses on the equal value of all rational beings, the equal consideration suggests
that one may have to sacrifice some to save many.
Existence outweighs other impacts. It is necessary for the I

that can behave ethically or create meaning.
Gelven, 1994
[Michael, Prof. Phil. Northern Illinois U., War and Existence: A Philosophical
Inquiry, p. 136-137]
The personal pronouns, like "I" and "We," become governed existentially by the
possessive pronouns, like "ours," "mine," "theirs"; and this in turn becomes
governed by the adjective "own." What is authentic becomes what is our own as a way of existing. The meaning of this term is
less the sense of possession than the sense of belonging to. It is a translation of the German eigen, from which the term eigentlich (authentic) is derived.
To lose this sense of one's own is to abandon any meaningfulness, and hence to
embrace nihilism. To be a nihilist is to deny that there is any way of being that is our own; for the nihilist, what is one's own has no
meaning. The threat here is not that what is our own may yield to what is not, but rather that the distinction itself will simply collapse. Unless I
can distinguish between what is our own and what is not, no meaningfulness is
possible at all. This is the foundation of the we-they principle. The pronouns in the title do not refer to anything; they merely reveal how we
think. Like all principles, this existential principle does not determine specific judgments, any more than the principle of cause and effect determines what
the cause of any given thing is. The we-they principle is simply a rule that governs the standards by which certain judgments are made. Since it is possible
to isolate the existential meanings of an idea from the thinglike referent, the notions of we-ness and they-ness can be articulated philosophically. On the
basis of this primary understanding, it is possible to talk about an "existential value," that is, the weight o. rank given to ways of existing in opposition to
other kinds of value, such as moral or psychological values. But the principle itself is not, strictly speaking, a principle of value; it is an ontological
. The ground of the we-they

principle is, quite simply, the way in which we think about being. Thus, it is more
fundamental than any kind of evaluating or judging . One of the things that the authentic I can do, of course, is
to concern itself with moral questions. Whether from a deontological sense of obligation or from a
utilitarian projection of possible happiness, an I that considers these matters
nevertheless is presupposed by them. Although authenticity and morality are distinct, a sense of who one is must precede
a decision about how to act. Thus, the question of authenticity comes before the question of obligation. And since the worth of the I
is generated from the prior worth of the we, it follows there can be no moral
judgment that cancels out the worth of the I or the We. This is not to say that anything that benefits the we
is therefore more important than what ought to be done. It is merely to say that any proper moral judgment will in fact
be consistent with the integrity of the we . Thus, I would be morally prohibited from offending someone else merely for
principle, for its foundation is in the very basic way in which I think about what it means to be
my own advantage, but no moral law would ever require me to forgo my existential integrity. This is true not only for moral questions but for any question
all legitimate value claims must be consistent with the worth of the I
and the We. It is only because my existence matters that I can care about such
things as morality, aesthetics, or even happiness . Pleasure, of course, would still be preferable to pain, but to
of value whatsoever:
argue that one ought to have pleasure or even that it is good to have pleasure would simply reduce itself to a tautology: if I define pleasure as the
satisfaction of my wants, then to say I want pleasure is tautological, for I am merely saying that I want what I want, which may be true but is not very
The existential worth of existing is therefore fundamental and cannot be

outranked by any other consideration. Unless I am first meaningful, I cannot be
good; unless I first care about who I am, I cannot genuinely care about anything
else, even my conduct. To threaten this ground of all values, the worth of my own
being, then becomes the supreme assault against me. To defend it and protect it is
simply without peer. It is beyond human appeal or persuasion.
illuminating.
AT Coercion Consequentialism O/W Libertarianism

Their moral imperatives revolve around a flawed libertarian
method- consequences must be evaluated first to escape
the cycle
Friedman 97 (Jefferey, Political Science at Bernard University,
"What's
Wrong with Libertarianism," Critical Review, Volume: 3, pg 435-436)
The effect of libertarian straddling on libertarian scholarship is suggested by a passage in the scholarly
appendix to Boazs collection of libertarian essays, The Libertarian Reader. There, Tom G. Palmer (also of the
Cato Institute) writes that in libertarian scholarship, the moral imperatives of peace and
voluntary cooperation are brought together with a rich understanding of the

spontaneous order made possible by such voluntary cooperation, and of the ways in
which coercive intervention can disorder the world and set in motion complex trains
of unintended consequences (Boaz r997b, 416, emphasis added). Palmers ambiguous brought
together suggests (without coming right out and saying) that even if there were no rich
understanding of spontaneous order, libertarianism would be sustained by moral
imperatives? But in that case, why develop the rich understanding of spontaneous
order in the first place, and why emphasize its importance now that it has been
developed? Spontaneous order is, on Palmers own terms, irrelevant, since even if a
rich understanding of it yielded the conclusion that markets are less orderly or less
spontaneous than states, or that the quality of the order they produce is inferior to
that produced by states, we would still be compelled to be libertarians by moral
imperatives. The premise of the philosophical approach is that nothing can possibly trump freedom-cumprivate property. But if libertarian freedom is an end in itself and is the greatest of all
values, ones endorsement of it should not be affected in the slightest by such
empirical questions as whether libertarianism would spell starvation or warfare. The
premise of the empirical approach is, conversely, that such consequences do matter.
Why investigate the effects of libertarianism if they could not conceivably outweigh
the putative intrinsic value of private property? If a priori reasoning tells us that
laissezfaire capitalism is just, come what may, then why should we care to find out
what may, in fact, come?
Policy must be viewed through a consequentialist frameworkslipping into the libertarian mindset only recreates the
root cause of the affirmative harms
Friedman 97 (Jefferey, Political Science at Bernard University, "What's Wrong

with Libertarianism," Critical Review, Volume: 3. pg 458-459)
On the one hand, the reclamation of the Enlightenment legacy can lead in far more
directions than the politicalscience path I have suggested. It is surely important to launch
anthropological, economic, historical, sociological, and psychological investigations of the preconditions of
human happiness. And post-libertarian cultural historians and critics are uniquely positioned to analyze the
unstated assumptions that take the place of the requisite knowledge in determining democratic attitudes. A
prime candidate would seem to be the overwhelming focus on intentions as markers

for the desirability of a policy. If a policy is well intended, this is usually taken to be
a decisive consideration in its favor. This heuristic might explain the moralism that observers since
Tocqueville have noticed afflicts democratic cultures. To date, this phenomenon is relatively unexplored.
Analogous opportunities for insightful postlibertarian research can be found across the spectrum of political
if not a device that helps an ignorant public

navigate the murky waters of politics by applying a simple us-versus-them test to
any proposed policy? Pursuit of these possibilities, however, must be accompanied
by awareness of the degeneration of postwar skepticism into libertarian ideology. If
the post-libertarian social scientist yields to the hope of re-establishing through
consequentialist research the antigovernment politics that has until now been
sustained by libertarian ideology; she will only recreate the conditions that have
served to retard serious empirical inquiry. It is fashionable to call for political
engagement by scholars and to deny the possibility that one can easily isolate ones
work from ones political sympathies. But difficulty is no excuse for failing to try. Libertarians
have even less of an excuse than most, since, having for so long accused the
intellectual mainstream of bias and insulation from refutation, they should
understand better than anyone the importance of subverting ones own natural
intellectual complacency with the constant reminder that one might be wrong. The
only remedy for the sloppiness that has plagued libertarian scholarship is to become
ones own harshest critic. This means thinking deeply and skeptically about ones
politics and its premises and, if one has libertarian sympathies, directing ones
scholarship not at vindicating them, but at finding out if they are mistaken.
behavior. What is nationalism, for example,
Political responsibility requires an examination of

consequences.
Isaac, 2002
[Jeffrey, James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for the Study of
Democracy and Public Life at Indiana University, Bloomington, Dissent, vol. 49, no. 2, Spring]
unyielding concern with

moral goodness undercuts political responsibility . The concern may be morally laudable, reflecting a kind of personal
integrity, but it suffers from three fatal flaws: (1) It fails to see that the purity of one's intention does not ensure
the achievement of what one intends. Abjuring violence or refusing to make common cause with morally compromised parties
may seem like the right thing; but if such tactics entail impotence, then it is hard to view them as serving any moral good
beyond the clean conscience of their supporters; (2) it fails to see that in a world of real
violence and injustice, moral purity is not simply a form of powerlessness; it is often a form
of complicity in injustice. This is why, from the standpoint of politics--as opposed to religion--pacifism is always a potentially immoral
stand. In categorically repudiating violence, it refuses in principle to oppose certain violent injustices with any effect; and (3) it fails to see
that politics is as much about unintended consequences as it is about intentions; it is the
effects of action, rather than the motives of action, that is most significant. Just as the alignment with "good"
may engender impotence, it is often the pursuit of "good" that generates evil. This is the lesson of communism in the
twentieth century: it is not enough that one's goals be sincere or idealistic; it is equally important,
always, to ask about the effects of pursuing these goals and to judge these effects in
pragmatic and historically contextualized ways. Moral absolutism inhibits this judgment. It
alienates those who are not true believers. It promotes arrogance. And it undermines
political effectiveness. WHAT WOULD IT mean for the American left right now to take seriously the centrality of means in politics? First, it
As writers such as Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt have taught, an
would mean taking seriously the specific means employed by the September 11 attackers--terrorism. There is a tendency in some quarters of the left to
assimilate the death and destruction of September 11 to more ordinary (and still deplorable) injustices of the world system--the starvation of children in
Africa, or the repression of peasants in Mexico, or the continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel. But this assimilation is only possible by
ignoring the specific modalities of September 11. It is true that in Mexico, Palestine, and elsewhere, too many innocent people suffer, and that is wrong. It
may even be true that the experience of suffering is equally terrible in each case. But neither the Mexican nor the Israeli government has ever hijacked
civilian airliners and deliberately flown them into crowded office buildings in the middle of cities where innocent civilians work and live, with the
intention of killing thousands of people. Al-Qaeda did precisely this. That does not make the other injustices unimportant. It simply makes them different.
It makes the September 11 hijackings distinctive, in their defining and malevolent purpose--to kill people and to create terror and havoc. This was not an
ordinary injustice. It was an extraordinary injustice. The premise of terrorism is the sheer superfluousness of human life. This premise is inconsistent with
civilized living anywhere. It threatens people of every race and class, every ethnicity and religion. Because it threatens everyone, and threatens values
central to any decent conception of a good society, it must be fought. And it must be fought in a way commensurate with its malevolence. Ordinary
injustice can be remedied. Terrorism can only be stopped. Second, it would mean frankly acknowledging something well understood, often too eagerly
embraced, by the twentieth century Marxist left--that it is often politically necessary to employ morally troubling means in the name of morally valid ends.
A just or even a better society can only be realized in and through political practice; in our complex and bloody world, it will sometimes be necessary to
respond to barbarous tyrants or criminals, with whom moral suasion won't work. In such situations our choice is not between the wrong that confronts us
and our ideal vision of a world beyond wrong. It is between the wrong that confronts us and the means--perhaps the dangerous means--we have to employ
in order to oppose it. In such situations there is a danger that "realism" can become a rationale for the Machiavellian worship of power. But equally great
is the danger of a righteousness that translates, in effect, into a refusal to act in the face of wrong. What is one to do? Proceed with caution. Avoid casting
oneself as the incarnation of pure goodness locked in a Manichean struggle with evil. Be wary of violence. Look for alternative means when they are
available, and support the development of such means when they are not. And never sacrifice democratic freedoms and open debate. Above all, ask the
hard questions about the situation at hand, the means available, and the likely effectiveness of different strategies. Most striking about the campus left's
response to September 11 was its refusal to ask these questions. Its appeals to "international law" were naive. It exaggerated the likely negative
consequences of a military response, but failed to consider the consequences of failing to act decisively against terrorism. In the best of all imaginable
worlds, it might be possible to defeat al-Qaeda without using force and without dealing with corrupt regimes and political forces like the Northern
To be politically responsible is to
engage this world and to consider the choices that it presents. To refuse to do this is to
evade responsibility. Such a stance may indicate a sincere refusal of unsavory choices. But it should never be mistaken for a serious political
Alliance. But in this world it is not possible. And this, alas, is the only world that exists.
commitment.
***Case negative***
Economy answers
--No crisis
The entire HS topic is alarmist nonsense
Lane, 11 member of the Washington Posts editorial board (Charles, The U.S.
infrastructure argument that crumbles upon examination,10/31,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-infrastructure-argument-thatcrumbles-upon-examination/2011/10/31/gIQAnILRaM_story.html)
For all its shortcomings, U.S. infrastructure is still among the most
advanced in the world if not the most advanced. I base this not on
selective personal experience but on the same data alarmists cite.
The contiguous United States (that is, excluding Alaska and Hawaii) cover 3.1
million square miles, including deserts, mountain ranges, rivers and two oceanic
coastlines. In a world of vast dictatorships (China), tiny democracies (Switzerland)
and everything in between, from Malta to Mexico, the challenge of building and
maintaining first-rate roads, bridges, railroads, airports and seaports in a country
like the United States is extraordinary and so is the degree to which the United
States succeeds.
When you compare Americas WEF rankings with those of the 19 other
largest countries, it stands second only to Canada, which is lightly
populated and whose infrastructure is linked with ours.
Among the 20 most populous countries, the United States ranks behind France,
Germany and Japan, in that order. This would seem to confirm the case for U.S.
inferiority in the developed world.
But France and Germany, in addition to being substantially smaller than the United
States, are part of the European Union, a borderless single market from the Baltic
Sea to the Black Sea. Sure enough, when you average out the scores of all 27 E.U.
nations, the United States beats them by a clear margin.
The WEF produced its rankings based on a survey in which business executives
were asked to rate their respective countries infrastructure on an ascending scale
of 1 to 7.
Barbadoss 5.8 average score means that paradises execs are a smidgen happier
with their infrastructure than are their American counterparts, who gave the United
States an average score of 5.7. This is a national disgrace? Barbados has one
commercial airport. The United States has more than 500.
The WEF asked executives to rate railroad infrastructure, without distinguishing
between freight (which excels in the United States) and passenger (which does not).
Perhaps the surveys subjectivity accounts for odd results such as Guatemala
outranking Italy. Or that the U.S. score plunged below 6.0 for the first time in 2008
proof of a sudden drop in the actual quality of our roads and bridges, or merely
an indicator of the general despondency that hit U.S. businesses along with the
Great Recession?
And while that D from the American Society of Civil Engineers is
undoubtedly sincere, the organization has a vested interest in greater
infrastructure spending, which means more work for engineers. The
engineers lobby has given Americas infrastructure a D in every one of its
report cards going back to 1998, except for 2001, when the mark was D-plus.
No infrastructure crisis
OToole, 10 - senior fellow at the Cato Institute (Randal, Fixing Transit The Case for
Privatization, 11/10, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA670.pdf)
Although much attention has been paid to a supposed infrastructure crisis involving
roads and highway bridges, the truth is that there is no highway
infrastructure crisis. The gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees that fund
most of our highway system have been adequate, even after being raided
to subsidize transit, to keep state highways in good shape. The number of
bridges that are rated structurally deficient has declined by nearly 50
percent since 1990. 58 The average roughness rating which ranges from
under 60, meaning very smooth, to more than 220, meaning very roughhas
improved from 92 to 78 in the last decade. 59 Some local highways and
bridges may have problems, but our national system of interstate, U.S.,
and other state highways is in good shape.
--No solvency
Zero short-term stimulus from infrastructure investments
Utt, 11 - Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow
in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage
Foundation (The Limited Benefits of a National Infrastructure Bank, Congressional
Testimony, 10/20, http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/2011/10/the-limitedbeneftis-of-a-national-infrastructure-bank)
Would an Infrastructure Bank Contribute to Jobs and Stimulate the Economy?
For some advocatesespecially the Presidentthese banks are seen as
mechanisms to propel the economy forward out of the lingering recession into
an era of greater prosperity and more jobs. Sadly, all evidence indicates that
this just isnt so. As far back as 1983, the General Accounting Office (now
the Government Accountability Office) reviewed an earlier infrastructurebased stimulus program and observed that although the program was
enacted during the worst of the recession, implementation of the act was
not effective and timely in relieving the high unemployment caused by the
recession. Specifically, the GAO found that:
Funds were spent slowly and relatively few jobs were created when most needed in
the economy. Also, from its review of projects and available data, the GAO found
that (1) unemployed persons received a relatively small proportion of the
jobs provided, and (2) project officials efforts to provide employment
opportunities to the unemployed ranged from no effort being made to
working closely with state employment agencies to locate unemployed
persons.[5]
Infrastructure-based stimulus programs have been a disappointment, in
large part because of time delays in getting programs underway, projects
identified and approved, and money spent. More recently, supporters of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) claimed that it would focus on
shovel-ready projects, but USDOT recently reported to this committee that as of July
2011two and a half years after the enactment of the ARRAjust 61
percent of the authorized transportation funds had been spent. Perhaps
contributing to this is the fact that the Federal Railroad Administration required 12
months to set up a mechanism to receive, review, and approve rail infrastructure
projects authorized by the ARRA.
Fiat doesnt solve the delay argument

Foundation (The Limited Benefits of a National Infrastructure Bank, Congressional
Testimony, 10/20, http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/2011/10/the-limitedbeneftis-of-a-national-infrastructure-bank)
In both of these cases, the stimulus funds were being spent through existing
federal, state, and local channels by departments, managers, and
employees with many years of experience in the project approval
business. In large part, these delays are not due to any particular
institutional failing but simply to the time it takes to establish guidelines

and rules for project submission, for outside parties to complete the
request, and for USDOT to review the many requests submitted and pick
the most promising, perhaps with modifications, and fulfill the contractual
details of awarding the contract. Once the award is made to state and
local entities, they in turn must draw up the RFP (and perhaps produce
detailed engineering plans as appropriate), put the contract out for bid, allow
sufficient time for contractors to prepare bids, review submitted bids, and
finally accept the winning contract. It is at this point that money can be spent
on the project, and the time that elapses from the beginning to the end of
the beginning can easily exceed a year or more.
In the case of an infrastructure bank, such delays will be much longerperhaps
even double that described above. In the case of the above example, the
assumption is that the newly authorized stimulus money would flow through an
institutional infrastructure of well-established channels staffed by experienced
people. In the case of the proposed infrastructure banks, no such administrative
structure exists, and one will have to be created from scratch once the enabling
legislation is enacted.
It wont help the economy

OToole, 12 - senior fellow at the Cato Institute (Randal, Indy Transit Task Force
Misses the Mark,
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/indy-transit-task-force-misses-mark
Commuter rail lines in cities comparable to Indianapolis, including Albuquerque,
Dallas, Ft. Lauderdale, Nashville, Portland and Seattle, are so expensive and
carry so few people it would cost less (and be better for the environment) to
give every daily round-trip rider a brand-new Toyota Prius every other
year for the rest of their lives.
Some cities claim their rail lines spurred economic development, but this
is merely more misinformation to justify bad decisions. The reality is almost
all so-called transit-oriented developments along new rail lines required
further subsidies. Portland has given hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies
to developers along its light-rail and streetcar lines.
Most cities building new rail lines are merely chasing after federal dollars.
Congress New Starts transit fund is designed so that cities that come up with
the most expensive transit projects get the most money, while cities that
plan efficient transit systems get the least. House Republicans want to end
this fund, which means Indianapolis would not be likely to get much federal funding
for an expensive project like the Noblesville commuter train.
--No War
Econ collapse doesnt cause war
Samuel Bazzi (Department of Economics at University of California San Diego)
and Christopher Blattman (assistant professor of political science and
economics at Yale University) November 2011 Economic Shocks and Conflict: The
(Absence of?) Evidence from Commodity Prices
http://www.chrisblattman.com/documents/research/2011.EconomicShocksAndConfli
ct.pdf?9d7bd4
VI. Discussion and conclusions A. Implications for our theories of political instability
and conflict The state is not a prize?Warlord politics and the state prize logic lie at
the center of the most influential models of conflict, state development, and
political transitions in economics and political science. Yet we see no evidence for
this idea in economic shocks, even when looking at the friendliest cases :
fragile and unconstrained states dominated by extractive commodity
revenues. Indeed, we see the opposite correlation: if anything, higher
rents from commodity prices weakly 22 lower the risk and length of
conflict. Perhaps shocks are the wrong test. Stocks of resources could matter more
than price shocks (especially if shocks are transitory). But combined with emerging
evidence that war onset is no more likely even with rapid increases in known oil
reserves (Humphreys 2005; Cotet and Tsui 2010) we regard the state prize logic of
war with skepticism.17 Our main political economy models may need a new
engine. Naturally, an absence of evidence cannot be taken for evidence of
absence. Many of our conflict onset and ending results include sizeable positive and
negative effects.18 Even so, commodity price shocks are highly influential in income
and should provide a rich source of identifiable variation in instability. It is difficult to
find a better-measured, more abundant, and plausibly exogenous independent
variable than price volatility. Moreover, other time-varying variables, like
rainfall and foreign aid, exhibit robust correlations with conflict in spite of
suffering similar empirical drawbacks and generally smaller sample sizes
(Miguel et al. 2004; Nielsen et al. 2011). Thus we take the absence of evidence
seriously. Do resource revenues drive state capacity?State prize models assume
that rising revenues raise the value of the capturing the state, but have ignored or
downplayed the effect of revenues on self-defense. We saw that a growing empirical
political science literature takes just such a revenue-centered approach, illustrating
that resource boom times permit both payoffs and repression, and that stocks of
lootable or extractive resources can bring political order and stability. This
countervailing effect is most likely with transitory shocks, as current revenues are
affected while long term value is not. Our findings are partly consistent with this
state capacity effect. For example, conflict intensity is most sensitive to changes in
the extractive commodities rather than the annual agricultural crops that affect
household incomes more directly. The relationship only holds for conflict intensity,
however, and is somewhat fragile. We do not see a large, consistent or robust
decline in conflict or coup risk when prices fall. A reasonable interpretation is that
the state prize and state capacity effects are either small or tend to cancel one
another out. Opportunity cost: Victory by default?Finally, the inverse relationship
between prices and war intensity is consistent with opportunity cost accounts, but
not exclusively so. As we noted above, the relationship between intensity and
extractive commodity prices is more consistent with the state capacity view.
Moreover, we shouldnt mistake an inverse relation between individual aggression
and incomes as evidence for the opportunity cost mechanism. The same correlation
is consistent with psychological theories of stress and aggression (Berkowitz 1993)
and sociological and political theories of relative deprivation and anomie (Merton
1938; Gurr 1971). Microempirical work will be needed to distinguish between these
mechanisms. Other reasons for a null result.Ultimately, however, the fact that
commodity price shocks have no discernible effect on new conflict onsets,
but some effect on ongoing conflict, suggests that political stability might be
less sensitive to income or temporary shocks than generally believed. One
possibility is that successfully mounting an insurgency is no easy task. It comes with
considerable risk, costs, and coordination challenges. Another possibility is that the
counterfactual is still conflict onset. In poor and fragile nations, income shocks of
one type or another are ubiquitous. If a nation is so fragile that a change in
prices could lead to war, then other shocks may trigger war even in the
absence of a price shock. The same argument has been made in debunking the
myth that price shocks led to fiscal collapse and low growth in developing nations in
the 1980s.19 B. A general problem of publication bias? More generally, these
findings should heighten our concern with publication bias in the conflict
literature. Our results run against a number of published results on
commodity shocks and conflict, mainly because of select samples,
misspecification, and sensitivity to model assumptions, and , most
importantly, alternative measures of instability. Across the social and hard
sciences, there is a concern that the majority of published research findings are
false (e.g. Gerber et al. 2001). Ioannidis (2005) demonstrates that a published
finding is less likely to be true when there is a greater number and lesser
pre-selection of tested relationships; there is greater flexibility in designs,
definitions, outcomes, and models; and when more teams are involved in
the chase of statistical significance. The cross-national study of conflict is
an extreme case of all these. Most worryingly, almost no paper looks at
alternative dependent variables or publishes systematic robustness
checks. Hegre and Sambanis (2006) have shown that the majority of published
conflict results are fragile, though they focus on timeinvariant regressors and not
the time-varying shocks that have grown in popularity. We are also concerned there
is a file drawer problem (Rosenthal 1979). Consider this decision rule: scholars
that discover robust results that fit a theoretical intuition pursue the results; but if
results are not robust the scholar (or referees) worry about problems with the data
or empirical strategy, and identify additional work to be done. If further analysis
produces a robust result, it is published. If not, back to the file drawer. In the
aggregate, the consequences are dire: a lower threshold of evidence for
initially significant results than ambiguous ones.20
Financial crisis disproves
Barnett (senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC and a

contributing editor/online columnist for Esquire magazine) August 2009 The New Rules:
Thomas P.M.
Security Remains Stable Amid Financial Crisis http://www.aprodex.com/the-new-rules-security-remains-stable-amid-financial-crisis-398-bl.aspx
When the global financial crisis struck roughly a year ago, the blogosphere
was ablaze with all sorts of scary predictions of, and commentary regarding,
ensuing conflict and wars -- a rerun of the Great Depression leading to world
war, as it were. Now, as global economic news brightens and recovery -- surprisingly
led by China and emerging markets -- is the talk of the day, it's interesting to look
back over the past year and realize how globalization's first truly worldwide recession has
had virtually no impact whatsoever on the international security landscape. None of the more than threedozen ongoing conflicts listed by GlobalSecurity.org can be clearly attributed to the global
recession. Indeed, the last new entry (civil conflict between Hamas and Fatah in the
Palestine) predates the economic crisis by a year, and three quarters of the chronic
struggles began in the last century. Ditto for the 15 low-intensity conflicts listed by
Wikipedia (where the latest entry is the Mexican "drug war" begun in 2006).
Certainly, the Russia-Georgia conflict last August was specifically timed, but by
most accounts the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was the most
important external trigger (followed by the U.S. presidential campaign) for that
sudden spike in an almost two-decade long struggle between Georgia and its two
breakaway regions. Looking over the various databases, then, we see a most familiar
picture: the usual mix of civil conflicts, insurgencies, and liberation-themed
terrorist movements. Besides the recent Russia-Georgia dust-up, the only two
potential state-on-state wars (North v. South Korea, Israel v. Iran) are both tied to
one side acquiring a nuclear weapon capacity -- a process wholly unrelated to global
economic trends. And with the United States effectively tied down by its two ongoing
major interventions (Iraq and Afghanistan-bleeding-into-Pakistan), our involvement
elsewhere around the planet has been quite modest, both leading up to and
following the onset of the economic crisis: e.g., the usual counter-drug efforts in
Latin America, the usual military exercises with allies across Asia, mixing it up with
pirates off Somalia's coast). Everywhere else we find serious instability we pretty much let it
burn, occasionally pressing the Chinese -- unsuccessfully -- to do something. Our new
Africa Command, for example, hasn't led us to anything beyond advising and
training local forces. So, to sum up: * No significant uptick in mass violence or unrest
(remember the smattering of urban riots last year in places like Greece, Moldova
and Latvia?); * The usual frequency maintained in civil conflicts (in all the
usual places); * Not a single state-on-state war directly caused (and no greatpower-on-great-power crises even triggered); * No great improvement or
disruption in great-power cooperation regarding the emergence of new nuclear powers
(despite all that diplomacy); * A modest scaling back of international policing efforts
by the system's acknowledged Leviathan power (inevitable given the strain); and *
No serious efforts by any rising great power to challenge that Leviathan or supplant its role. (The worst
things we can cite are Moscow's occasional deployments of strategic assets to the
Western hemisphere and its weak efforts to outbid the United States on basing
rights in Kyrgyzstan; but the best include China and India stepping up their aid and
investments in Afghanistan and Iraq.) Sure, we've finally seen global defense
spending surpass the previous world record set in the late 1980s, but even that's
likely to wane given the stress on public budgets created by all this unprecedented
"stimulus" spending. If anything, the friendly cooperation on such stimulus
packaging was the most notable great-power dynamic caused by the crisis. Can we
say that the world has suffered a distinct shift to political radicalism as a result of
the economic crisis? Indeed, no. The world's major economies remain governed by
center-left or center-right political factions that remain decidedly friendly to both
markets and trade. In the short run, there were attempts across the board to
insulate economies from immediate damage (in effect, as much protectionism as
allowed under current trade rules), but there was no great slide into "trade wars." Instead,
the World Trade Organization is functioning as it was designed to function, and

regional efforts toward free-trade agreements have not slowed. Can we say Islamic
radicalism was inflamed by the economic crisis? If it was, that shift was clearly
overwhelmed by the Islamic world's growing disenchantment with the brutality
displayed by violent extremist groups such as al-Qaida. And looking forward,
austere economic times are just as likely to breed connecting evangelicalism as
disconnecting fundamentalism. At the end of the day, the economic crisis did not
prove to be sufficiently frightening to provoke major economies into establishing
global regulatory schemes, even as it has sparked a spirited -- and much needed, as
I argued last week -- discussion of the continuing viability of the U.S. dollar as the
world's primary reserve currency. Naturally, plenty of experts and pundits have
attached great significance to this debate, seeing in it the beginning of
"economic warfare" and the like between "fading" America and "rising" China.
And yet, in a world of globally integrated production chains and interconnected financial markets ,
such "diverging interests" hardly constitute signposts for wars up ahead . Frankly, I don't welcome
a world in which America's fiscal profligacy goes undisciplined, so bring it on -please! Add it all up and it's fair to say that this global financial crisis has proven the
great resilience of America's post-World War II international liberal trade order. Do I
expect to read any analyses along those lines in the blogosphere any time soon?
Absolutely not. I expect the fantastic fear-mongering to proceed apace. That's what
the Internet is for.
Countries turn inward no fighting
deMause, director of The Institute for Psychohistory, Nuclear War as an AntiSexual Group Fantasy Updated December 18 2002,
Lloyd
th
http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/ja/nucsex.htm
The nation "turns inward" during this depressed phase of the cycle. Empirical studies have clearly
demonstrated that major economic downswings are accompanied by "introverted" foreign policy
moods, characterized by fewer armed expeditions , less interest in foreign affairs in the
speeches of leaders, reduced military expenditures, etc. (Klingberg, 1952; Holmes, 1985).
Just as depressed people experience little conscious rage--feeling "I deserve to be killed"
rather than "I want to kill others" (Fenichel, 1945, p. 393)- -interest in military adventures
during the depressed phase wanes, arms expeditures decrease and peace treaties
multiply.
No causal relationship ignores other variables
Ferguson (Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and a

Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University) 2006 Foreign Affairs,
Niall
September/October, Vol. 85, Issue 5
Nor can economic crises explain the bloodshed. What may be the most familiar
causal chain in modern historiography links the Great Depression to the rise of
fascism and the outbreak of World War II. But that simple story leaves too much out. Nazi
Germany started the war in Europe only after its economy had recovered. Not
all the countries affected by the Great Depression were taken over by fascist regimes, nor did
all such regimes start wars of aggression. In fact, no general relationship between economics and conflict
is discernible for the century as a whole. Some wars came after periods of growth, others were the causes
rather than the consequences of economic catastrophe , and some severe economic crises were not
followed by wars.
--Resilient
No protectionism economy is resilient
Dani Rodrik (professor of political economy at Harvard, recipient of the Social
Science Research Councils Hirschman Prize) 2009 The myth of rising
protectionism, http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/danirodrikmythrising-protectionism/373102/
There was a dog that didnt bark during the financial crisis: protectionism. Despite much hue and
cry about it, governments have, in fact, imposed remarkably few trade barriers on
imports. Indeed, the world economy remains as open as it was before the crisis
struck. Protectionism normally thrives in times of economic peril . Confronted by economic
decline and rising unemployment, governments are much more likely to pay
attention to domestic pressure groups than to upholding their international
obligations. As John Maynard Keynes recognised, trade restrictions can protect or
generate employment during economic recessions. But what may be desirable
under extreme conditions for a single country can be highly detrimental to the world
economy. When everyone raises trade barriers, the volume of trade collapses. No
one wins. That is why the disastrous free-for-all in trade policy during the 1930s
greatly aggravated the Great Depression. Many complain that something similar, if
less grand in scope, is taking place today. An outfit called the Global Trade Alert
(GTA) has been at the forefront, raising alarm bells about what it calls a
protectionist juggernaut. The GTAs latest report identifies no fewer than 192
separate protectionist actions since November 2008, with China as the most
common target. This number has been widely quoted in the financial press. Taken at
face value, it seems to suggest that governments have all but abandoned their
commitments to the World Trade Organization and the multilateral trade regime.
But look more closely at those numbers and you will find much less cause for alarm. Few of
those 192 measures are, in fact, more than a nuisance. The most common among
them are the indirect (and often unintended) consequences of the bailouts
that governments mounted as a consequence of the crisis. The most frequently
affected sector is the financial industry. Moreover, we do not even know whether
these numbers are unusually high when compared to pre-crisis trends. The GTA
report tells us how many measures have been imposed since November 2008, but
says nothing about the analogous numbers prior to that date. In the absence of a
benchmark for comparative assessment, we do not really know whether 192
protectionist measures is a big or small number. What about the recent tariffs
imposed by the United States on Chinese tires? President Barack Obamas decision
to introduce steep duties (set at 35 per cent in the first year) in response to a US
International Trade Commission (USITC) ruling (sought by US labour unions) has
been widely criticised as stoking the protectionist fires. But it is easy to overstate the
significance of this case, too. The tariff is fully consistent with a special arrangement
negotiated at the time of Chinas accession to the WTO, which allows the US to
impose temporary protection when its markets are disrupted by Chinese exports.
The tariffs that Obama imposed were considerably below what the USITC had
recommended. And, in any case, the measure affects less than 0.3 per cent of
Chinas exports to the US. The reality is that the international trade regime has passed its
greatest test since the Great Depression with flying colours. Trade economists who complain about minor
instances of protectionism sound like a child whining about a damaged toy in the wake of an earthquake
that killed thousands. Three things explain this remarkable resilience: ideas, politics and
institutions. Economists have been extraordinarily successful in conveying their message to

policymakerseven if ordinary people still regard imports with considerable suspicion.
Nothing reflects this better than how protection and protectionists have become
terms of derision. After all, governments are generally expected to provide
protection to their citizens. But if you say that you favour protection from
imports, you are painted into a corner with Reed Smoot and Willis C.
Hawley, authors of the infamous 1930 US tariff bill. But economists ideas would
not have gone very far without significant changes in the underlying configuration
of political interests in favour of open trade. For every worker and firm affected
by import competition, there is one or more worker and firm expecting to
reap the benefits of access to markets abroad. The latter have become
increasingly vocal and powerful, often represented by large multinational
corporations. In his latest book, Paul Blustein recounts how a former Indian trade
minister once asked his American counterpart to bring him a picture of an American
farmer: I have never actually seen one, the minister quipped. I have only seen
US conglomerates masquerading as farmers. But the relative docility of rank-andfile workers on trade issues must ultimately be attributed to something else
altogether: the safety nets erected by the welfare state. Modern industrial societies now
have a wide array of social protections unemployment compensation,
adjustment assistance, and other labour-market tools, as well as health insurance
and family support that mitigate demand for cruder forms of protection.
Econ resilient
Zakaria
Fareed
(editor of Newsweek International) December
Stability, http://www.newsweek.com/id/226425/page/2]
2009 The Secrets of
One year ago, the world seemed as if it might be coming apart. The global
financial system, which had fueled a great expansion of capitalism and trade
across the world, was crumbling. All the certainties of the age of globalization
about the virtues of free markets, trade, and technologywere being called into
question. Faith in the American model had collapsed. The financial industry had
crumbled. Once-roaring emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil were sinking.
Worldwide trade was shrinking to a degree not seen since the 1930s. Pundits whose
bearishness had been vindicated predicted we were doomed to a long, painful bust, with
cascading failures in sector after sector, country after country . In a widely cited essay that
appeared in The Atlantic n this May, Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the
International Monetary Fund, wrote: "The conventional wisdom among the elite is
still that the current slump 'cannot be as bad as the Great Depression.' This view is
wrong. What we face now could, in fact, be worse than the Great Depression." Others
predicted that these economic shocks would lead to political instability and violence in the
worst-hit countries. At his confirmation hearing in February, the new U.S. director of
national intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, cautioned the Senate that "the financial
crisis and global recession are likely to produce a wave of economic crises in
emerging-market nations over the next year." Hillary Clinton endorsed this grim
view. And she was hardly alone. Foreign Policy ran a cover story predicting serious
unrest in several emerging markets. Of one thing everyone was sure: nothing would
ever be the same again. Not the financial industry, not capitalism, not globalization.
One year later, how much has the world really changed? Well, Wall Street is
home to two fewer investment banks (three, if you count Merrill Lynch). Some
regional banks have gone bust. There was some turmoil in Moldova and (entirely
unrelated to the financial crisis) in Iran. Severe problems remain, like high
unemployment in the West, and we face new problems caused by responses to the
crisissoaring debt and fears of inflation. But overall, things look nothing like
they did in the 1930s. The predictions of economic and political collapse have not materialized
at all. A key measure of fear and fragility is the ability of poor and unstable countries
to borrow money on the debt markets. So consider this: the sovereign bonds of
tottering Pakistan have returned 168 percent so far this year. All this doesn't add up
to a recovery yet, but it does reflect a return to some level of normalcy. And that
rebound has been so rapid that even the shrewdest observers remain puzzled. "The
question I have at the back of my head is 'Is that it?' " says Charles Kaye, the cohead of Warburg Pincus. "We had this huge crisis, and now we're back to business
as usual?"This revival did not happen because markets managed to stabilize themselves
on their own. Rather, governments, having learned the lessons of the Great
Depression, were determined not to repeat the same mistakes once this crisis hit.
By massively expanding state support for the economythrough central banks and national
treasuriesthey buffered the worst of the damage. (Whether they made new mistakes in the
process remains to be seen.) The extensive social safety nets that have been
established across the industrialized world also cushioned the pain felt by many.
Times are still tough, but things are nowhere near as bad as in the 1930s, when
governments played a tiny role in national economies. It's true that the massive
state interventions of the past year may be fueling some new bubbles: the cheap
cash and government guarantees provided to banks, companies, and consumers
have fueled some irrational exuberance in stock and bond markets. Yet these rallies
also demonstrate the return of confidence, and confidence is a very powerful
economic force. When John Maynard Keynes described his own prescriptions for
economic growth, he believed government action could provide only a temporary fix
until the real motor of the economy started cranking againthe animal spirits of
investors, consumers, and companies seeking risk and profit. Beyond all this,
though, I believe there's a fundamental reason why we have not faced
global collapse in the last year. It is the same reason that we weathered the stockmarket crash of 1987, the recession of 1992, the Asian crisis of 1997, the Russian default of 1998, and the
tech-bubble collapse of 2000. The current global economic system is inherently more resilient than we
think. The world today is characterized by three major forces for stability,
each reinforcing the other and each historical in nature.
Other even bigger crises prove resilience

Mark Skousen. "What have we learned." Forecasts&Strategies. 2 Jun. 2003.
http://www.markskousen.com/article.php?id=1096
The second lesson is that the global economy is far more resilient than anyone imagined.
During the past 20 years, we have suffered through two major energy crises, double digit
inflation, stock market and real estate crashes in the U.S. and Japan, an unprecedented
credit crunch, mammoth federal deficits, the AIDS crisis, several major wars, terrorist attacks, the
collapse of the Soviet Union and many other mini-panics, and yet we continue to survive
and even prosper. We are not depression-proof, but we are surprisingly depression-resistant.
Armageddon has again been postpone
Economic institutions ensure bounceback even if there is a

total meltdown
Glenn Somerville. "Paulson: Economy resilient but Fed move helpful." Reuters.
22 Jan. 2008.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080122/bs_nm/usa_economy_paulson_dc
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Tuesday he was confident the U.S. and global
economies were resilient but welcomed an emergency rate cut by the Federal Reserve as
a helpful move. ADVERTISEMENT The U.S. central bank cut benchmark U.S.
interest rates by a steep three-quarters of a percentage point while Paulson while
still answering questions after addressing a Chamber of Commerce breakfast
meeting. Paulson had earlier acknowledged the U.S. economy has slowed
"materially" in recent weeks but, despite a meltdown in global stock prices, insisted that
the global economy had "underlying resiliency" that would let it weather the storm. The U.S.
Treasury chief initially looked surprised when a Chamber of Commerce official said
the Fed had just cut rates in a relatively rare move between meetings of its policysetting Federal Open Market Committee, but praised the action. "This is very
constructive and I think it shows this country and the rest of the world that our central
bank is nimble and can move quickly in response to market conditions," Paulson said. The U.S.
Treasury chief, who headed Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs before taking over
Treasury in 2006, said the $145-billion short-term stimulus package that President
George W. Bush was asking Congress to work on was needed to minimize the
impact of a U.S. economic slowdown. "We need to do something now, because
short-term risks are clearly to the downside, and the potential benefits of quick
action to support our economy have become clear," Paulson said. But early signs
were that Bush's call for bipartisan action -- and a relatively positive Congressional
response to it -- were not calming financial markets but might actually be fanning
fears that the economy was at greater risk of toppling into recession than officially
acknowledged. Stock markets around the world sank sharply on Monday, when U.S.
markets were closed for the holiday in observance of slain civil rights leader Martin
Luther King's birthday. Paulson tried to reassure that there was reason to feel
confident in the U.S. economy's long-term prospects, notwithstanding severe
problems in the housing sector and other credit-market strains. "The U.S. economy is
resilient and diverse," he said. "It's been remarkably robust and it will be again."
He added: "The unemployment rate remains low and job creation continues, albeit
at a modest pace. The structure of our economy is sound and our long term economic
fundamentals are healthy."
Oil answers
Oil impact answers

No resource wars
Idean Salehyan (Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas)
May 2008 From Climate Change to Conflict? No Consensus Yet* Journal of Peace
Research, vol. 45, no. 3 http://emergingsustainability.org/files/resolver%20climate

%20change%20and%20conflict.pdf
First, the deterministic view has poor predictive power as to where and when
conflicts will break out. For every potential example of an environmental
catastrophe or resource shortfall that leads to violence, there are many more counter-examples in
which conflict never occurs. But popular accounts typically do not look at the dogs
that do not bark. Darfur is frequently cited as a case where desertification led to
food scarcity, water scarcity, and famine, in turn leading to civil war and ethnic
cleansing.5 Yet, food scarcity and hunger are problems endemic to many countries
particularly in sub-Saharan Africa but similar problems elsewhere have not led to largescale violence. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, food shortages and malnutrition affect more than a third of the population in Malawi,
Zambia, the Comoros, North Korea, and Tanzania,6 although none of these countries have experienced
fullblown civil war and state failure. Hurricanes, coastal flooding, and droughts
which are all likely to intensify as the climate warms are frequent occurrences
which rarely lead to violence. The Asian Tsunami of 2004, although caused by an
oceanic earthquake, led to severe loss of life and property, flooding, population
displacement, and resource scarcity, but it did not trigger new wars in Southeast
Asia. Large-scale migration has the potential to provoke conflict in receiving areas
(see Reuveny, 2007; Salehyan & Gleditsch, 2006), yet most migration flows do
not lead to conflict, and, in this regard, social integration and citizenship policies
are particularly important (Gleditsch, Nords & Salehyan, 2007). In short, resource
scarcity, natural disasters, and long-term climatic shifts are ubiquitous, while armed
conflict is rare; therefore, environmental conditions, by themselves, cannot predict violent
outbreaks. Second, even if local skirmishes over access to resources arise, these do not always escalate
to open warfare and state collapse. While interpersonal violence is more or less
common and may intensify under resource pressures, sustained armed conflict on a
massive scale is difficult to conduct. Meier, Bond & Bond (2007) show that, under
certain circumstances, environmental conditions have led to cattle raiding among
pastoralists in East Africa, but these conflicts rarely escalate to sustained
violence. Martin (2005) presents evidence from Ethiopia that, while a large refugee
influx and population pressures led to localized conflict over natural resources,
effective resource management regimes were able to ameliorate these tensions.
Both of these studies emphasize the role of local dispute-resolution regimes and institutions not
just the response of central governments in preventing resource conflicts from spinning out
of control. Martins analysis also points to the importance of international
organizations, notably the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in implementing
effective policies governing refugee camps. Therefore, local hostilities need not
escalate to serious armed conflict and can be managed if there is the political will to
do so. Third, states often bear responsibility for environmental degradation and
resource shortfalls, either through their own projects and initiatives or through
neglect of the environment. Clearly, climate change itself is an exogenous stressor
beyond the control of individual governments. However, government policies and
neglect can compound the effects of climate change. Nobel Prizewinning economist
Amartya Sen finds that, even in the face of acute environmental scarcities,
countries with democratic institutions and press freedoms work to prevent famine
because such states are accountable to their citizens (Sen, 1999). Others have
similarly shown a strong relationship between democracy and protection of the
environment (Li & Reuveny, 2006). Faced with global warming, some states will take
the necessary steps to conserve water and land, redistribute resources to those who
need them most, and develop disaster-warning and -response systems. Others will
do little to respond to this threat. While a states level of income and technological
capacity are certainly important, democracy or, more precisely, the accountability
of political leaders to their publics is likely to be a critical determinant of how
states respond to the challenge. Fourth, violent conflict is an inefficient and sub-optimal
reaction to changes in the environment and resource scarcities. As environmental
conditions change, several possible responses are available, although
many journalists and policymakers have focused on the potential for warfare. Individuals can
migrate internally or across borders, or they can invest in technological improvements, develop
conservation strategies, and shift to less climate-sensitive livelihoods, among other adaptation
mechanisms. Engaging in armed rebellion is quite costly and risky and requires large-scale
collective action. Individuals and households are more likely to engage in simpler, personal,
or smallscale coping strategies. Thus, organized violence is inefficient at the individual
level. But, more importantly, armed violence against the state is used as a means to
gain leverage over governments so as to gain some form of accommodation,
namely, the redistribution of economic resources and political power. Organized
armed violence rarely (if ever) arises spontaneously but is usually pursued when
people perceive their government to be unwilling to listen to peaceful petitions. As
mentioned above, rebellion does not distribute resources by itself, and protracted
civil wars can have devastating effects on the economy and the natural
environment, leaving fewer resources to bargain over. Thus, organized violence is
inefficient at the collective level. Responsive, accountable political leaders at all
levels of government are more likely to listen to citizen demands for greater
access to resources and the means to secure their livelihoods. Political sensitivity to
peaceful action can immunize states from armed insurrection.
No conflict over resources for every example to prove

resource wars exist there are several examples that
disprove it.
Simon Dalby (Dept. Of Geography, Carleton University) 2006 "Security and
environment linkages revisited" in Globalisation and Environmental Challenges:

Reconceptualising Security in the 21st Century,
www.ntu.edu.sg/idss/publications/SSIS/SSIS001.pdf)
In parallel with the focus on human security as a necessity in the face of both
natural and artificial forms of vulnerability, recent literature has emphasised the
opportunities that environmental management presents for political cooperation
between states and other political actors, on both largescale infrastructure projects
as well as more traditional matters of wildlife and new concerns with biodiversity
preservation (Matthew/Halle/Switzer 2002). Simultaneously, the discussion on water
wars, and in particular the key finding the shared resources frequently stimulate cooperation rather
than conflict, shifted focus from conflict to the possibilities of environmental
action as a mode of peacemaking. Both at the international level in terms
of environmental diplomacy and institution building, there is considerable evidence of

cooperative action on the part of many states (Conca/Dabelko 2002). Case studies from many
parts of the world suggest that cooperation and diplomatic arrangements can facilitate
peaceful responses to the environmental difficulties in contrast to the pessimism of the 1990s where the
focus was on the potential for conflicts. One recent example of the attempts to resolve
difficulties in the case of Lake Victoria suggests a dramatic alternative to the
resource war scenarios. The need to curtail over-fishing in the lake and the
importance of remediation has encouraged cooperation; scarcities leading to
conflict arguments have not been common in the region, and they have not
influenced policy prescriptions (Canter/Ndegwa 2002). Many conflicts over the
allocations of water use rights continue around the world but most of them are
within states and international disputes simply do not have a history of leading to
wars.
Your lit base is rigged to come to the conclusion that scarcity

leads to conflict prefer our evidence
David G. Victor, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Science and Technology professor of law at Stanford Law School and
the director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development. He is also a senior fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations 1-2-08 Smoke and Mirrors The National Interest.
Nearly all of the vast literature that Homer-Dixon applauds suffers from the affliction of severe selection bias and failure to assign proper weights
to causal factors. Put a microscope on any big conflict looking for resources, and youre sure to find exactly
what youre looking for. Nobody doubts that causation is complex; the dispute is on the central forces. And to Klares point
about methodology, my article focuses narrowly on hot conflictthat is, warbecause the best way to get causation right usually requires
starting narrowly. However, technological change and economic shifts away from resource-intensive industries and
the globalization of most resources into commodities implies that a broader version of my hypothesis
probably also holdsnatural resources matter less and thus are less important for conflict , except where
lootable resources coincide with exceptionally poor governance.
Ensures no escalation these conflicts have never escalated

beyond local levels. The only way they escalate is
getting highly developed countries involved that wont
happen
Nils Petter Gleditsch (International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) &
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim) 1998 Armed Conflict
and the Environment: A Critique of the Literature JSTOR
A similar point holds for economic variables. Much of the environmental literature
lacks explicit recognition of the fact that material deprivation is one of the strongest
predictors of civil war. Moreover, economically highly developed countries rarely
fight one another (Mueller, 1989), although this regularity is less absolute than the
democratic peace. Finally, while economic development does tend to exacerbate
certain environmental problems (such as pollution and excessive resource
extraction) up to a point, the most advanced industrial economies also tend to
be relatively more resource-friendly. Hence, resource competition is likely to be less
fierce domestically as well as externally among the most highly developed countries.
Going back to the example of shared water resources, highly developed countries have
very strong economic motives for not fighting over scarce water resources; instead, they use
technology to expand the resources or find cooperative solutions in exploiting them. Poor countries
generate more local environmental problems, which in turn may exacerbate their
poverty and which is also conducive to conflict. Certain types of environmental
degradation - like deforestation, lack of water and sanitation, and soil erosion - are
part and parcel of underdevelopment.
No resource wars states are rational and strategic

Idean Salehyan (Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas)
May 2008 From Climate Change to Conflict? No Consensus Yet* Journal of Peace
Research, vol. 45, no. 3 http://emergingsustainability.org/files/resolver%20climate
%20change%20and%20conflict.pdf
On a fundamental level, if we acknowledge that actors faced with
environmental stress make decisions strategically, then we can see that
violence is generally a poor response to resource scarcity, given the
alternatives. Barring the defeat, subjugation, or extermination of the other party,
armed conflict by itself does nothing to resolve the underlying
incompatibility over the distribution of resources. Violence is typically used as
a strategy used to influence outcomes during negotiations, whether in a domestic or
international setting (Filson & Werner, 2002; Wagner, 2000); eventually, actors must
come to the bargaining table. Moreover, there is good reason to think that civil wars
are extremely disruptive to the natural environment, leaving fewer resources than
there were to begin with. Warfare is, therefore, an inefficient and costly way to
resolve conflicts over resources (Fearon, 1995). Failure to find a suitable bargain
and forgo fighting stems from failures in the political process, not from the absolute
level of resources. Thus, while environmental degradation is certainly not a
necessary condition for armed conflict, neither is it a sufficient one, since
states play a key role in containing or aggravating violence
No resource wars too costly for invaders

Daniel Deudney, Fellow in Science, Technology, and Politics, Princeton University,
MILLENIUM, 1990, p. 471Second, the prospects for resource wars are diminished, since states find it
increasingly difficult to exploit foreign resources through territorial
conquest. Although the invention of nuclear explosives has made it easy and
cheap to annihilate humans and infrastructure in extensive areas, the spread of
small arms and national consciousness has made it very costly for an
invader, even one equipped with advanced technology, to subdue a
resisting populationas France discovered in Indochina and Algeria, the United
States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
Resources are not the root cause of conflict
David G. Victor, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Science and Technology professor of
law at Stanford Law School and the director of the Program on Energy and
Sustainable Development. He is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations, November 1,
2007
National Interest What Resource Wars? http://www.cfr.org/publication/14710/what_resource_wars.html?breadcrumb=%2Fissue
%2Fpublication_list%3Fgroupby%3D2%26page%3D1%26id%3D18
Rising energy prices and mounting concerns about environmental depletion have animated fears that the world
may be headed for a spate of resource warshot conflicts triggered by a struggle to grab valuable resources.
Such fears come in many stripes, but the threat industry has sounded the alarm bells especially loudly in three
areas. First is the rise of China, which is poorly endowed with many of the resources it needssuch as oil, gas, timber and most mineralsand has already gone out to the world with the goal of securing what it wants.
Violent conflicts may follow as the country shunts others aside. A second potential path down the road to resource wars starts with all the money now flowing into poorly governed but resource-rich countries. Money can fund civil
wars and other hostilities, even leaking into the hands of terrorists. And third is global climate change, which could multiply stresses on natural resources and trigger water wars, catalyze the spread of disease or bring about mass
migrations.
Most of this is bunk, and nearly all of it has focused on the wrong lessons for policy. Classic resource
wars are good material for Hollywood screenwriters. They rarely occur in the real world. To be sure,
resource money can magnify and prolong some conflicts, but the root causes of those hostilities usually lie
elsewhere. Fixing them requires focusing on the underlying institutions that govern how resources are used and
largely determine whether stress explodes into violence. When conflicts do arise, the weak link isnt a dearth in
resources but a dearth in governance.
Warming answers
1nc no warming
No warming
Beisner 10 former associate professor of interdisciplinary studies in economics,

government, and public policy, Covenant. PhD, University of St. Andrews (Calvin,
Forget Global Warming Mini Ice Age May Be on Its Way, 12 January 2010,
http://www.rightsidenews.com/201001128144/energy-and-environment/forgetglobal-warming-mini-ice-age-may-be-on-its-way.html, AMiles) Note graph omitted
winter
is only the start of a global trend towards cooler
weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world's most eminent climate
scientists." Right. MailOnline reporter David Rose doesn't call them "the world's leading climate skeptics." He calls them "some
of the world's most eminent climate scientists"--and he goes on to cite "Mojib Latif, a leading member of the
UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)," "Anastasios Tsonis, head of the U
of Wisconsin
Atmospheric Sciences Group," and "William Gray, emeritus Prof of Atmospheric Sciences at
Colorado State University." Contrary to fears of inexorably diminishing Arctic sea ice, Rose cites the U.S. National
Snow and Ice Data Center as reporting that "Arctic summer sea ice has increased by
The UK's MailOnline did just that this week under the headline The mini ice age starts here. Lead paragraph? "The bitter
afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere
niversity
essor
409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007." Though snow's been unusual for most of the southern half of the United Kingdom
in recent decades, the Mail published the accompanying satellite photo of Great Britain during the recent cold snap. The island is
essentially all covered with snow. Rose reported record lows as far south as Cuba--something I can attest to, living near Miami in
south Florida, where we experienced sub-freezing weather over the weekend. He quoted Tsonis as saying that last week 56% of the
United States was covered by snow--something that hasn't happened in several decades. And the " 'Arctic oscillation'--a
weather pattern that sees the development of huge 'blocking' areas of high pressure in northern latitudes, driving polar winds far to
is at its strongest for at least 60 years. As a result, the jetstream--the high-altitude wind
that circles the globe from west to east and normally pushes a series of wet but mild Atlantic lows across Britain--is
currently running not over the English Channel but the Strait of Gibraltar." Consequently, most of the
Northern Hemisphere is much colder this winter than it's been in decades--and the Southern Hemisphere is
cooler, too. According to Rose, Latif, Tsonis, and other scientists attribute the cold shift primarily to a shift
in the world's dominant ocean circulations--the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Atlantic Multidecadal
Oscillation--from a warm phase to a cool phase, something that happens about every 20 to
30 years. "The scientists' predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models,
which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made g h
g s emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise. They say that their research shows that much of the
warming was caused by oceanic cycles when they were in a 'warm mode' as opposed to the present 'cold
the south . . .
reen
ouse
mode'." That's a point made by Dr. Roy W. Spencer in the science chapter of the Cornwall Alliance's new document A Renewed Call
to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and Economics of Global
Warming and illustrated in the graph below. " A
significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to

2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles," said Latif, "perhaps as much as 50 per
cent. They have now gone into reverse, so winters like this one will become much more likely. Summers will also
probably be cooler, and all this may well last two decades or longer. The extreme retreats that we have seen in
glaciers and sea ice will come to a halt. For the time being, global warming has paused, and there may well be some
cooling." Tsonis also believes that the ocean current cycles dominated global climate change in the 20th century, including the post1970s, the period many point to as driven by human greenhouse gas emissions, but he doesn't venture to attribute specific
percentages to the natural and human causes. "I
do not believe in catastrophe theories ," Rose quoted him as

warming is balanced by the natural cycles, and I do not trust the computer models
which state that if CO2 reaches a particular level then temperatures and sea levels will rise by a given amount. These models
cannot be trusted to predict the weather for a week, yet they are running them to
give readings for 100 years." Gray went farther: "Most of the rise in temperature from the
Seventies to the Nineties was natural. Very little was down to CO2--in my view, as little as five to ten per cent." Gray,
Tsonis, and Latif all agreed that the findings about the ocean currents undermined the credibility of the
computer climate models on which the IPCC and other alarmists rely.
saying. "Man-made
No warming, no impact; all lies

Lehr 2005 (Jay, Science Director of the Heartland Institute, 1-12-2005, Yearbook of Experts)
EVIDENCE THAT THE TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH IS NOT INCREASING SIGNIFICANTLY AS A RESULT OF MAN'S ACTIVITY ON THE
Our most reliable sources of temperature data show no global warming

trend. Satellite and weather balloon readings of temperatures in the lower troposphere (an
area scientists predict would immediately reflect any global warming) show no
warming since readings began 25 years ago, when the satellite system was first launched. Only land
based temperature stations show a warming trend, and these stations do not cover the entire globe as
satellite readings do, and these are often affected by heat generated by nearby urban development . 2 All predictions of global warming are based on computer models not historical data.
In order to get their models to produce predictions that are close to their designers expectations, modelers make
adjustments to unknown variables that are many times greater than the effect of
doubling carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. For example, knowledge of the amount of energy flowing from
PLANET 1 -
the equator to the poles is uncertain by an amount equivalent to 25 to 30 Watts per square meter (W/m2) of the earth's surface. the
amount of sunlight absorbed by the atmosphere or reflected by the surface is also uncertain by as much as 25 W/m2. The role of
clouds is uncertain by at least 25 W/m2. The heat added to the atmosphere by a doubling of CO2 is not uncertain. It is easily
measured in laboratory experiments and amounts to only 4 Watts per square meter (4 W/m2) of the earth's surface. Obviously the
uncertainties are many times larger than the input of energy resulting from a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 3 -
When scientists analyzed the relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and temperatures dating back 250,000
years in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, they found that sometimes concentration of CO2
was high when the temperature was low and sometime CO2 was low when temperature was high. 4 - While
we hear much about one or another melting glaciers, a recent study of 246 glaciers around the world between 1946
and 1995 indicated a balance between those that are losing ice, gaining ice and
remaining in equilibrium. There is no global trend in any direction . 5 - The gases in the
atmosphere that absorb outgoing radiation forming the greenhouse effect are water vapor
(absorbing 90% of outgoing heat), methane (4%), nitrous oxide (2%), carbon dioxide
(4%). Thus a doubling of CO2 would not achieve a significant change in heat
retained. 6 - Temperature fluctuations during the current 300 year recovery from the Little Ice Age which ended
around 1700AD, following the Medieval Warming Period correlate almost perfectly with
fluctuations in solar activity. This correlation long predates human use of significant amounts of fossil fuels such as
coal, oil and natural gas. 7 - In defining the tremendous impact the sun has on climate one must really understands the actual
movement of the earth around the sun. There are three variables, orbit shape, tilt and wobble which profoundly affect weather
patterns. The earth's orbit does not form a circle as it moves around the sun - it forms an ellipse passing further away from the sun
at the one end of the orbit than at the other end. During the 100,000 year cycle the tug of other planets on the earth causes its orbit
to change shape. It shifts from a short broad ellipse that keeps the earth closer to the sun to a long flat ellipse that allows it to move
There is no consensus of scientists in favor of human caused global

more than 17,000 American scientists
signed a petition drafted by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine which stated: "There is no
convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in
the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate .
farther from the sun and back again. 8 -
warming. While opinion polls do not determine truth in science,
Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon
A modest amount of global warming, should it

would be beneficial to the natural world. The warmest period in recorded history was the
Medieval Warm Period roughly 800 to 1200AD when temperatures were 7 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today allowing
great prosperity of mankind. 10 - Carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant. On the contrary it makes crops and
forests grow faster. Mapping by satellite shows that the earth has become about 6% greener overall in the past two
decades, with forests expanding into arid regions. The Amazon rain forest was the biggest gainer, despite the
the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth." 9 occur
much advertised deforestation caused by human cutting along their edges. Certainly climate change does not help every region
equally, but careful studies predict overall benefit, fewer storms (not more), more rain, better crop yields, longer growing seasons,
milder winters and decreasing heating costs in colder climates. The news is certainly not all bad and on balance may be rather good.
11 - Energy is the currency of technological progress. Billions of people in the Earth's poor countries are trying to lift themselves
from poverty through use of simple technology. Hundreds of millions of these people are so close to the bottom rungs of the ladder
of existence that loss of hydrocarbon fuels can cause their deaths. Many international elitists understand this well as they attempt to
Global warming is a major industry

today. Between 1992 and 2000 the U.S. Government spent $18 Billion on climate change research and now
contributes $6 billion a year. This finances jobs, grants, conferences, international
travel and academic journals. It not only keeps a huge army of people in
comfortable employment, but also fills them with self righteousness and moral
superiority regardless of the fact that real science did not support it .
use the myth of global warming as a means of "population control". 12 -
No warming and no impact

Taylor 9 (James, Senior Fellow Env. Policy @ Heartland Institute, Naples Daily News,
Guest Commentary: Global warming,
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/jan/03/guest-commentary-global-warming/)
In a pair of recent columns claiming humans are causing a global-warming crisis, Ben Bova disparages mere assertions while
saying people need to rely on observable, measurable facts. While Bovas concern about Earths climate is admirable, he should
global
temperatures are unusually cool. For most of the past 10,000 years
temperatures have been 1.0 to 3.0 degrees Celsius warmer than they are
today. The 0.6 degree rise in temperatures during the 20th century
occurred from the baseline of the little ice age, which saw the coldest
global temperatures during the past 10,000 years. Earth has a rising fever only if we
follow his own advice regarding assertions versus facts. Bova asserts Earth has a rising fever. Yet the fact is that
pretend the little ice age was normal and ignore Earths long-term temperature facts. Bova asserts the loss of sea ice in the
Arctic is threatening the survival of polar bears. Yet the fact is that polar bear numbers have doubled since the 1980s. Moreover,
Antarctic sea ice is growing and has been setting records for much of the
past year. If global warming is causing receding polar ice, then why is Antarctic sea ice setting growth records? Bova
asserts measurements ... show that the rise in global temperatures matches quite closely the increase in carbon dioxide. Yet the
fact is that solar scientists at Harvard and other leading universities have published research in the worlds leading scientific journals
temperatures match solar output much more closely than carbon

dioxide, even in the 20th century. Bova asserts that as a result of global warming much of our crop land
turns to desert. Yet, the fact is that global precipitation and global soil moisture have
increased during the 20th century, and the Sahara Desert and other deserts around the world are in
showing that
retreat. Bova asserts we run the risk of a breaching a tipping point or a greenhouse cliff where the global climate shifts too
in a recent survey of more

than 500 climate scientists from around the world, less than half agreed
that assuming climate change will occur, it will occur so suddenly that a
lack of preparation could result in devastation of some areas of the world.
rapidly for us to protect ourselves from its drastic effects. Yet, the fact is that
Bova asserts that in Californias Yosemite National Park warmer temperatures are allowing mice and pine trees to live at higher
altitudes than a century ago. Yet, the fact is that fossilized trees exist at altitudes above the current California tree line, showing that
temperatures were significantly warmer 1,000 years ago than today. Plant and animal species are migrating to higher elevations
only in comparison to the abnormally cold temperatures of the little ice age that ended just over a century ago. For most of the past
10,000 years, warmer temperatures enabled mice and trees to live at altitudes significantly higher than is possible today. Globalwarming activism is long on unsubstantiated assertions and short on objective facts. Only by comparing todays temperatures to the
abnormal cold of the little ice are and by completely ignoring the warmer temperatures that predominated during most of the
sound
science has thrown cold water on each and every one of the alleged
global-warming crises, such as endangered polar bears, melting ice caps,
etc., alleged to result from global warming .
past 10,000 years can global-warming activists paint a picture of a planet suffering a global warming crisis. Moreover,
1nc warming not anthro

Warmings not anthropogenic
Singer, 7, distinguished research professor at George Mason and Avery, director of

the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute (S. Fred, Dennis T,
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years Pages 7-8.
The Earth has recently been warming. This is beyond doubt. It has warmed slowly and erratically-for a total of about 0.8 degrees
Celsius-since 1850. It had one surge of warming from 1850 to 1870 and another from 1920 to 1940. However, when we correct the
thermometer records for the effects of growing urban heat islands and widespread intensification of land use, and for the recently
overall world temperatures today are

only modestly warmer than they were in 1940, despite a major increase in human
CO2 emissions. The real question is not whether the Earth is warming but why and
by how much. We have a large faction of intensely interested persons who say the warming is manmade, and dangerous. They say it is driven by releases of greenhouse gases such as CO from power plants and autos, and
documented cooling of the Antarctic continent over the past thirty years,
methane from rice paddies and cattle herds. The activists tell us that modern society will destroy the planet; that unless we radically
change human energy production and consumption, the globe will become too warm for farming and the survival of wild species.
They warn that the polar ice caps could melt, raising sea levels and flooding many of the world's most important cities and farming
regions. However, they don't have much evidence to support their position-only (1. the fact that the Earth is
warming, (2. a theory that doesn't explain the warming of the past 150 years very well, and (3. some unverified computer models.
credibility is seriously weakened by the fact that many of them have long
believed modern technology should be discarded whether the Earth is warming too
fast or not at all. Many scientists - though by no means all- agree that increased CO emissions could be dangerous.
Moreover, their
However, polls of climate-qualified scientist show that many doubt the scary predictions of the global computer models. This book
cites the work of many hundreds of researchers, authors, and coauthors whose work testifies to the 1,500-year cycle.
There is
no "scientific consensus," as global warming advocates often claim. Nor is

consensus important to science. Galileo may have been the only man of his day who believed the Earth revolved
around the sun, but he was right! Science is the process of developing theories and testing them against observations until they are
If we can find proof, not just that the Earth is warming, but that it is
warming to dangerous levels due to human-emitted greenhouse gases, public policy
will then have to evaluate such potential remedies as banning autos and air
conditioners. So far, we have no such evidence. If the warming is natural and
unstoppable, then public policy must focus instead on adaptations -such as more efficient air
proven true or false.
conditioning and building dikes around low-lying areas like Bangladesh. We have the warming. Now we must ascertain its cause.
Mars provessolar changes are inevitable and cause more

warming
National Post, 2007 (Lawrence Solomon, staff writer, February 7, Look to Mars
for the Truth on Globl Warming http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?
id=edae9952-3c3e-47ba-913f-7359a5c7f723&k=0/)
Climate change is a much, much bigger issue than the public, politicians, and even the most alarmed environmentalists realize.
Global warming extends to Mars, where the polar ice cap is shrinking, where deep gullies in the landscape are
now laid bare, and where the climate is the warmest it has been in decades or centuries. "One
explanation could be that Mars is just coming out of an ice age," NASA scientist William Feldman speculated after the agency's Mars
Odyssey completed its first Martian year of data collection. "In some low-latitude areas, the ice has already dissipated." With each
passing year more and more evidence arises of the dramatic changes occurring on the only planet on the solar system, apart from
Earth, to give up its climate secrets. NASA's findings in space come as no surprise to Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov at Saint
Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory. Pulkovo -- at the pinnacle of Russia's space-oriented scientific establishment -- is
one of the world's best equipped observatories and has been since its founding in 1839. Heading Pulkovo's space research
laboratory is Dr. Abdussamatov, one of the world's chief critics of the theory that man-made carbon dioxide emissions create a
greenhouse effect, leading to global warming. "Mars
has global warming, but without a greenhouse

and without the participation of Martians," he told me. "These parallel global warmings -observed simultaneously on Mars and on Earth -- can only be a straightline consequence of the effect of the
one same factor: a long-time change in solar irradiance." The sun's increased irradiance over the last century, not
C02 emissions, is responsible for the global warming we're seeing, says the celebrated scientist, and this solar irradiance also
explains the great volume of C02 emissions. "It
is no secret that increased solar irradiance warms

Earth's oceans, which then triggers the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere. So the common view that man's industrial activity is a deciding factor in global warming has
emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect relations." Dr. Abdussamatov goes further,
debunking the very notion of a greenhouse effect. "Ascribing 'greenhouse' effect properties to the Earth's atmosphere
is not scientifically substantiated ," he maintains. "Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as
a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away ."
Best data proves the greenhouse theory cannot explain the

current warming trends
Singer, 7
distinguished research professor at George Mason and Avery, director of the Center for Global Food
Issues at the Hudson Institute (S. Fred, Dennis T, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years Pages 10-11.
Let's quickly review the shortcomings of the Greenhouse Theory for explaining known realities.
First, and most obvious. CO2 changes do not account for the highly variable climate
we know the Earth has recently had, including the Roman Warming, the Dark Ages,
the Medieval Warming, and the Little Ice Age. However, these variations fit into the I
,500-year cycle very well. Second, the Greenhouse Theory does not explain recent
temperature changes. Most of the current warming occurred before 1940. before there was much human-generated
CO2 in the air. After 1940, temperatures declined until 1975 or so, despite a huge surge in industrial CO2 during that period. These
events run counter to the CO2 theory. but they are in accord with the 1,500-year cycle. Third,
the early and

supposedly most powerful increases in atmospheric CO 2 have not produced the
frightening planetary overheating that the theory and climate models told us to
expect. We must discount future increments of CO 2 in the atmosphere. because
each increment of CO2 increase produces less warming than the unit before it. The
amounts of CO2 already added to the atmosphere must already have "used up"
much-and perhaps most-of CO2's forcing capability. Fourth, we must discount the
"official" temperature record to reflect the increased size and intensity of today's
urban heat islands, where most of the official thermometers are located. We must
take account of the changes in rural land use (forests cleared for farming and pastures, more intensive
row-crop and irrigated farming) that affect soil moisture and temperatures. When
meteorological experts reconstructed U.S. official temperatures "without cities and
crops" - using more accurate data from satellites and high-altitude weather balloons
about half of the recent official warming disappeared. Fifth, the Earths surface
thermometers have recently warmed faster than the temperature readings in the
lower atmosphere up to 30,000 feet. yet the Greenhouse Theory says that CO 2 will
warm the lower atmosphere first, and then the atmospheric heat will radiate to the
Earth's surface. This is not happening. Figure 1.1 shows the very moderate trend in the satellite readings over
the past two decades, totaling 0.125 degrees Celsius per decade. The short-term temperature spike in 1998 was one of the
strongest El Nino events in recent centuries, but its effect quickly dissipated, as always happens with El Ninos. A reconstruction of
weather-balloon temperature readings at two meters above the Earth's surface (1979-1996. shows a trend increase of only 0.015
degree Celsius per decade'' Nor can we project even that slow increase over the coming centuries, since the I ,500-year cycles have
often achieved half of their total warming in their first few decades, followed by erratic warmings and coolings like those we've
Sixth, CO2 for at least 240,000 years has been a lagging indicator of
global warming, not a causal factor. Within the last 15 years, the ice cores have
revealed that temperatures and CO2 levels have tracked closely together during the
warmings after each of Earth's last three ice age glaciations. However, the CO 2
changes have lagged about 800 years behind the temperature changes. Global
recorded since 1920.
warming has produced more CO2, rather than more CO2 producing global warming.
This accords with the reality that the oceans hold the vast majority of the planet's
carbon, and the laws of physics let cold oceans hold more CO 2 gas than warm
oceans. Seventh, the Greenhouse Theory predicts that CO 2-driven warming of the
Earth's surface will start, and be strongest, in the North and South Polar regions,
This is not happening either, A broadly scattered set of meteorological stations and ocean buoys show that
temperature readings in the Arctic, Greenland, and the seas around them are colder today than in the 1930s. Alaska has been
warming, but researchers say this is due to the recent warming of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), not a broader Arctic
The twenty to thirty year cycle of the PDO seems to have recently
reversed again, so Alaska may now cool with the rest of the Arctic. In the Antarctic,
only the thin finger of the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts up toward Argentina (and
the equator) has been warming. Temperatures over the other 98 percent of the
Antarctic continent have been declining slowly since the 1960s, according to a
broad array of Antarctic surface stations and satellite measurements. Eighth, the scary
warming pattern.
predictions of planetary overheating require that the warming effect of additional CO2 be amplified by increased water vapor in the
atmosphere. Warming will indeed lift more moisture from the oceans into the air. But what if the moister, warmer air increases the
efficiency of rainfall, and leaves the upper atmosphere as dry, or even dryer, than it was before? We have absolutely no evidence to
a team of
researchers from NASA and MIT recently discovered a huge vertical heat vent in the
Earth's atmosphere. It apparently increases the efficiency of rainfall when sea
surface temperatures rise above 28 C. This effect seems to be big enough to vent
all the heat the models predict would be generated by a doubling of CO 2.16
demonstrate that the upper atmosphere is retaining more water vapor to amplify the CO2, To the contrary,
Cow farts overwhelm CO2

Noam Mohr, Coordinator of the Jewish Vegetarians of North America, 2005
(A New Global Warming Strategy How Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as the Most Effective Tool Against Climate
Change in Our Lifetimes http://www.earthsave.org/news/earthsave_global_warming_report.pdf)
By far the most important non-CO2 greenhouse gas is methane , and the number
one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture.17Methane is responsible for
nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put
together.18 Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2 .19 While
atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have risen by about 31% since pre-industrial
times, methane concentrations have more than doubled .20 Whereas human sources of CO2 amount
to just 3% of natural emissions, human sources produce one and a half times as much methane as all natural sources.21 In fact, the
effect of our methane emissions may be compounded as methane-induced warming in turn stimulates microbial decay of organic
matter in wetlandsthe primary natural source of methane.22
With methane emissions causing nearly half of the planets human-induced

warming, methane reduction must be a priority . Methane is produced by a number
of sources, including coal mining and landfillsbut the number one source worldwide is animal
agriculture.23 Animal agriculture produces more than 100 million tons of methane a
year.24 And this source is on the rise: global meat consumption has increased
fivefold in the past fifty years, and shows little sign of abating .25 About 85% of this
methane is produced in the digestive processes of livestock,26 and while a single
cow releases a relatively small amount of methane,27 the collective effect on the
environment of the hundreds of millions of livestock animals worldwide is enormous.
An additional 15% of animal agricultural methane emissions are released from the massive lagoons used to store untreated farm
animal waste,28 and already a target of environmentalists for their role as the number one source of water pollution in the U.S.29
1nc no impact
3 periods of rapid warming show no extinctions- models are
flawed guesswork
NIPCC 11
(Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, 2011 Interim Report from the
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html)
was the Eocene Climatic Optimum (5351 million years ago), when
the atmospheres CO2 concentration exceeded 1,200 ppm and tropical
temperatures were 510C warmer than modern values . Yet far from causing
extinctions of the tropical flora (where the data are best), the four researchers report all the evidence
from low-latitude records indicates that, at least in the plant fossil record, this was one of the
most biodiverse intervals of time in the Neotropics. They also note ancestors of many of
our modern tropical and temperate plants evolved ...when global temperatures and
CO2 were much higher than present ... indicating that they have much wider ecological
tolerances than are predicted based on present-day climates alone . The second period
they examined included two rapid-change climatic events in the Holocene one at 14,700 years ago and
one at 11,600 years agowhen temperatures increased in the mid- to high-latitudes of the Northern
Hemisphere by up to 10C over periods of less than 60 years. There is evidence from many sites for
rapid plant responses to rapid warming during these events. The researchers note at no site
yet studied, anywhere in the world, is there evidence in the fossil record for largescale climate-driven extinction during these intervals of rapid warming . On the other
The first period they examined
hand, they report extinctions did occur due to the cold temperatures of the glacial epoch, when subtropical species
in southern Europe were driven out of their comfort zone. The Willis et al. study also makes use of recent historical
the 3C rise in temperature at Yosemite Park over the past 100

years. In comparing surveys of mammal fauna conducted near the beginning and end of this period, they
detected some changes but no local extinctions. Thus they determined that for all of the
periods they studied, with either very warm temperatures or very rapid warming,
there were no detectable species extinctions. In a study that may help explain how some
data, as in the case of
researchers could have gotten things so wrong in predicting massive extinctions of both plants and animals in
climate envelope models

(CEMs)often employed to predict species responses to global warming (and whether or not a species will be
response to projected future warming, Nogues-Bravo (2009) explains the
able to survive projected temperature increases)are sensitive to theoretical assumptions, to model classes and
to projections in non-analogous climates, among other issues. To determine how appropriate these models are for
determining whether a particular species will be driven to extinction by hypothesized planetary warming, Nogues-
several flaws. Nogues-Bravo writes,

the studies reviewed: (1) rarely test the theoretical assumptions behind niche
modeling such as the stability of species climatic niches through time and the equilibrium of species with
climate; (2) they only use one model class (72% of the studies) and one palaeoclimatic reconstruction
(62.5%) to calibrate their models; (3) they do not check for the occurrence of non-analogous
climates (97%); and (4) they do not use independent data to validate the models (72%).
Bravo reviewed the scientific literature pertaining to the subject and found
Nogues-Bravo writes, ignoring the theoretical assumptions behind niche modeling and using inadequate methods
can produce a cascade of errors and nave ecological and evolutionary

inferences. Hence, he concludes, there are a wide variety of challenges that CEMs must
overcome in order to improve the reliability of their predictions through time. Until
these challenges are met, contentions of impending species extinctions must be considered little
more than guesswork (see also Chapman, 2010).
for hindcasting
Evolution checks
NIPCC 11
(Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, 2011 Interim Report from the
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html)
plant and animal species have for avoiding extinction during

climate change is the ability to evolve in ways that enable them to deal with the
change. Several studies have demonstrated the abilities of numerous plants and
animals to do just that. Working in the Swiss Alps, Stocklin et al. (2009) studied the consequences of the
One of the most powerful means
highly structured alpine landscape for evolutionary processes in four different plants (Epilobium fleischeri, Geum
reptans, Campanula thyrsoides, and Poa alpina), testing for whether genetic diversity within their populations was
related to altitude and land use, while seeking to determine whether genetic differentiation among populations was
related more to different land use or to geographic distances. In pursuit of these goals, the three Swiss scientists
determined that within population genetic diversity of the four species was high and mostly not related to altitude
and population size, while genetic differentiation among populations was pronounced and strongly increased with
distance, implying considerable genetic drift among populations of alpine plants. Based on these findings and
the observations of others, Stocklin et al. write, phenotypic plasticity is particularly pronounced in alpine plants,
and because of the high heterogeneity of the alpine landscape,
the pronounced capacity of a single

genotype to exhibit variable phenotypes is a clear advantage for the persistence
and survival of alpine plants. Hence they conclude, the evolutionary potential to
respond to global change is mostly intact in alpine plants , even at high altitude. This result
makes it much easier to understand why even in the face of significant twentieth-century
global warmingno species of plants have been observed to have been
pushed off the planet in alpine regions. This has been shown to be the case in several
pertinent studies, including Walther et al. (2005), Kullman (2007), Holzinger et al. (2008), Randin et al. (2009), and
Erschbamer et al. (2009).
Warming impacts have no empirical basis- weather will likely

get milder
Bast 12
( Joseph L. Bast is president and CEO of The Heartland Institute, a 22-year-old national nonprofit
research center located in Chicago, Illinois. According to a recent telephone survey, among state elected officials
The Heartland Institute is among the nations best-known and most highly regarded "think tanks." Global Warming:
Not a Crisis, http://heartland.org/ideas/global-warming-not-crisis#Singer)
Alarmists claim global warming will cause massive flooding, more violent weather,
famines, and other catastrophic consequences. If these claims are true, then we
should have seen evidence of this trend during the twentieth centur y. Idso and Singer
(2009) provide extensive evidence that no such trends have been observed . Even von
Storch (2011) admits there is no consensus on these matters. The preponderance of
scientific data suggest sea levels are unlikely to rise by more than several inches,
weather may actually become more mild, and since most warming occurs at night
and during the winter season, it has little adverse effec t (and some positive effect) on
plants and wildlife. Hurricanes are likely to diminish, not increase, in frequency or
severity (Spencer, 2008; Singer and Avery, 2008).
Solvency answers
Solvency 1nc
States wont participate HSR investments prove
Utt, 11 - Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow in the Thomas
A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation (Robert,
Time to End Obamas Costly High-Speed Rail Program, 2/11,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/02/time-to-end-obamas-costly-highspeed-rail-program)
Abstract: President Barack Obamas high-speed rail program promises to
spend hundreds of billions of dollars in federal and state funds to provide
mediocre passenger rail service to an extremely small fraction of
travelers. In this time of tight budgets, neither the federal government nor the
states can afford such extravagance. Instead of creating a heavily subsidized,
underutilized passenger rail system, Congress and the Administration should
promptly end the program and use the recovered funds to reduce the
federal budget deficit.
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama attempted to revive his
faltering high-speed rail (HSR) program by doubling down on his commitment to it:
Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed
rail. As we speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already underway.[1]
The reality is that the Midwest routes have been cancelled by newly elected
governors in Ohio and Wisconsin, who have returned $1.3 billion in federal
HSR grants to the U.S. Treasury, and Californias worsening budget crisis will
discourage any state investment in its HSR system, which will cost between $42
billion and $80 billion to complete. Despite these setbacks, however, President
Obama is now proposing an extravagantly costly system to serve the urbanized
population (80 percent of the total U.S. population) that resides in the 514
communities and metropolitan areas.
Although the President offers no cost estimate for this ambitious project, which
would use immense federal subsidies to undermine the existing private and taxpaying bus and air service to these communities, it would likely be one of the
costliest and most underutilized federal programs in American history. As noted,
Californias HSR plan to connect Los Angeles with San Francisco could cost
up to $80 billion, Amtrak estimates that HSR in the Northeast Corridor
would cost $117 billion, and the modest Tampa to Orlando plan will come in at $3
billion or more.
A federal commitment to HSR has been a key component of President Obamas
domestic policy agenda since he took office. In the first month of his Administration,
President Obama used the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the
stimulus package) to create a new federal program to build a comprehensive HSR
system. Congress agreed to dedicate $8 billion of the $787 billion in stimulus
spending to begin developing HSR in the United States. In addition, Obama
requested and Congress approved an additional $5 billion over the next five years
beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2010. At the same time, then-Chairman of the House
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure James Oberstar (DMN) announced
that the next highway reauthorization bill would include an additional $50 billion for
HSR.
Shortly thereafter, the many industries benefiting from massive federal spending on
HSR formed the US High Speed Rail Association to lobby for the program.
[2] Reflecting the excitement that gripped the new Administration, President Obama
proclaimed in April 2009:
What were talking about is a vision for high-speed rail in America. Imagine boarding
a train in the center of a city. No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no
delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes.
Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a
few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination.
Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild America.[3]
Even though the Presidents HSR plans have suffered several major setbacks and
the federal budget faces a $1.4 trillion deficit, the Administration remains
undeterred in its pursuit of this costly scheme. In mid-February, Vice President
Joseph Biden provided a few more details on the Presidents proposal when he
announced plans to spend $57 billion on HSR over the next six years.[4]
The Presidents High-Speed Rail Program Unravels
Despite the Presidents continued enthusiasm for his HSR proposals, several major
setbacks have occurred over the past year, including the realization by most
Americans that they preferred to live in the 21st century, not the late 19th. In
January 2010, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced that it would
spend more than half of the $8 billion in the so-called HSR grants on for-profit
freight railroads to benefit existing slow-speed Amtrak lines and proposed Amtrakstyle service.
At the same time, as citizens of states receiving the money began to inspect the
Obama plans cost estimates, travel benefits, and long-term subsidy obligations
more closely, support for HSR began to wane, and gubernatorial candidates in
Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida who opposed or were skeptical about HSR won their
elections. The new governors of Wisconsin and Ohio have since canceled their
states programs, and the Florida program, one of only two real HSR programs
funded by the FRA, is under review by the new governor. The California program,
the only other real HSR proposal, will likely not be built because of its exceptionally
high cost and Californias long-term, systemic fiscal crisis.
Despite Congresss commitment of significant funding to the program and
the Presidents giddy excitement about an America transformed by an inefficient,
inconvenient, and wildly expensive mode of travel, the Presidents HSR program
is in a state of collapse. The new Congress should put an end to what little life
remains in this futile and costly exercise and use any recovered funds for deficit
reduction.
Ohio and Wisconsin Reject the Federal Funds. For inexplicable reasons, in January
2010, the FRA awarded $4.5 billion (56 percent) of the HSR funds to existing freight
railroads for track improvements that would benefit them and existing and
prospective slow-speed Amtrak service that shares the same tracks under contract
with the freight railroads that own the tracks on which Amtrak operates. The FRA
awarded just $3.5 billion (44 percent) to only two genuine HSR projects, those in
California and Florida.[5] Not surprisingly, HSR advocates were disappointed and
expressed their concerns accordingly.
Because all of these projectsslow-speed and high-speedwould require
substantial state matching funds and perpetual state operating subsidies
(since no passenger rail system in the U.S. and only a handful abroad earn a
profit or break even), any state accepting the money would also be
accepting a significant, long-term financial liability at a time when most
states are hard-pressed to meet the core responsibilities of education, law
enforcement, and public health.
Consequently, supporting or opposing the Presidents rail plan became an issue in
several gubernatorial races, particularly in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida, where the
winning candidates either opposed or questioned the value of the federal rail grant.
In Wisconsin, incoming Governor Scott Walker (R) opposed the plan, and outgoing
Governor James Doyle (D) suspended the project in response to the voters decision.
No one will use it

Time to End Obamas Costly High-Speed Rail Program, 2/11,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/02/time-to-end-obamas-costly-highspeed-rail-program)
If ones knowledge of European travel preferences comes from Time, The New York
Review of Books, and Pink Panther movies, then the Presidents statement would
seem to ring true. Sadly, the reality is quite different. European and Asian
governments have paid staggering sums to subsidize a mode of travel that
only a small and shrinking share of their populations uses.[18]
In its most recent report on European travel patterns, the European Commission
noted that passenger rails share of the European market (EU-27) declined
from 6.6 percent in 1995 to 6.3 percent in 2008, reaching a low of 5.9 percent
in 2004. Market shares for autos and buses also fell over the period, while the
airlines market share jumped. In effect, Europeans are adopting more
American modes of travel, despite massive taxpayer subsidies for rail.
They are shifting their travel to unsubsidized, taxpaying airlines, which expanded
their market share from 6.5 percent in 1995 to 8.6 percent in 2008. Indeed, by
2008, passenger rails share of the transportation market was the lowest of all
modes, except travel by sea and motorcycles.[19]
Although the total size and scope of European subsidies for passenger rail are not
known, a recent report by Amtraks Inspector General indicated that they are
sizable and likely exceed what the U.S. government pays for highways. One purpose
of the review was to address the contention that passenger rail in other countries,
especially HSR, operates at a profit (that is, without subsidies).
For 19952006, the study found that the governments of Germany, France, the
United Kingdom, Spain, Denmark, and Austria spent a combined total of $42 billion
annually on their national passenger railroads.[20] These six countries have a
combined population of 269 million, and their expenditure of $42 billion on
passenger rail in 2006[21] is roughly proportional to the $54.8 billion that the
government of the United States (population of 309 million) spent on all forms of
transportation, including highways, rail, aviation, water transport, and mass transit.
[22]
Data from individual countries reveal the financial catastrophes that the
U.S. could confront if it embraces Euro-style passenger rail programs.
According to the left-leaning The Economist, passenger rail subsidies reached

$8.9 billion in 2008 2009, and the magazine wondered:
It is not clear why the public should be heavily subsidizing a mode of
transport that accounts for a tiny minority of all travel: 8% of the total
distance travelled in Britain during 2009, compared with 85% by cars and
vans. The relatively few who use railways often are disproportionately well-off:
three-fifths of the traffic is concentrated in the wealthy commuting counties of the
south-east.[23]
Despite these massive subsidies, rail ticket prices are still comparatively
high. At present, two people traveling from Heathrow airport to downtown London
can hire a limousine that meets them at the baggage claim and takes them directly
to their destination for less than the cost of taking the Heathrow Express to
Paddington Station and then taking the Tube or a taxi to their final destination.
Mass transit wont decrease emissions

OToole, 12 - senior fellow at the Cato Institute (Randal, Indy Transit Task Force
Misses the Mark,
Nor is transit good for the environment because buses and Diesel-powered
commuter trains burn fossil fuels just like automobiles. IndyGos buses use
more energy and emit more greenhouse gases, per passenger mile, than
the average SUV, and extending bus service to remote suburbs will only
make things worse.
Mass transit isnt economically sustainable and will collapse
OToole, 8 - senior fellow at the Cato Institute (Randal, Light-Rail Systems Are a
False Promise, 9/16,
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/lightrail-systems-are-false-promise
Rail transit has become such an albatross around the necks of the American cities
that have it that it is hard to imagine that anyone of good will would wish it upon
Kansas City. Rail transit is expensive to build, to operate and maintain. One
of rail transits dirty secrets is that the entire system - rails, cars, electrical
facilities, stations - must be replaced, rebuilt or rehabilitated roughly every
30 years.
This costs almost as much as the original construction, which means for
taxpayers that rails are a "pay now, pay more later" proposition.
The Chicago Transit Authority is on the verge of financial collapse. The
agency estimates it needs $16 billion it doesnt have to rehabilitate tracks
and trains.
To keep the trains running, the agency siphoned money away from the citys bus
system and lost a third of its bus riders between 1986 and 1996.
Newer systems face other financial challenges. San Joses light-rail system put the
citys transit agency so far in debt that when sales tax revenues fell short early in
this decade, it was forced to cut bus and rail service by 20 percent.
Rail construction almost always costs more than the original estimates.
Denver voters approved a 119-mile rail system in 2004 on the promise that it would
cost $4.7 billion to build it by 2017. The current estimate is up to $7.9 billion, and
the regional transit agency says the system might not be complete until 2034.
--XT wont use it

Transit ridership is substantially declining
At best, all this money has done is arrest the decline in transit ridership. In 1944,
about 84 million Americans lived in urban areas, and they rode transit an average of
275 times a year. Since that year, per capita urban ridership declined steadily
to 60 trips per year in 1965 and less than 50 trips per year in 1970. Since then,
it has fluctuatedmainly in response to gasoline pricesbetween about 40 and 50
trips a year, settling at 45 trips per year in 2008. 30
Although the national average is 44 trips per urban resident, fewer than two dozen
urban areas out of the more than 320 that provide transit service exceed this
average. Transit systems in nearly half of all urban areas with transit service attract
fewer than 10 rides per resident per year.
As Table 1 suggests, urban areas with high rates of transit ridership tend to
have large concentrations of jobs at the urban core (such as New York City;
San Francisco; and Washington, DC) or are college towns (as in State College,
Pennsylvania; Ames, Iowa; and ChampaignUrbana, Illinois). The presence or
absence of expensive rail transit does not seem to be an important factor
in the overall use of transit.
While per capita ridership may have remained steady at about 40 to 50 trips per
year, transits share of travel has declined as per capita urban driving has grown.
From 1970 through 2008, per capita transit ridership stagnated, but per capita
driving of personal vehicles grew by 120 percent. 31 As a result, transits share of
motorized urban travel fell from 4.2 percent in 1970 to 1.8 percent in
2008. 32
Mass transit fails people wont use it

Wall Street Journal, 12 editorial (Why Your Highway Has Potholes, 4/15,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303815404577333631864470566.
html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Since 1982 government mass-transit subsidies have totaled $750 billion (in
today's dollars), yet the share of travelers using transit has fallen by nearly
one-third, according to Heritage Foundation transportation expert Wendell
Cox. Federal data indicate that in 2010 in most major cities more people
walked to work or telecommuted than used public transit.
Brookings Institution economist Cliff Winston finds that "the cost of
building rail systems is notorious for exceeding expectations, while
ridership levels tend to be much lower than anticipated." He calculates that
the only major U.S. rail system in which the benefits outweigh the government
subsidies is San Francisco's BART, and no others are close to break-even.
No one will use it

OToole, 11 - senior fellow at the Cato Institute (Randal, Transportation: From the
Top Down or Bottom Up?, 5/25,
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/transportation-top-down-or-bottom)
Central planners' fascination with trains is a wonder to behold. A group called
Reconnecting America laments that only 14 million American jobs about 10
percent are located within a quarter mile of transit, by which they mean
rail transit. The group advocates spending a quarter of a trillion dollars to increase
this to 17.5 million jobs, or 12.5 percent.
Simply putting transit close to jobs, however, doesn't mean people will ride
it. The Brookings Institution recently ranked San Jose as the second-most
transit-accessible urban area in America, while Chicago was ranked 46th.
Yet the Census Bureau says only 3.4 percent of San Jose commuters use
transit, compared with 13.2 percent in Chicago.
Empirically it will be underutiilized
Once built, light-rail systems never live up to their promises, even in places
like Portland. Before building light rail, Portlands bus system carried 9.8
percent of the regions transit riders to work. Today, thanks to cutbacks in
the bus system forced by the high cost of rail, transit carries just 7.6
percent.
--XT wont decrease emissions

Mass transit wont decrease emissions and will result in a net increase
OToole, 9 - senior fellow at the Cato Institute (Randal, Congressional Testimony,
On Transit and Climate, http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-ro-20090707.html)
Urban transit is important for those who lack access to automobiles. But the
history of the last four decades shows that transit cannot and will not play
a significant role in saving energy or preventing climate change.
Forty years ago, American cities were choked with air pollution, so Congress passed
the Clean Air Act of 1970 and created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to
administer the law. The EPA adopted two strategies to reduce pollution. First, it
required automakers to make cars that polluted less. Second, it also encouraged
cities to promote transit and adopt other policies aimed at getting people to drive
less.
Today, we know what worked and what did not. Automotive air pollution has
declined by at least two-thirds since 1970. This entire decline was due to
technological changes in automobiles. Far from responding to transit investments by
reducing driving and taking transit more, Americans today drive far more than they
did in 1970.
As the late University of California (Irvine) economist Charles Lave demonstrated in
the October, 1979 Atlantic Monthly, investing in transit fails to save energy or
reduce air pollution for two reasons:
First, spending more money on transit does not significantly reduce
driving.
Second, transit uses just about as much energy as cars, so even if we
could persuade people to take transit it would not save energy (see
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/197910/197910).
Dr. Lave's arguments are as valid today as they were in 1979, and as valid for
greenhouse gas emissions as for energy and other pollutants. The difference
between 1979 and today is that today we have much more evidence to back up Dr.
Lave's points.
Transit Investments Do Not Significantly Increase Transit Ridership
Transit subsidies have historically had only a trivial effect on ridership.
Between 1987 and 2007, annual subsidies in real dollars grew by 68 percent.
Yet annual ridership grew by only 18 percent. While capital subsidies are
sketchy before 1987, operating subsidies increased by 1240 percent since 1970. Yet
ridership grew by only 45 percent.
More importantly, despite total real subsidies of well over three-quarters of
a trillion dollars since 1970, per-capita transit ridership and passenger
miles actually declined. Figure one (on page 8) shows that per-capita transit
travel declined more-orless steadily from 1970 through 1995. Although per-capita
transit usage has grown a little since 1995, it remains below 1988, and far below
1970, levels.
Moreover, as figure two shows, while per-capita transit travel was declining, percapita urban driving grew by 120 percent. Transit carried more than 4 percent of
urban travel in 1970; but it fell below 2 percent in 1990 and now stands at 1.6
percent.
My former hometown of Portland, Oregon has invested more than $2 billion in light
rail and streetcars. Yet this has had almost no effect on Portland travel habits. In
1980, before Portland built its first light-rail line, the census found 9.8 percent of
Portland urbanized area commuters took transit to work. Today, Portland has four
light-rail routes and a streetcar line, yet the Census Bureau's American Community
Survey says only 6.5 percent of Portland commuters take transit to work.
The number of Portland-area residents taking transit to work actually declined
between 2000 and 2007. These census numbers are confirmed by a 100-percent
census of downtown employers conducted by the Portland Business Alliance in 2001
through 2007. More than two-thirds of all Portland-area transit commuters work in
downtown Portland, but this census found that 7 percent fewer downtown workers
took transit to work in 2007 than in 2001.
Transit Is Not Significantly Cleaner than Driving
Even if more subsidies to transit could attract significant numbers of people out of
their cars, it would not save energy or reduce greenhouse gas emissions because
transit uses as much energy and generates nearly as much greenhouse
gas per passenger mile as urban driving. As described in my Cato Institute
Policy Analysis no. 615 (http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-615.pdf), the following
data are based on the Department of Energy's Transportation Energy Data Book, the
Federal Transit Administration's National Transit Database, and the Federal Highway
Administration's Highway Statistics.
In 2006, the nation's transit systems used an average of 3,444 BTUs and
emitted 213 grams of CO2 per passenger mile. The average passenger car
used 3,445 BTUsjust 1 BTU moreand emitted 245 grams of COsup>2 per
passenger mile, just 15 percent more. While transit appears slightly cleaner than
autos, as shown in figure three, auto and light truck energy efficiencies have
rapidly improved, while transit energy efficiencies have declined. Since
CO2 emissions are proportional to energy consumption, these trends hold for
greenhouse gas production as well.
We can expect these trends to continue. If auto manufacturers meet the
Obama administration's new fuel-economy standards for 2016even if they
fail to improve energy efficiencies beyond thatby 2025 the average car on the
road will consume only 2,600 BTUs and emit only about 186 grams of
CO2 per passenger mileconsiderably less than most transit systems
(figure four).
This rapid improvement is possible because America's auto fleet almost
completely turns over every 18 years. By comparison, cities that invest in
rail transit are stuck with the technology they choose for at least 30 years.
This means potential investments in transit must be compared, not with today's
cars, but with cars 15 to 20 years from now.
In much of the country, the fossil-fuel-burning plants used to generate
electricity for rail transit emit enormous amounts of greenhouse gases.
Washington's Metrorail system, for example, generates more than 280
grams of CO2 per passenger mile considerably more than the average
passenger car. Light-rail systems in Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, Philadelphia,
and Pittsburgh all emit more greenhouse gases per passenger mile than the
average SUV.
In places, such as the West Coast, that get much of their electricity from renewable
sources, it would be wiser and more cost-effective to apply that electricity to plug-in
hybrids or other electric cars that can recharge their batteries at night when
renewable power plants generate surplus energy. As Professor Lave said, the "law of
large proportions" dictates that "the biggest components matter most." In other
words, since more than 90 percent of urban travel is by auto and only 1.6 percent is
by transit, small improvements in autos can be far more significant than large
investments in transit.
Full lifecycle costs of transit are higher than automobiles

Supporters of transit subsidies justify those subsidies by inventing and exaggerating
the social benefits of transit. They imagine, for example, that transit is
environmentally superior to driving, when in fact, the environmental impacts of
transit are approximately equal to driving. 77 In 2008, for example, operating the
average car used about 3,400 British thermal units (BTUs) per passenger
mile, while the average transit bus used 4,300. 78 While rail transit operations
use an average just 2,500 BTUs per passenger mile, the energy cost of building rail
lines is high. 79 A complete lifecycle analysis has found that total lifecycle
energy inputs and greenhouse gas emissions contribute an additional 63%
for onroad, 155% for rail, and 31% for air systems over vehicle tailpipe
operation. 80 In other words, the total energy cost of driving is about 5,500
BTUs per passenger mile, while rail transit is about 6,400 BTUs per
passenger mile.
Mass transit will increase overall emissions
Nor is rail transit good for the environment. Most U.S. light-rail lines use
more energy, per passenger mile, than an SUV.
Considering that most of Missouris electricity comes from fossil fuels, a
Kansas City light rail, like the ones in Dallas, Denver and Cleveland, is also likely
to produce more greenhouse gases per passenger mile than an SUV.
Construction emissions and feeder buses substantially

increase emissions

Transit has several other disadvantages as a way of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions. First, even where electric-powered rail transit generates less
greenhouse gases than cars or buses, the trains are supported by feeder
bus systems that emit lots of greenhouse gases. While the trunk line buses
that new rail transit lines replace typically run fairly full, the feeder buses that
support rail transit run fairly empty because many rail riders drive to
transit stations. The result is that greenhouse gas emissions on many
transit systems increase after opening rail transit lines. After opening its first
light-rail line, CO2 emissions from St. Louis' transit system climbed from 340 to 400
grams per passenger mile, while Houston's grew from 218 to 263 grams per
passenger mile.
Construction of rail transit also consumes huge amounts of energy and
releases enormous amounts of greenhouse gases. Portland planners
estimated that the energy cost of constructing one of the city's light-rail lines would
equal 170 years worth of energy savings.
Highway construction also generates greenhouse gases, but because
highways are much more heavily used than most rail transit lines, the
emissions per passenger mile are far lower. Contrary to claims that rail transit
can carry as many people as four or more freeway lanes, the New York City subway
is the only rail transit line in America that carries more passenger miles per rail mile
than one urban freeway lane mile. Outside of New York, the average urban freeway
lane mile carries 12 times as many passenger miles as the average commuter rail
mile, 7.5 times as many as the average light-rail mile, and 2.4 times as many as the
average subway/elevated mile.
--AT: Assumes buses

Trains are even worse
OToole, 11 - senior fellow at the Cato Institute (Randal, Heavy Overall Expense
Makes Such Rapid Transit Unfeasible, 7/25,
Nor are trains particularly environmentally friendly. Intercity buses use 60
percent less energy per passenger mile as Amtrak trains, and when full lifecycle costs are counted, the difference is even greater. Autos are getting more
energy-efficient each year, and by 2025, the average car on the road will
use less energy per passenger mile than any high-speed train.
Obesity addon answers
AT: Obesity death impacts

Obesity doesnt cause mass death their studies are wrong
Lalasz 5 (Robert, Senior Editor, Will Rising Childhood Obesity Decrease U.S. Life
Expectancy?, Population Reference Bureau, May,
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2005/WillRisingChildhoodObesityDecreaseUSLifeExpecta
ncy.aspx?p=1)
Demographers Debate the Limits to Life Expectancy But other demographers say
the Olshansky team's study simplifies the complex interplay of factors that have
fueled 20th century gains in life expectancy in the United States and other
developed countries. These analysts also characterize the study as part of a
demographic paradigmassuming a biological limit to life expectancythat trends
since 1950 have cast into doubt. "It's a Malthusian example of belief in the fixity of
nature," says Samuel Preston, professor of demography at the University of
Pennsylvania and the author of a rejoinder to the Olshansky study in the same issue
of the New England Journal of Medicine. "Their notion is that we wear out and die
and there's nothing to be done about it. The fact is that we have been very
successful at postponing death at older ages, and other countries have been even
more successful. It's obvious that we should expect the life expectancy [82] that
Japan has achieved." "Many demographers now accept that the biological
maximum is not so well set," adds Christine Himes, a sociologist at Syracuse
University. "The [survival] curves are now being pushed outmore people are living
past 100, and more past 110. There may be some maximum, but it's pretty far out
there, past 120." Preston makes three additional points in defending conventional
life expectancy projections: that decreases in the rate of death at older ages in the
United States have been constant since 1950, that extrapolating from past trends
has provided the best forecasts, and that conventional projections have already
incorporated the recent rise in obesity rates. "We should do what we can to reduce
levels of obesity," Preston says. "But there are no long-term studies of the effect of
childhood obesity on long-term mortality. And the claim this is going to offset all the
factors working to increase life expectancy and result in a reduction of life
expectancy is inaccurate." Such factors, he says, might include genetic
engineering, a continuing decline in the rates of infectious diseases and smoking,
and changes in public behavior, such as increasing condom use among groups hit
hardest by HIV/AIDS. Olshansky, however, argues that future medical advances will
principally benefit older people and only incrementally boost life expectancy. "We've
squeezed about as much longevity per person at younger ages through science as
we can," he says. "Child obesity will influence early-age mortality, and therein lies
the difference. Any time you get one of these pulse eventswar, influenza, obesity,
AIDSit affects early-age mortality disproportionately." Others dispute the
Olshansky study's methods. "Some people have tried to forecast the future of
mortality by getting best guesses for each cause and then trying to assemble them
into an overall projection, but that method has never worked very well," says
Richard Suzman, associate director of behavioral and social research at the National
Institute on Aging. "The mix of factors at play is too large, and there's too much
interrelation among them." And Himes, who studies the effects of obesity on health
and functioning in later life, says the study has no empirical analysis of the
specific effects of childhood obesity. "Olshansky's approach is pretty simplistic
you can't just extrapolate from current death rates by obesity status," she says.
"Those rates aren't just based on obesity alone, but on other factors as well."
The new CDC study has also raised questions about Olshansky's conclusions. While
it says that obesity killed almost 112,000 people in the United States in 2002, it also
concludes that being merely overweight (having a BMI of 25-30) is associated with a
lower rate of mortality than that of underweight people, especially after age 70. But
Olshansky is unconvinced that obesity is less of a danger, pointing out that many
recent studies point out what he calls a "startling" rise in diabetes rates.
-- Obesity is a tiny health risk their evidence is biased

exaggeration
CCF 8 (Center for Consumer Freedom, CDC Must Retract Obesity Deaths Study,
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/article_detail.cfm/article/161?nd=1)
In the past few years, the federal government has waged an all out war to scare
Americans about our so-called "obesity epidemic." The Surgeon General says it's
just as dangerous as the threat of terrorism. A leading Harvard expert compares
obesity to a massive tsunami heading toward American shores. The director of the
CDC called it worse than the Black Death. Unfortunately, trial lawyers who see
dollar signs where the rest of us see dinner have seized on the CDC's 400,000
deaths number to justify their frivolous crusades. Now word comes from experts
within the CDC that excess weight is about one-fifteenth as dangerous as
previously thought, and has a lower death toll than diseases like septicemia and
nephritis. Each death is of course tragic. But has anyone heard of the septicemia
"epidemic" or the nephritis "tsunami"? It turns out that the 70 million Americans
who are technically overweight have no increased mortality risk. The real
problems occur only among the small percentage of Americans with a Body Mass
Index of 35 or more. To put that in perspective, "fat actress" Kirstie Alley and "fat
adult actress" Anna Nicole Smith both had a BMI of 31 -- before they lost weight.
Shortly after the 400,000 study was published, Science magazine reported on a
storm within CDC's headquarters. Many top researchers warned a political agenda
to exaggerate the risk of obesity had trumped scientific concerns. Debate was
suppressed, and at least one agency expert said he feared speaking out would cost
him his job. An internal investigation was launched soon thereafter. The CDC buried
a summary of its findings on their website, and requests for the full report have
gone unfulfilled. But the overview does acknowledge, "the fundamental scientific
problem centers around the limitations in both the data and the methodology."
In January the CDC disclosed that a small mathematical error had artificially raised
their 400,000 estimate by 35,000 deaths. Some admission. If NASA operated this
way, Neal Armstrong would be landing on Pluto about now. What's the difference
between the original 400,000 statistic and the updated 26,000 figure? Primarily, it's
that the new study uses more recent data. The 400,000 number took data from as
long ago as 1948 and didn't adjust for improved medical care. Those who were able
to complete high-school math and noted this problem months ago can claim some
measure of vindication. Unbelievably, the CDC had the more recent data readily
available on its own computers. The CDC collects that data. Why didn't they use it?
No one is saying. Now a CDC scientist who co-authored the original 400,000 deaths
estimate admits the new number is "a step forward." Yet the agency's official
position is that it will take no position. The CDC proclaims the science is too new,
debates about methodology "detract from the real issue," and we shouldn't focus so
much on obesity deaths anyway. Funny. It didn't have any of these quibbles when it
announced the 400,000 number and said obesity would soon become the number
one cause of preventable death. It's said that a lie can travel halfway round the
world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Well, the truth about obesity is finally
lacing up. And that's bad news for trial lawyers pursuing obesity lawsuits against
food and beverage companies as well as the self-appointed diet dictators seeking
extra taxes on foods they don't like.
Err Neg theres no scientific evidence for their claims

Basham and Luik 6 (Patrick, Director Democracy Institute, and John, Health
Policy Writer, Four Big, Fat Myths, The Telegraph, 11-26,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1535176/Four-big,-fat-myths.html)
Yet the obesity epidemic is a myth manufactured by public health officials in
concert with assorted academics and special-interest lobbyists. These crusaders
preach a sermon consisting of four obesity myths: that we and our children are fat;
that being fat is a certain recipe for early death; that our fatness stems from the
manufacturing and marketing practices of the food industry (hence Ofcom's
recently announced ban on junk food advertising to children); and that we will
lengthen our lives if only we eat less and lose weight. The trouble is, there is no
scientific evidence to support these myths. Let's start with the myth of an
epidemic of childhood obesity. The just-published Health Survey for England, 2004
does not show a significant increase in the weight of children in recent years. The
Department of Health report found that from 1995 to 2003 there was only a onepound increase in children's average weight. Nor is there any evidence in claims
that overweight and obese children are destined to become overweight and obese
adults. The Thousand Families Study has researched 1,000 Newcastle families since
1954. Researchers have found little connection between overweight children and
adult obesity. In the study, four out of five obese people became obese as adults,
not as children. There is not even any compelling scientific evidence to support the
Government's claim that childhood obesity results in long-term health problems and
lowers one's life expectancy. In fact, the opposite may be true: we could be in
danger of creating a generation of children obsessed with their weight with the
consequent risk of eating disorders that really do threaten their health. Statistics on
the numbers of children with eating disorders are hard to come by, but in the US it
is estimated that 10 per cent of high school pupils suffer from them. Recent studies
show adults' attempts to control children's eating habits result in children eating
more rather than less. Parental finger wagging increases the likelihood that children
develop body-image problems as well as eating disorders.
***Privatization CP***
Privatization CP 1nc
Text:
The United States federal government should phase out its transit infrastructure
investment.
Ending infrastructure subsidies incentivizes state and local

governments to privatize current infrastructure
problems exist because of government control
Edwards and DeHaven, 10 budget experts at the Cato Institute (Chris and Tad,
Privatize Transportation Spending, 6/17,
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/privatize-transportation-spending
If the president ever gets serious about eliminating programs, the $91
billion Department of Transportation would be a good place to start. The
DOT should be radically chopped. America's mobile citizens would be better off
for it.
Rising federal control over transportation has resulted in the political
misallocation of funds, bureaucratic mismanagement and costly one-sizefits-all regulations of the states. The solution is to devolve most of DOT's
activities back to state governments and the private sector. We should
follow the lead of other nations that have turned to the private sector to
fund their highways, airports, air traffic control and other infrastructure.
The first reform is to abolish federal highway aid to the states and related
gasoline taxes. Highway aid is tilted toward states with powerful politicians, not
necessarily to the states that are most in need. It also often goes to boondoggle
projects like Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere." Furthermore, federal highway aid comes
with costly regulations like the Davis-Bacon labor rules, which raise state highway
costs.
For their part, the states should seek out private funding for their highways. Virginia
is adding toll lanes on the Capitol Beltway that are partly privately financed, and
Virginia is also home to the Dulles Greenway, a 14-mile private highway in operation
since 1995. Ending federal subsidies would accelerate the trend toward
such innovative projects.
Another DOT reform is to end subsidies to urban transit systems. Federal
aid favors light rail and subways, which are much more expensive than
city buses. Rail systems are sexy, but they eat up funds that could be used for
more flexible and efficient bus services. Ending federal aid would prompt local
governments to make more cost-effective transit decisions. There is no
reason why, for example, that cities couldn't reintroduce private-sector
transit, which was the norm in U.S. cities before the 1960s.
To government planners, intercity high-speed rail is even sexier than urban rail
systems. The DOT is currently dishing out $8 billion for high-speed rail projects
across the country, as authorized in the 2009 stimulus bill. Most people think that
the French and Japanese fast trains are cool, but they don't realize that the price tag
is enormous. For us to build a nationwide system of bullet-style trains would cost up
to $1 trillion.
The truth about high-speed trains is that even in densely-populated Japan and
Europe, they are money losers, while carrying few passengers compared to cars,
airlines and buses. The fantasy of high-speed rail in America should be killed before
it becomes a huge financial drain on our already broke government.
Through its ownership of Amtrak, the federal government also subsidizes slow
trains. The government has dumped almost $40 billion into the company since it
was created in 1971. Amtrak has a poor on-time record, its infrastructure is in bad
shape, and it carries only a tiny fraction of intercity passengers. Politicians prevent
Amtrak from making cost-effective decisions regarding its routes, workforce polices,
capital investment and other aspects of business. Amtrak should be privatized to
save taxpayer money and give the firm the flexibility it needs to operate efficiently.
A final area in DOT to make budget savings is aviation. Federal aid to airports
should be ended and local governments encouraged to privatize their airports and
operate without subsidies. In recent decades, dozens of airports have been
privatized in major cities such as Amsterdam, Auckland, Frankfurt, London,
Melbourne, Sydney and Vienna.
Air traffic control (ATC) can also be privatized. The DOT's Federal Aviation
Administration has a terrible record in implementing new technologies in a timely
and cost-effective manner. Many nations have moved toward a commercialized ATC
structure, and the results have been very positive.
Canada privatized its ATC system in 1996 in the form of a nonprofit corporation. The
company, NavCanada, has a very good record on both safety and innovation.
Moving to a Canadian-style ATC system would help solve the FAA's chronic
management and funding problems, and allow our aviation infrastructure to meet
rising aviation demand.
There are few advantages in funding transportation infrastructure from
Washington, but many disadvantages. America should study the marketbased transportation reforms of other countries and use the best ideas to
revitalize our infrastructure while ending taxpayer subsidies.
Publicly owned mass transit is financially unsustainable,

decreases ridership, and undermines innovation in
transit the CP solves the case better and maximizes
individual freedom
All the problems identified in this report are a direct result of public
ownership of transit systems:
Transit productivity has declined because transit managers are no longer
obligated to ensure that revenues cover costs. In fact, in the world of
government, agency managers are respected for having larger budgets,
which leads transit managers to use tools and techniques that actually
reduce productivity.
Transits tax traumas during the recession are typical of government
agencies that create new programs during boom periods that are not
financially sustainable in the long run. Private businesses do the same thing,
but are able to slough off marginal operations during recessions. Public agencies
have a difficult time doing so because each program and each transit line has a
built-in political constituency demanding continued subsidies.
Public agencies are also more likely to run up debt because political time
horizons are so short: what an agency provides today is much more
important than what that service will cost tomorrow. This is especially true
when it comes to pensions and other worker benefits whose true costs can be
postponed to the politically distant future.
The tendency to build expensive infrastructure whose maintenance
cannot be supported by available revenues is a particular government
trait. As one official at the U.S. Department of Transportation says, politicians like
ribbons, not brooms. In other words, they like funding highly visible capital
projects, but they gain little from funding the maintenance of those
projects.
The failure to innovate and the tendency to turn to social engineering
when people will not behave the way planners want are inconsistent with
the values of a free society.
Ironically, the real problem with public transit is that it has too much
money. The addition of tax dollars to transit operations led transit
agencies to buy buses and other equipment that are bigger than they
need, to build rail lines and other high-cost forms of transit when lowercost systems would work as well, to extend service to remote areas where
there is little demand for transit, and to offer overly generous contracts to
politically powerful unions.
Privatizing transit would solve these problems. Private transit operators
would have powerful incentives to increase productivity, maintain transit
equipment, and avoid transit systems that require expensive
infrastructure and heavy debts. While private transit systems would not be
immune to recessions, they would respond to recessions by cutting the leastnecessary expenses. In contrast, public agencies often employ the Washington
Monument Syndrome strategy: they threaten to cut highly visible programs as a
tactic to persuade legislators to increase appropriations or dedicate more taxes to
the agency, such as New York MTAs proposal to eliminate discounted fares for
students.
Despite the almost complete socialization of Americas transit industry, there
remain a few examples of private transit. Though most states have made public
transit agencies legal monopolies, there have also been a few new private start-ups
in places where private transit is permitted.
Public transit investment is unjustifiable government coercion

and a slippery slope to full scale social engineering
Since people do not live in patterns that are conducive to successful bigbox transit, transit agencies have become social engineers, trying to use
the power of government to coerce people into living patterns that will
lead them to ride these expensive trains more frequently. Enticements
come in the form of subsidies to so-called transit-oriented developments:
high-density, mixed-use developments that combine housing with shops and are
usually located near a rail station. 74 Coercion comes in the form of urbangrowth boundaries that drive up the cost of singlefamily housing, which
most people prefer. 75 These policies have not been successful: despite these
policies, rail transit continues to carry less than 1 percent of passenger travel in
Portland, San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento, and other regions that opened their first
new rail lines after 1976. 76
Individual liberty comes first -- rejecting every instance of coercion is key.
Petro, 1974
[Sylvester, Professor of Law at NYU, Toledo Law Review, Spring, p. 480,
http://www.ndtceda.com/archives/200304/0783.html]
However, one may still insist, echoing Ernest Hemingway - "I believe in only one thing: liberty." And it is always well
to bear in mind David Hume's observation: "It
is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at

once." Thus, it is unacceptable to say that the invasion of one aspect of freedom is of
no importance because there have been invasions of so many other aspects. That
road leads to chaos, tyranny, despotism, and the end of all human aspiration . Ask
Solzhenitsyn. Ask Milovan Dijas. In sum, if one believed in freedom as a supreme value and the
proper ordering principle for any society aiming to maximize spiritual and material
welfare, then every invasion of freedom must be emphatically identified and resisted
with undying spirit.
2nc CP solves transit

Publicly owned transit substantially increases costs
While worker productivities and energy efficiencies declined, costs rose.
From 1965, when the federal government began subsidizing transit,
through 2008, the latest year for which data are available, adjusting for inflation
using the consumer price index (CPI), fares collected per trip declined by
nearly 24 percent, while operating costs per trip rose by 125 percent.
When adjusting for inflation using gross domestic product deflators, fares per trip
declined only 4 percent but costs per trip rose 184 percent. Total operating
subsidies have grown from $0.6 billion in 1965 to $24.5 billion in 2008 (adjusted
using GDP deflators). 20
One reason for the rise in costs is that Congress required transit agencies
whose employees were represented by labor unionsmeaning most of them
to obtain union support to be eligible for federal grants. As Charles Lave
noted, the unions used this as leverage to win generous pay and benefit contracts.
21
The New York Times reports that more than 8,000 of the New York Metropolitan
Transportation Authoritys 70,000 employees earned more than $100,000 in 2009,
with one commuter-train conductor collecting nearly $240,000. One locomotive
engineer earned a $75,000 base salary, $52,000 in overtime, and $94,600 in
penalty payments, extra pay for driving a locomotive outside of the yard in which
he worked. Engineers would earn two days pay for driving two different kinds of
locomotiveselectric and dieselin one day. 22
Overtime alone costs the MTA $560 million a year. 23 That includes $34 million in
phantom overtime paid to workers while they were on vacation. 24 When Los
Angeles transit agency attempted in 2000 to save money by, among other things,
hiring more employees to reduce overtime costs, union workers went on strike for
32 days until the agency backed down. 25
The MTA is not alone; tales of bus drivers earning more than $100,000 per year can
be found throughout the United States. The highest-paid city employee in Madison,
Wisconsin, is a bus driver who earned nearly $160,000 in 2009. 26 San Francisco
Muni paid nearly 20 percent of its employees more than $100,000 (including
benefits) in 2009. 27
Another reason costs have increased is that transit agencies have
invested heavily in high-cost transit systems when lower-cost systems
would work as well. Between 1992 and 2008, more than 35 percent of transit
capital investments have been spent on commuter- and light-rail systems. In 2008
these modes accounted for more than 15 percent of operating costs, yet carried
only 9 percent of transit riders. 28
Since 1965, federal, state, and local taxpayers have provided more than $500 billion
(inflation-adjusted) in operating subsidies to transit. Complete data on capital
funding are not available before 1988, but evidence suggests that capital subsidies
typically equal about 60 percent of operating subsidies. 29 Thus, it is likely that
taxpayers have provided more than $800 billion (inflation-adjusted) in subsidies to

transit since 1965.
This increases debt of transit agencies and will force service

cutbacks turns the case
Transit agencies that have invested heavily in rail transit are especially
vulnerable to economic downturns because of their debt load. Bus-only
agencies rarely need to borrow money, partly because buses are inexpensive
compared with trains and partly because federal grants provide much of the funding
for bus purchases. But agencies that build new rail lines, or need to rehabilitate old
ones, almost always go heavily into debt to do so, particularly because the federal
government usually pays no more than half the cost of the rail lines.
For every $3 spent on operations, Bostons Massachusetts Bay Transportation
Authority (MBTA, sometimes known as the T for short) spends more than $2
on principal and interest on its debt. 50 According to a recent report published
by the MBTA, the agency is mired in a structural, ongoing deficit that
threatens its viability. Until recently, the agency has maintained service only by
refinancing its debt at lower interest rates, but interest rates are not likely to get
much lower than they are today. No amount of reorganization, reform, or
efficiencies can generate the $160 million needed to close the FY10 budget gap,
says the report, let alone the even larger deficits projected in the future. Until the
MBTAs underlying debt and financing weaknesses are addressed, all such changes,
at best, will only delay the Ts day of reckoning. 51 Ironically, the agency reached
this condition several years after the Massachusetts legislature first dedicated a
share of state sales taxes to transit, thus showing that having a dedicated tax does
not insulate transit agencies from financial problems.
The MBTA may have the heaviest debt load of any major transit agency,
but others are nearly as bad. For every $5 spent on operations, St. Louis Metro
spends more than $3 servicing its debt. Salt Lake Citys Utah Transit Authority and
San Franciscos BART spend close to a dollar on debt for every $2 spent on
operations. Atlantas MARTA, Chicagos Metra, and Los Angeles Countys
Metropolitan Transit Authority each spend about $1 on debt for every $3 on
operations. The Chicago Transit Authority and TriMet of Portland have ratios of more
than 1 to 4. Transit agencies this heavily in debt are especially vulnerable
to downturns because small declines in tax revenues can force them to
make proportionately larger cuts in service.
Privatization solves better than the aff creates major cost

reductions
Private transit providers will focus on reducing costs and focusing
scheduled transit services on high-demand areas where they can fill a high
percentage of seats. To reduce costs, they would employ transit
technologies that have minimal infrastructure requirements, use the

appropriate size of vehicle for each area served, and economize on labor.
Privatization would probably improve transit service in the inner cities,
where most transit patrons live, while it would reduce service in many
suburbs, where most people have access to cars. Privatization would also greatly
alter the nature of transit services in many cities.
Private investors would be unlikely to expand or upgrade high-cost forms
of transit such as light rail, streetcars, and automated guideways. Private
operators might continue to run existing rail lines until the existing infrastructure is
worn out, which tends to be after about 30 years of service. Rather than rebuild the
lines, private operators would probably then replace the railways with
lowcost, flexible bus service.
Private operators might find it worthwhile to maintain a few heavy-rail (subways and
elevateds) and commuter-rail lines in the long run. Fares cover more than 60
percent of the operating costs of subways/elevateds in New York, San Francisco, and
Washington; more than half the operating costs of commuter trains in Boston, Los
Angeles, New Jersey, New York, and Philadelphia; and more than half the operating
costs of subways/elevateds in Boston and Philadelphia. It is possible that private
operation could save enough money to cover operating costs, with enough
left over to keep infrastructure in a state of good repair in many of these
cities. Most other rail lines, including virtually all of the ones being
planned or built today, would not pass a market test, mainly because
buses can attract as many riders at a far lower cost.
Bus services would change as well under private operation. In heavily used
corridors, private transit services would offer both local bus services (that
stop several times per mile) as well as bus rapid transit services that connect
major urban centers and rarely stop between those centers. In lowdemand areas, private operators would likely substitute 13- to 20passenger vans for the 40-seat buses currently used by most public
agencies. In even lower-demand areas, private companies may elect to focus on
SuperShuttle-like demandresponsive services that pick anyonenot just disabled
passengersup at their doors and drop them off at their destinations.
Empirically, publicly owned transit decreases ridership and is

economically unsustainable
While private transit operators had a simple goalearn a profit by providing transit
where people would pay for itLave pointed out that public agencies were
expected to reach a complex and nebulous set of goals, including solve
urban problems, save the central city, provide cheap mobility for the poor,
transport the handicapped, and so on. 14 Perhaps just as important, public
agencies cast their tax-collecting nets wide, charging sales, property, or
income taxes over as broad an area as possible. But this left them
obligated to provide transit service to many areas that had few transit
customers.
Whether it was to meet nebulous goals or to justify broader taxation, routes were
extended into inherently unprofitable areas, noted Lave. 15 One result is
that the average number of people on board an urban transit bus declined
from 12 in 1977 (the earliest year for which data are available) to 9 in 2008,
while the number of people boarding a bus, per bus mile, declined by nearly 40
percent from 1964 to 2008. 16
The number of transit riders carried per transit worker declined even
more. Figure 1 shows the number of annual trips carried by Americas transit
systems for every operating employee for the years 1931 (the earliest year for
which data are available) through 2008. The figure shows that transit carried about
60,000 people per employee during the 1930s, surging to more than 90,000 during
the war years when gas rationing forced many people to take transit instead of
driving, then falling back to around 60,000 trips per worker after the war. While
worker productivity then remained constant for a decade, once
government took over it declined by more than 50 percent. 17
2nc CP solves infrastructure

Public ownership of infrastructure fails creates massive
waste and is subject to special interest capture
Foundation (Using Market Processes to Reform Government Transportation
Programs: Report No. 1, 6/6,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/using-market-processes-toreform-government-transportation-programs-report-no-1)//DH
The Basic Problem with Public Ownership
Among the several reasons the public sector has difficulty in adequately
responding to modern transportation needs, there are two chief ones.
1. Politicization of Transportation. Created in 1956 to build the interstate
highway system, the federal highway program achieved that goal in the early 1980s
and was expected to go out of business and turn responsibility back to the states.
But the huge annual inflow of revenues from the federal fuel tax tempted Congress
to expand the programs mission to justify its existence.
Today, only about 65 percent of trust fund spending goes back to serve the
motorists and truckers who fund the system, as lobbyists and
stakeholders have succeed in expanding trust fund responsibilities to
transit, truck parking lots, covered bridges, sidewalks, the National Forest
Service, transit on Indian reservations, historic preservation, Appalachian
and Mississippi Delta redevelopment, roadside beautification, bicycles,
hiking paths, university research, earmarks, and commuter railto name
just a fewplus a vast federal bureaucracy that costs more than $425
million to operate each year.
Every one of these diversions reflects some passing fashion or lobbyist effort from
the distant past that managed to achieve a perpetual claim on the trust fund. With
the trust fund going insolvent in 2008 and now subsidized by general
revenues at a time of yawning budget deficits, these many whimsical,
costly, and unproductive diversions represent a worsening burden on the
government and the nations economy.
2. Transportation Ranked Low on Budget Priorities. As part of the federal budget,
transportation programs mustin practice and in theorycompete with other
federal programs for available resources. Until 2008, highway and transit spending
escaped this constraint by virtue of a dedicated funding source (federal fuel taxes)
and a trust fund that protected these revenues from congressional and presidential
predation.
But after several years of spending more than it earned, the trust fund required its
first ever infusion of general revenues in 2008, and many more infusions are
predicted unless dedicated revenues are increased or spending is cut.
Implications
This mode of operation makes little sense from an economic perspective.
Transportation services represent a vital commercial activity providing benefits to
every American and every American business. Yet the amount of transportation
service provided is based on overall budget priorities rather than the
needs and desires of transportation users. Such a system is also

independent of consumers willingness to buy more transportation
services, since no market exists to accommodate an increase in demand.
This results in more congestion and more infrastructure decay.
Empirically, privatization decreases costs and leads to faster delivery

of infrastructure

The other way to privatize infrastructure is to have a private firm take
charge of building a road, bridge, or transit system from the start. From a
global perspective, this isnt a radical idea. Countries like France, Spain, and
Australia have long harnessed these public-private partnerships to build their
highways and rail lines. Compared to other countries, were way behind on this,
says Schank. (Indeed, thats why the large firms that handle these public-private
contracts are often European foreign companies have all the expertise.)
Heres how this setup would work. Say a state wants to build or upgrade a
highway. Various private companies will bid for the project, and the
winning bidder has to raise enough money from outside investors to
design, operate, build, and maintain the highway for a fixed number of
years. The firm is allowed to recoup its costs through tolls and the like over that
span. Because the private company is on the hook for the whole thing, it
has an incentive to keep costs as low as possible and finish the road on
time.
The idea here, says Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation, is that the
government is only commissioning projects where the private sector is
willing to put its skin in the game.
Theres some evidence that privately operated infrastructure projects can
get built more quickly and for less money than projects wholly
overseen by the government. One 2007 study (pdf) from Allen Consulting and
the University of Melbourne looked at 54 large infrastructure projects in Australia
and found that the privately financed ones had smaller cost overruns and
were more likely to be finished on schedule than those financed through
traditional public-sector methods.
2nc CP causes privatization

The counterplan ends subsidies for mass transit and incentivizes
transit agencies to privatize
Instead of the complex and nebulous goals identified by Lave in 1994, urban
transit should have a single goal: to efficiently move people who are willing to pay
for that transportation. As illustrated by the large differences in costs between
buses that are contracted out and buses that are directly operated by public
agencies, private businesses are more efficient than publicly owned transit systems.
To achieve this goal, federal, state, and local governments should take the following
steps:
1. State and local governments should stop subsidizing highways. In the
decade ending in 2008, some $444 billion in general funds were spent on roads
(after adjusting for inflation to 2008 dollars). This was partly offset by $234 billion in
diversions from highway user fees to transit and other nonhighway programs. Even
if this offset is not counted, ending the $444 billion in subsidies will not pose a
hardship on drivers, as the subsidies amount to just 1.5 cents for each of the 29
trillion vehicle miles driven in those years.
At the same time, ending the subsidies will provide an important object
lesson for the transit industry: transportation can and should pay for
itself. Ending highway subsidies will also take away the argument of transit
advocates that, since highway users receive subsidies of less than a penny per
passenger mile, transit users should receive subsidies of more than 70 cents per
passenger mile.
The best way to end the subsidies would be to switch from gasoline taxes
to vehicle-mile fees as the basis for paying for highways. As noted by Jim
Whitty of the Oregon Department of Transportation at a recent conference on
mileage-based fees, electronic fees can be collected for every road, with
funds going to the government agency that owns or manages that road;
they can vary by the level of traffic in order to minimize congestion; and they can
be charged without invading driver privacy. 113 Mileage fees will be more politically
palatable to drivers provided, first, that the vehicle-mile fee is a replacement for
not an addition toexisting gasoline taxes and, second, that the collected fees are
spent only on highways, roads, and streets, and not diverted to other activities.
2. Congress should phase out subsidies to transit and all other forms of
transportation. To the extent that transportation is interstate in nature, Congress
should ensure that transportation programs are fiscally prudent. This means
that, whenever possible, they should be privately operated and always funded
out of user fees, not taxes.
If there is a special need to federally fund some program, such as a program aimed
at reducing air pollution, federal funds should be spent on projects that directly
address that problem. The idea that funding indirect programs such as transit to
reduce congestion, save energy, clean the air, and solve other problems simply
leads to wasteful spending on projects that do not really address any of those
problems.
3. Congress should eliminate New Starts, Small Starts, the Congestion Mitigation/Air
Quality fund, and other nonformula funds. These funds have become open
buckets that encourage transit agencies to plan wasteful projects in order to get
larger shares of federal funds. Formula fundsfederal funds that are distributed
on the basis of such factors as population, land area, and/or actual useare much
better because they are fairly fixed and thus state and local transportation agencies
have little incentive to spend on inappropriate projects because more spending will
not lead to more federal grants.
4. Congress should include user fees in the formula funds. Funds distributed on the
basis of the user fees collected will give transit and other transportation agencies
incentives to focus on better service to users rather than on pleasing politicians. For
example, a formula that distributes funds to states based 50 percent on user fees,
45 percent on population, and 5 percent on land area initially results in a
distribution similar to todays distribution of highway funds, but in the long run
rewards states (and transit agencies within each state) that increase the share of
their transportation systems paid out of user fees. Once transit agencies are more
focused on user fees, it will be easier for them to privatize transit operations.
5. States should end diversions of gas taxes and other highway fees to
transit. In 2008, California diverted more than $800 million, Pennsylvania diverted
more than $600 million, and other states diverted nearly $3.7 billion in gas taxes to
transit. California also diverted $1.2 billion, and other states diverted $2.6 billion, in
motor vehicle registration fees to transit. New York diverted almost $500 million,
and other states diverted $200 million more, in road tolls to transit. 114
This unearned money gives transit agencies a license to spend on
programs that have no economic or financial justification. They also
reduce the public faith in highway user fees, making it difficult for state
and local agencies to raise the fees they need to maintain and improve
roads.
6. States should end other transit subsidies. In addition to highway user fees,
states dedicated more than $5 billion in income, sales, property, and other taxes to
transit operations. Phasing out this money would encourage transit agencies
to privatize their operations.
7. States may want to provide mobility assistance to low-income, disabled, and
other people who lack automobility. Instead of giving transit agencies billions of
dollars and hoping they will use it to help people who cannot drive, states could
give mobility vouchers to such people. These vouchers could be applied to any
common carrier form of transportation: airlines, Amtrak, intercity buses, urban
transit, or taxis.
8. Transit agencies should privatize their systems in ways that promote efficient
services to people in their cities or districts. Where possible, privatization should
encourage, or at least allow for, competition. But transit agencies should consider a
variety of options (such as franchises, curb rights, and unrestricted competition) to
determine what might be best for their particular urban areas.
Conclusion
Public ownership of transit is one of the least defensible government
programs in the United States. It has led to a huge decline in transit
productivity, a large increase in costs, and only minor increases in
outputs. In addition, a powerful lobby of groups now feel entitled to government
supportgroups that do not include transit riders, for the most part, but instead are
mainly rail construction companies and railcar manufacturers, transit contractors,
transit employee unions, and the transit agencies themselves. Privatization will
make transit responsive to users, not politicians, and will actually lead to
better services for many transit users.
Current stalemate in federal subsidies is driving state interest

in privatization

Say youre a state politician. Your local roads, bridges, and transit systems are all in
dire need of upgrades. But theres not much money left. Budgets are crunched.
No one wants to raise taxes. And Congress is throttling back on
transportation funding. So whats left? Privatization, of course.
Maryland is the latest state looking to join the fray. At the moment, its
legislature is mulling a bill that would encourage the government to seek
out private companies to build, operate, and maintain the states roads,
bridges, and public buildings. Virginia adopted this approach nearly a decade
ago. And a growing number of states from California to Florida have
been bringing in private capital to bankroll their transportation needs. But
is privatizing infrastructure really such a good idea?
2nc private sector has capital

The private sector has hundreds of billions more than the
government and wants to invest
Gilroy and Kenny, 12 Leonard Gilroy is the director of government reform and
Harris Kenny is a policy analyst at Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based think
tank ( States and Cities Going Private With Infrastructure Investment
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2012/05/17/states_and_cities_going_privat
e_with_infrastructure_investment_99671.html)
States and municipalities across the U.S. continue to grapple with the lingering
effects of the Great Recession. City leaders continue to struggle with depressed
revenues, and 30 states are expected to close budget deficits totaling $49 billion
this year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Further, many
government bodies are struggling to maintain their credit ratings in an uncertain
economy.
As public debts grow, cities and states simultaneously face pressing needs to
repair and modernize critical infrastructure assets that can't wait if citizens
hope to keep goods and services moving in the economy. For example, many
interstate highways, which are owned and maintained by states, are reaching the
end of their useful lives and will cost tens of billions of dollars to reconstruct. Yet,
projected federal and state fuel tax revenues will come nowhere close to
covering the bills.
When factoring in similarly large investment needs in water, aviation, schools and
other public infrastructure facilities, it becomes abundantly clear that new
infrastructure financing models and sources of capital will be the only viable option
to support and sustain growth.
Enter the private sector, where investors are demonstrating a willingness
and capability to partner with governments to modernize and expand
infrastructure, according to Reason Foundation's recent Annual Privatization
Report 2011. The report finds that the amount of capital available in private
infrastructure equity investment funds reached a new all-time high last
year. And since 2006, the 30 largest global infrastructure investment funds
have raised a total of $183.1 billion dedicated to financing infrastructure
projects; the bulk coming from U.S., Australian and Canadian inventors. In fact,
eight major privately financed transportation projects were under construction in
the U.S. in 2011 totaling over $13 billion.
For a preview of the future, just look to Puerto Rico, where innovative infrastructure
financing has been a priority of Governor Luis Fortuo's administration. Prior to his
tenure, massive budget deficits and weak credit ratings left the territory with a
limited ability to finance infrastructure. In fact, public infrastructure investment (as
a share of GDP) had been on a steep decline in Puerto Rico since 2000.
Put simply, if Puerto Rico was going to maintain-much less expand and modernizeits infrastructure, it was going to need outside help. Policymakers proactively
adopted a 2009 law authorizing government agencies to partner with private firms
for the design, construction, financing, maintenance and/or operation of public
facilities across a wide spectrum that includes transportation, ports, schools and
other asset classes. The law also established a Public Private Partnership Authority
(PPPA), a new unit of the Government Development Bank, to conduct due diligence
on these infrastructure partnerships and take worthy projects to market in
competitive procurements.
So far it's been a smashing success. Last fall the PPPA finalized its first major
highway deal, closing on a 40-year, $1.5 billion lease of two toll highways to a
private concessionaire now responsible for operating the facilities and making major
capital investments in pavement, signage, lighting and other safety enhancements.
Lawmakers are also poised to privatize operations of San Juan's Luis Muoz Marin
International Airport this summer. Two weeks ago PPPA officials selected two
consortia eligible to compete for a $1 billion, 50-year lease expected next month.
The deal pays off $900 million in public debt, and results in a virtual reconstruction
of the entire airport, pursuant to officials' goal of turning the airport into the
preeminent gateway to the Caribbean.
PPPA is also in the middle of a new K-12 school modernization program whereby
officials are contracting with private developers to design, build and maintain a
package of approximately 100 schools in 78 municipalities across the territory. This
effort will address a severe need to upgrade aging, deteriorating schools and tackle
chronic deferred maintenance.
Puerto Rico isn't alone though. For example, Chicago Mayor and former Obama chief
of staff Rahm Emanuel stood with former President Bill Clinton last month to
propose an ambitious $7.2 billion infrastructure program that will rely heavily on
public-private partnerships and private financing for a broad spectrum of projects
including roads, water, transit and more. To implement this program, city
policymakers recently created a new Chicago Infrastructure Trust, a nonprofit
infrastructure bank that can package deals and blend public and private financing to
advance projects. Early pledges of up to $1 billion in private capital from several
financial institutions, including Citibank, Macquarie and JPMorgan suggest the model
may be viable.
Elsewhere, both Texas and Connecticut enacted broad-ranging laws to authorize
private sector financing for state and local assets in 2011. In New York, The Yonkers
Public Schools recently hired a team of financial, legal and technical consultants to
evaluate the potential to tap private financing to help deliver a $2 billion K-12
school modernization program. Like Puerto Rico, Yonkers has a number of aging
facilities over 70 years old that need reconstruction, yet lacks the ability to
undertake large-scale renovation through traditional taxes and bonds given current
fiscal and financial constraints.
Ultimately, policymakers are beginning to realize that the status quo of
financing infrastructure through taxes and municipal debt is broken.
Fortunately the private sector is poised and ready to invest in
infrastructure, with hundreds of billions of dollars in privately sourced
capital sitting on the sidelines looking for worthy public infrastructure
projects in which to invest.
While governments continue to struggle even with the basics of balancing budgets,
much less long-term crises like entitlement spending and underfunded public
pensions, the question is not if, but when, will more policymakers like Fortuo and
Emanuel step up and embrace the private sector? Infrastructure represents the
arteries and capillaries of our economy, and if we let those deteriorate, the heart
itself will soon follow.
2nc warming net benefit

Public transit generates more emissions than private transit

On a passenger-mile basis, transit buses typically consume as much
energy and emit as much CO2 per passenger mile as SUVs. By comparison,
private bus companies have an incentive to fill as many seats as possible,
so they typically operate half to two-thirds full and consume little more
than 10 percent as much energy per passenger mile as public transit
buses. Between Boston and Washington, for example, at least 14 bus companies
carry more passengers each day than Amtrak and do so using less than half as
much energy and emitting about half as much greenhouse gases.
To make transit more environmentally friendly, we need to completely
redesign our transit systems. This means either privatizing transit systems or, at
the least, operating them entirely out of user fees rather than subsidies. If states
feel the need to support people who have no access to automobiles, they
can give such people transportation vouchers that they can use on any
public conveyances.
Government ownership decreases ridership and substantially

increases emissions and costs
Americas experiment with government ownership of urban transit
systems has proven to be a disaster. Since Congress began giving states
and cities incentives to take over private transit systems in 1964, worker
productivitythe number of transit riders carried per workerhas
declined by more than 50 percent; the amount of energy required to carry
one bus rider one mile has increased by more than 75 percent; the
inflation-adjusted cost per transit trip has nearly tripled, even as fares per
trip slightly declined; and, despite hundreds of billions of dollars of
subsidies, the number of transit trips per urban resident declined from
more than 60 trips per year in 1964 to 45 in 2008.
Largely because of government ownership, the transit industry today is beset by a
series of interminable crises. Recent declines in the tax revenues used to support
transit have forced major cuts in transit services in the vast majority of urban areas.
Transit infrastructureespecially rail infrastructureis steadily deteriorating, and
the money transit agencies spend on maintenance is not even enough to keep it in
its current state of poor repair. And transit agencies have agreed to employee
pension and health care plans that impose billions of dollars of unfunded liabilities
on taxpayers.
Transit advocates propose to solve these problems with even more subsidies. A
better solution is to privatize transit. Private transit providers will provide
efficient transit services that go where people want to go. In order for
privatization to take place, Congress and the states must stop giving
transit agencies incentives to waste money on high-cost transit

technologies.
2nc economy net benefit

Transit subsidies destroy the economy central planners cant
make appropriate investment decisions
Semmens, 94 research fellow at the Independent Institute, research project
manager in the Arizona Department of Transportation Research Center, economist
with the Laissez Faire Institute (John, Federal Transit Subsidies: How Government
Investment Harms the U.S. Economy, The Freeman, February,
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/federal-transit-subsidies-howgovernment-investment-harms-the-us-economy/)
These impacts of three and five to one certainly sound impressive. It is easy to see
how some people could become enthusiastic about this seeming fount of prosperity.
However, it is important to remember that all expenditures of money generate
similar ripple effects through the economy. Whether putting our money
into public transit is a good or a bad investment depends upon the return
we get on the investment. Before we rush to plow more billions into
transit it might be wise to compare this particular investment to
alternative ways the same money could have been invested.
[Table omitted by dheidt]
Looking at Investment Alternatives

The figures shown in Table 1 indicate the potential returns the U.S. economy
might have experienced if the tax dollars that went into public transit had
been invested differently. For this analysis, I have assumed that the $61.5 billion
that the federal government has invested in public transit between 1965 and 1992
would have been put into any of several obvious alternatives. The annual federal
cash flow into transit over this time period is assumed to have been directed
instead into each of the four alternatives portrayed in the table.
The amount invested is the same $61.5 billion for each alternative. The current
value is the estimated current value of the assets for each investment alternative
as of the end of 1992. The impact on GNP is the estimated 1992 amount of
economic activity that has been (or would have been) added to GNP by each
investment alternative. The # jobs is the estimated number of employment
opportunities that could be supported by the economic activity generated by each
investment alternative in 1992. The federal taxes are the estimated additional tax
revenues accruing to the federal government during 1992 as a result of the
economic activity generated by each investment alternative.
The public transit investment option is, of course, the actual government
investment made during this time period. The corporate tax cut investment option
assumes that the amount spent on transit would have been spent on corporate
tax relief (for example: an investment tax credit or a cut in corporate income taxes)
and that this money would have been invested in business assets earning average
rates of return. The capital gains tax cut investment option assumes that the
amounts spent on transit subsidies would have been spent on reducing the capital
gains tax and that this money would have been invested in the stocks comprising
the Standard & Poors 500 stock index. Dividends were not assumed to be
reinvested. The IRA: treasury bills investment option assumes that the amount
spent on transit would have been spent by allowing tax-free investing by
individuals and that these individuals selected a very conservative investment

strategy of buying three-month treasury bills. The IRA: S&P 500 stocks investment
option assumes the same tax-free investing by individuals, but that they buy stocks.
In this case, dividends are assumed to be reinvested.
The comparison of these investment alternatives is quite startling. The
contributions to the U.S. economy made by public transit are pathetically
meager compared to any of the alternatives. Even the least favorable
private sector investment alternative could have had an incremental
impact on the U.S. economy ten times the size of that the actual public
transit investment has had. If any of these alternative paths had been
chosen, GNP would have been larger, more people would have jobs, and
the federal deficit would have been lower.
Recent statistics indicate that there are about 9 million persons classified as
unemployed. The implication of our analysis of hypothetical investment alternatives
is that unemployment problems would have been greatly reduced had the
government made different investment decisions. The more lucrative returns of
the alternative investments would have created more job opportunities.
More people would have been attracted into the workforce. Wages would likely have
risen. The additional capital that would have been available would likely have
improved labor productivity. So, even if it does seem improbable that the economy
could sustain an additional 20 million jobs, as the IRA: S&P 500 stocks option
implies, it is obvious that the employment environment would be far more favorable
than it now is.
The projection of a lower federal deficit is predicated on the assumption that all
other expenditures remain the same. This probably tends to understate the
favorable impact that a different investment decision would have had. Surely, the
more robust employment environment that could have existed would be expected
to reduce government outlays for unemployment compensation and welfare.
Likewise, the higher tax revenues that the government would have received would
also have reduced borrowing costs. These factors could have lowered the deficit
even more than the additional tax revenues projected in Table 1 would imply.
Profits Instead of Deficits
The reason why each of the prospective investment alternatives would have
produced much better results for the U.S. economy than the transit investment that
was made is that each alternative would have earned a profit. Public transit does
not earn a profit. As a whole, it cannot even cover its operating costs from
passenger revenues. A glance at a graph of the aggregate public transit
operating results from 1965 to 1992 (see Figure 1) shows a trend of deepening
annual deficits. The losses suffered by public transit mean that the value of
the outputs of the investment are worth less than the cost of the inputs.
What this means is that the money invested in public transit
is consumed. The investment cannot sustain itself independent of
continual infusions of new capital.
[table omitted by dheidt]
The superior performance of the alternatives comes from the
compounding of profits made on the capital invested. These profits mean
that the value of the outputs of the investment exceed the cost of the inputs.
Consequently, the money invested grows with each increment of profit. The process
of making a profit on an investment enables one to end up with more wealth than
he had when he started. Greater wealth, of course, would make the U.S.
economy stronger and better able to meet the material needs of more
people.
The last gasp of a defense on behalf of money-losing government investments like
public transit is that a needed service is provided. Unfortunately, the fact that public
transit is subsidized makes it impossible to determine the need for the service. The
fact that we do not ask the consumers of public transit to pay what it costs to
provide the service denies us any objective measure of need. It is probable that a
substantial portion of the so-called need for transit would dissipate if taxpayers
were not paying over 60 percent of the cost of every transit ride.
While the need for money-losing transit has been undemonstrated and
exaggerated, the need for the products and services that would have been provided
by the forgone alternatives is easily overlooked. The fact that consumers of
unsubsidized products and services produced by the private sector do pay the full
costs is proof that a need has been fulfilled. The voluntary payment by willing
consumers is an objective measure of need. So, not only has the federal
governments 27-year investment in public transit lost money, it has also prevented
trillions of dollars worth of needs from being ful filled.
The federal governments investment in public transit currently amounts
to around $3 billion per year. This is a relatively small amount of spending.
But as we have seen, the cumulative economic cost of annually pouring a small
amount of money into profitless transit operations in the past has had a huge
opportunity cost for the U.S. economy. To place the total negative impact of
excessive government spending in perspective, consider that the Grace Commission
estimated that there was $140 billion per year in unnecessary federal spending. As
this process of waste continues year after year the compound effect on
the U.S. economy has to be devastating.
The inability of the federal government to contain its appetite for bad
investments has been a disaster of major proportions. The
competitiveness of U.S. businesses, the standard of living of the
population, even the health, safety, and welfare of the American people
have been enormously harmed by the inferior investment choices
policymakers have made over the last generation.
When we see what could have been and compare it to what is, we are observing a
government performance worthy of shame, not repetition. Unless we want to
repeat and intensify this shame, it is clear that more government
investment is exactly what we dont need.
AT: Perm do both

The permutation replicates the worst aspects of government
control by retaining ownership means the final
infrastructure project will be inferior quality and higher
cost
Scribner, 11 - land-use and transportation policy analyst at the Competitive
Enterprise Institutes Center for Economic Freedom (Marc, The Limitations of
Public-Private Partnerships Recent Lessons from the Surface Transportation and Real
Estate Sectors, January, http://cei.org/sites/default/files/Marc%20Scribner%20%20The%20Limitations%20of%20Public-Private%20Partnerships.pdf
Increasing private sector involvement in transportation is a positive
development, but there are right ways to involve private firms, and then
there are wrong ones. Many of the problems associated with transport
PPPs concern concession projects 21those where private firms hold
management and construction responsibilities, but not ownership, and
those rights are transferred back to the state after a fixed period of time.
For the most part, the problems stem from the fact that merely transferring
management fails to shift risk to the appropriate parties. Feasibility studies
and traffic forecasts are often overly optimistic, and political factorssuch as
opposition to tolls out of principle, shifting regulatory frameworks, and cronyism and
a lack of competition in procurement and contracting exacerbate the risk-sharing
problems. 22
Unfortunately, concession projects remain the most popular form of public-private
partnership in transportation. Government officials are more likely to agree to a PPP
project if they are able to retain ownership in the long run without taking on the
financial and construction risks. This is a serious problem. If government is going
to engage in concession partnerships with private industry, it must accept
that transferring all associated project riskincluding inflation and
exchange rate risk to financingto private firms will increase the total
cost of the project. 23 Likewise, if government retains too much risk
(particularly in the construction phase), the resulting moral hazard to the firm
significantly diminishes the projects chances of success and greatly
increases the likelihood of cost overruns and construction delays.
Public subsidies destroy quality and efficiency leads to a

broken system that isnt used and is unsustainable
The fact that more than three out of four transit dollars come from
taxpayers instead of transit users has several negative effects on transit
programs. For one, transit agencies are more interested in trying to get
dollars out of taxpayers, or federal and state appropriators, than in
pleasing transit riders. This leads the agencies to focus on highly visible
capital improvements, such as rail transit projects, dedicated bus lanes, and
supposedly multimodal transit centers, that are not particularly useful to

transit riders. Moreover, the agencies neglect to maintain their capital
improvements, partly because most of the taxpayers who paid for them
never ride transit and so do not know about their deteriorating condition.
Further, dependence on tax dollars makes transit agencies especially
vulnerable to economic downturns because the sources of most of their
operating fundsgenerally sales or income taxes, but in some cases annual
appropriations from state legislaturesare highly sensitive to the state of the
economy. Sales and income taxes are particularly volatile, while property taxes are
less so. 9 Yet property taxes provide only about 2 percent of transit operating funds,
while sales and income taxes provide more than a quarter of operating funds. 10
Privatization of public transit systems would solve all of these problems. Private
operators would have incentives to serve customers, not politicians, with
cost-effective transport systems. The few examples of private transit
operations that can be found show that private operators are more
efficient and can offer better service than government agencies.
Any federal subsidies escalate costs by incentivizing unions to

increase labor costs creates unfunded liabilities that
will collapse the transit agency
On top of problems with mounting debt, most transit agencies also offer
workers generous health care benefits and pension plans. Transit
subsidies sent the wrong signals to management and labor, observed
Lave. Labor interpreted the message to mean: management now has a
sugar daddy who can pay for improvements in wages and working
conditions. 52
TriMet of Portland agreed to a benefits package that provides 100 percent of health
care costs for all employees, their families, and retirees. The package was so
generous that TriMets board president resigned in protest, calling it the greatest
coup in the history of public employment in our city. Because of this and other
benefits, TriMet employees now receive $1.18 in benefits for every $1 they collect in
pay. 53 Few other transit agencies are quite so generous with fringe benefits, but
the Chicago Transit Authority, New Jersey Transit, San Francisco BART, and
Washington Metro all pay 75 to 85 cents in benefits for every dollar in salary or
wages. 54
The big problem is not current benefits but the currently unfunded obligations to
pay out pensions and health care costs in the future. New Yorks MTA has $15 billion
in unfunded liabilities on top of close to $30 billion in debt. Portlands unfunded
liabilities are more than 10 times fare revenues and two times operating
costs. Other agencies with particularly heavy unfunded liabilities include the
Boston MBTA, Houston Metro, Pittsburgh PATH, St. Louis Metro, and Washington
Metro.
Agency managers and boards may agree to take on the unfunded liabilities because
most of the costs are deferred to the future, but eventually the costs catch up to
the agencies. A recent audit of the Chicago Transit Authority found that its
retiree healthcare plan is on the verge of fiscal collapse. 55
***Coercion net benefit***
2nc links transportation investment

Federal transportation investment distorts the free market and
uses force to undermine private property rights
Carson, 10 senior fellow and holder of the Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory at the
Center for a Stateless Society (Kevin, The Distorting Effects of Transportation
Subsidies, The Freeman, November, http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/thedistorting-effects-of-transportation-subsidies/)
The State and the Corporation
Its hard to avoid the conclusion that the dominant business model in the American
economy, and the size of the prevailing corporate business unit, are direct results of
such policies. A subsidy to any factor of production amounts to a subsidy of
those firms whose business models rely most heavily on that factor, at the
expense of those who depend on it the least. Subsidies to transportation,
by keeping the cost of distribution artificially low, tend to lengthen supply and
distribution chains. They make large corporations operating over wide
market areas artificially competitive against smaller firms producing for
local marketsnot to mention big-box retailers with their warehouses-on-wheels
distribution model.
Some consequentialists treat this as a justification for transportation subsidies:
Subsidies are good because they make possible mass-production industry and largescale distribution, which are (it is claimed) inherently more efficient (because of
those magically unlimited economies of scale, of course).
Tibor Machan argued just the opposite in the February 1999 Freeman:
Some people will say that stringent protection of rights [against eminent domain]
would lead to small airports, at best, and many constraints on construction. Of
coursebut whats so wrong with that?
Perhaps the worst thing about modern industrial life has been the power of
political authorities to grant special privileges to some enterprises to
violate the rights of third parties whose permission would be too
expensive to obtain. The need to obtain that permission would indeed seriously
impede what most environmentalists see as rampantindeed reckless
industrialization.
The system of private property rights . . . is the greatest moderator of
human aspirations. . . . In short, people may reach goals they arent able
to reach with their own resources only by convincing others, through
arguments and fair exchanges, to cooperate.
In any case, the efficiencies resulting from subsidized centralization are
entirely spurious. If the efficiencies of large-scale production were
sufficient to compensate for increased distribution costs, it would not be
necessary to shift a major portion of the latter to taxpayers to make the
former profitable. If an economic activity is only profitable when a portion of the
cost side of the ledger is concealed, and will not be undertaken when all costs are
fully internalized by an economic actor, then its not really efficient. And when total
distribution costs (including those currently shifted to the taxpayer) exceed massproduction industrys ostensible savings in unit cost of production, the efficiencies
of large-scale production are illusory.
Federal planning undermines freedom and destroys choice

ending transit subsidies is necessary
Roth, 10 - civil engineer and transportation economist. He is currently a research

fellow at the Independent Institute (Gabriel, Federal Highway Funding, June,
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/transportation/highway-funding
One damaging policy direction involves efforts to reduce individual
automobile travel, which will harm the economy and undermine mobility
choice. Another damaging policy direction is the imposition of federal
"livability" standards in transportation planning. Such standards would
federalize land-use planning and pose a serious threat to civil liberties and
the autonomy of local communities. Finally, ongoing federal mandates to
reduce fuel consumption have the serious side effect of making road travel more
dangerous. The federal government pursues these misguided goals by use of its
fiscal powers and regulatory controls, and by diverting dedicated vehicle fuel taxes
into less efficient forms of transportation.
This essay reviews the history of federal involvement in highways, describing the
evolution from simple highway funding to today's attempts to centrally plan the
transportation sector. It describes why federal intervention reduces
innovation, creates inefficiencies in state highway systems, and damages
society by reducing individual freedom and increasing highway fatalities.
Taxpayers and transportation users would be better off if federal highway
spending, fuel taxes, and related regulations were eliminated. State and
local governments can tackle transportation without federal intervention.
They should move toward market pricing for transportation usage and expand the
private sector's role in the funding and operation of highways.
2nc links government action

Coercively funded policies tradeoff with more productive
voluntary solutions and must be rejected
Younkins, 2000 (Dr. Edward W. Younkins, Professor of Accountancy and

Business Administration at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, Civil Society:
The Realm of Freedom, No 63, 6-10-2000, http://www.quebecoislibre.org/00061011.htm, JMP)
Recently (and ironically), government projects and programs have been started to restore civil society through state
subsidization or coercive mandates. Such coercion cannot create true voluntary associations. Statists who support
such projects believe only in the power of political society they don't realize that the subsidized or mandated
activity can be performed voluntarily through the private interaction of individuals and associations. They also don't
to propose that an activity not be performed coercively, is not to oppose

the activity, but simply its coercion. If civil society is to be revived, we must
substitute voluntary cooperation for coercion and replace mandates with the rule of law. According
understand that
to the Cato Handbook for Congress, Congress should: before trying to institute a government program to solve a
problem, investigate whether there is some other government program that is causing the problem ... and, if such a
program is identified, begin to reform or eliminate it; ask by what legal authority in the Constitution Congress
when government undertakes a program, it displaces

the voluntary efforts of others and makes voluntary association in civil society
appear redundant, with significant negative effects; and begin systematically to abolish or phase
undertakes an action ...; recognize that
out those government programs that do what could be accomplished by voluntary associations in civil society ...
accomplishment through free association is morally superior to coercive

mandates, and almost always generates more efficient outcomes. Every time taxes
are raised, another regulation is passed, or another government program is adopted, we are
acknowledging the inability of individuals to govern themselves. It follows that there
is a moral imperative for us to reclaim our right to live in a civil society, rather than
to have bureaucrats and politicians solve our problems and run our lives.
recognizing that
State intervention into the market makes corporate tyranny

possible and disempowers individuals from resisting
both public and private institutions
Peacott, 1 (Joe, Boston Anarchist Drinking Brigade, Chomsky's Statism: An

Anarchism for the Next Millennium? 7-19-2001,
http://world.std.com/~bbrigade/chomsky%27s%20statism, JMP)
Private corporate power exists only because it is protected by the state.
Government reduces competition and limits entry into the market place with various
licensing and regulatory schemes, and grants monopolies and subsidies to favored
businesses. Chomsky himself concedes that corporations would not be successful if
forced to submit to market discipline, and that markets are under attack. But in
addition to actively promoting concentration of private corporate power, the
government prevents people from defending their own interests in disputes with
corporations with its police powers and laws that disarm working people. Such
disempowerment of people makes them unable to resist the power of public
institutions as well, allowing the state to tax, regulate, and imprison people at its
whim. Abolishing state power is a more effective and libertarian method of limiting
private and public tyranny than is increasing the scope of the federal government.
Only anarchist means have any hope of producing anarchist ends.
All government actions are coercive.

Browne, 1995
[Harry, Former Libertarian Party candidate for President and Director of Public Policy
for the DownsizeDC.org, Why Government Doesn't Work, p.10-11]
The distinctive feature of the government is coercion the use of force and the threat of force
to win obedience. This is how government differs from every other agency in society. The
others persuade; government compels. When someone demands that government
help flood victims, he is saying he wants to force people to pay for flood relief.
Otherwise, hed be happy to have the Red Cross and its supporters handle everything. When someone
wants government to limit the price of a product, he is asking to use force to
prevent people from paying more for something they want . Otherwise, he would simply urge
people not to patronize those he things are charging too much. When Congress passes a bill mandating family
leave, it forces every employer to provide time off for family problems even if its employees want the employer
to use payroll money for some other benefit. Otherwise, employers and employees would be free to decide what
Nothing involving government is voluntary as it would be when a

One way or another, there is compulsion in every
government activity: - The government forces someone to pay for something; - The
government forces someone to do something; or The government forcibly
prevents someone from doing something. There is no other reason to involve government.
works best in each situation.
private company does something.
2NC Impacts Atrocities

Government coercion is responsible for the worst atrocities in
history every coercive policy moves the U.S. closer to
the nightmares of Cambodia, the Soviet Union and Nazi
Germany
Browne, 95 (Harry, Former Libertarian Party candidate for President and
Director of Public Policy for the DownsizeDC.org, Why Government Doesnt Work,
p.66-67, JMP)
The reformers of the Cambodian revolution claimed to be building a better world.
They forced people into reeducation programs to make them better citizens. Then they used force to regulate every
aspect of commercial life . Then they forced office workers and intellectuals to give up their jobs and harvest rice, to
round out their education. When people resisted having their lives turned upside down, the reformers had to use
By the time they were done, they had killed a third of the country's
population, destroyed the lives of almost everyone still alive, and devastated a nation. It all began with
using force for the best of intentions-to create a better world. The Soviet leaders used
more and more force.
coercion to provide economic security and to build a "New Man" - a human being who would put his fellow man
ahead of himself. At least 10 million people died to help build the New Man and the Workers' Paradise. But human
Germans gladly
traded civil liberties for the economic revival and national pride Adolf Hitler promised
nature never changed-and the workers' lives were always Hell, not Paradise. In the 1930s many
them. But like every other grand dream to improve society by force, it ended in a nightmare of devastation and
Rummel has calculated that 119 million people have been killed by
their own governments in this century. Were these people criminals? No, they were people who
simply didn't fit into the New Order-people who preferred their own dreams to those of the reformers. Every
time you allow government to use force to make society better, you move another
step closer to the nightmares of Cambodia, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany.
death. Professor R. J.
We've already moved so far that our own government can perform with impunity the outrages described in the
These examples aren't cases of government gone wrong; they are

examples of government-period. They are what governments do-just as chasing cats is what dogs do.
They are the natural consequence of letting government use force to bring about a drugfree nation, to tax someone else to better your life, to guarantee your economic security, to assure
preceding chapters.
that no one can mistreat you or hurt your feelings, and to cover up the damage of all the failed government
programs that came before.
2NC Impacts D-Rule

Coercion is not justified to even decrease the net violation of
rights
Pilon, 1 (Roger, Vice President for Legal Affairs and Director of the Center for
Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, Two Kinds of Rights, 12-6-2001,

www.cato.org/current/terrorism/pubs/pilon-011206.html, JMP)
As the Declaration of Independence says, the main business of government is to
secure rights, but legitimate government can't do it by any means. It can't violate
rights in the name of securing them.
That frames the issue. Between those boundariesand given a world of uncertainty
the devil is in the details. Governments too restrained leave rights exposed. By
contrast, societies that trade liberty for security, as Ben Franklin noted, end often
with neither.
2NC Impacts Linear

Each new step of coercion must be resisted it moves us one
step further along the road of oppression
Browne, 1995 (Harry, Former Libertarian Party candidate for President and
Director of Public Policy for the DownsizeDC.org, Why Government Doesnt Work,
p.65-66, JMP)
Escalation Each increase in coercion is easier to justify. If it's right to force banks to report your
finances to the government, then it's right to force you to justify the cash in your pocket at the airport. If it's right to
take property from the rich to give to the poor, then it's right to take your property for the salt marsh harvest
As each government program fails, it becomes "necessary" to move another

step closer to complete control over our lives. As one thing leads to another - as coercion leads to
mouse.
more coercion - what can we look forward to? Will it become necessary to force you to justify everything you do to
any government agent who thinks you might be a threat to society? Will it become necessary to force your
children to report your personal habits to their teachers or the police? Will it become necessary to force your
neighbors to monitor your activities? Will it become necessary to force you to attend a reeducation program to
learn how to be more sensitive, or how not to discriminate, or how to avoid being lured into taking drugs, or how to
recognize suspicious behavior? Will it become necessary to prohibit some of your favorite foods and ban other
pleasures, so you don't fall ill or have an accident - putting a burden on America's health-care system? Some of
these things - such as getting children to snitch on their parents or ordering people into reeducation programs already are happening in America. The others have been proposed and are being considered seriously. History has
We move step by
step further along the road to oppression because each step seems like such a small
one. And because we're told that each step will give us something alluring in returnless crime, cheaper health care, safety from terrorists, an end to discrimination even if none of the previous steps delivered on its promise. And because the people who
shown that each was an important step in the evolution of the world's worst tyrannies.
promote these steps are well-meaning reformers who would use force only to build a better world.
The impact is linear the stronger the government becomes

the more liberty is lost
Bovard, 95 (James, journalist for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and
Newsweek, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, p.333-334, JMP)
Liberty by itself will not create an ideal society. As Friedrich Hayek observed, "The results of freedom must
depend on the values which free individuals pursue." Unfortunately, the more powerful government
has become, the more likely the people's values are to be debased. Current tax and welfare policy
maximizes the rewards for dependency and the penalties for self-reliance. There is a great deal that people can do
to help themselves and to help their neighbors and those in need. But the more powerful government has
become, the more people devote their attention to Washington rather than to their own
efforts. John Stuart Mill wrote in 1859: the most cogent reason for restricting the interference
of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power. Every function
superadded to those already exercised by the government causes its influence over hopes
and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and
ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which
aims at becoming the government .6 We have paid dearly for idealizing the state. There is no virtue in
denying the law of gravity, and there should be no virtue in denying the limitations of government. Good intentions
are no excuse for perpetual failure and growing oppression. The more we glorify government, the more
liberties we will lose. Freedom is largely a choice between allowing people to follow their own interests or
forcing them to follow the interests of bureaucrats, politicians, and campaign contributors. This is the soul of the
debate between liberty and pseudopaternalism, between letting people build their own lives and forcing them to
build their lives as politicians dictate.
Each rejection of government coercion and endorsement of

non-aggression can help change the system
Dr. Ruwart, 93 (Dr. Mary J. Ruwart, Senior Scientist at a major pharmaceutical

firm and a former Assistant Professor of Surgery at St. Louis University Medical School,
Healing Our World: The Other Piece of the Puzzle, p.281-282, JMP)
CHOOSING YOUR PATH If you've read this far, you are undoubtedly interested in seeing at least some aspects of
If you are
wondering whether a lone individual like yourself can make a difference, please be
assured that you can. Even the smallest contribution can be pivotal. My favorite story
non-aggression implemented. Several ideas may seem more relevant to you than others.
illustrating this point is about a blacksmith who failed to put the final nail in a horse's shoe. For lack of a nail, the
horse lost his shoe and went lame. The rider, who was carrying critical news to his king, had to continue on foot. As
a result, he reached his sovereign too late. Without this important information, the king lost the battle he was
Never
doubt that your contribution is just as important. Remember that the family and
friends who talk with you about the win-win world possible through non-aggression
will in turn talk to others, who will share the good news. Like a chain reaction, your
message of hope will spread throughout our country and the world, bearing fruit in
the most unexpected ways. If you do nothing more than extol the virtues of nonaggression to those around you, you will have done much toward manifesting it! Of
fighting and the kingdom fell to invaders. The humble black-smith was pivotal to the safety of the kingdom.
course, you needn't stop there. The many groups cited above would welcome your participation. Are there any that
excite you? Would you like to join a political campaign or speak on college campuses? Do you perceive a need for
other strategies that you could initiate on your own or with others? Can you implement non-aggressive solutions in
the midst of aggression-through-government, much like Guy Polheus and Kimi Gray did (Chapter 11: Springing the
Poverty Trap)? All these things-and more-are needed to help others recognize that non-aggression is in every-body's
best self-interest. We each have a part to play, a gift to the world that will one day be reflected back to us as better
Our world is a joint creation. We all have the power to affect those around us
profoundly. Each of us through our own inner wisdom can identify the piece of the
puzzle that we can lay in the mosaic. Every piece is needed to construct the whole;
never doubt that what you can do, however small it may seem to you, is essential. I
world.
urge you to embrace whatever aspect of non-aggression seems most valuable to you and appropriate to your
unique talents. Whether you work behind the scenes or in the limelight, rest assured that the world will take notice.
Whatever way you feel moved to participate is a gift you give to yourself and others. Let me be the first to thank
you for making the world a better place!
2NC Impacts Value to Life

there is no value to life in the affirmatives framework
Hayek, 60 (F.A., Nobel Prize winner for Economics, The Constitution of Liberty,
1960, p.20, JMP)
By coercion we mean such control of the environment or circumstances of a
person by another that, in order to avoid greater evil, he is forced to act not
according to a coherent plan of his own but to serve the ends of another. Except in
the sense of choosing the lesser evil in a situation forced on him by another, he is
unable either to use his own intelligence or knowledge or to follow his own aims and
beliefs. Coercion is evil precisely because it thus eliminates an individual as a
thinking and valuing person and makes him a bare tool in the achievement of the
ends of another. Free action, in which a person pursues his own aims by the means
indicated by his own knowledge, must be based on data which cannot be shaped at
will by another. It presupposes the existence of a known sphere in which the
circumstances cannot be so shaped by another person as to leave one only that
choice prescribed by the other.
***States CP***
States CP 1nc
Text:
The 50 state governments, the territories, and Washington DC should [do the plan],
and audit their transportation programs to maximize efficiency, and eliminate
duplication and waste, and authorize any necessary increase in user fees to finance
the plan.
[as an alternative option, use this funding mechanism and establish new state
infrastructure banks to finance the plan through competitive bidding. You will have
to replace the first card with a relevant SIB card]
State agency reform and performance audits allow them to

increase new transportation investments at no cost
Puentes, 11- senior fellow with the Brookings Institutions Metropolitan Policy
Program where he also directs the Program's Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative
(Robert, State Transportation Reform: Cut to Invest in Transportation to Deliver the
Next Economy,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/2/22%20infrastructur
e%20puentes/0222_infrastructure_puentes.pdf
III. A New State Approach
An emphasis on fiscal responsibility does not mean states should slow
down investing in transportation. In fact, these investments are more
important than ever. But to do them right in a constrained environment, states
should consider a set of low (or no) cost recommendations to enable them
to marshal the resources they already have by making sure that state
efforts are coordinated and efficient.
Use transportation dollars to leverage other state investments and the strengths of
metropolitan areas. All too often, state agencies pursue goals and activities that
work at cross-purposes or are counterproductive to one another, such as
transportation and environment. The resulting duplicated services, haphazard
spending, and wasted tax dollars are untenable under normal circumstances
but have greater urgency as state budgets are tightening.
As the governors are putting together their cabinets they should consider
strategic reorganization and appoint a super secretariat with the
authority to link up those departments that have responsibility over
investments related to transportation, economic development, commerce,
housing, land conservation, and other infrastructure such as water and
sewer. In this way, the state can coordinate investments to maximize
economic returns in the short term (such as job creation), strategically
invest for the future, and increase governmental efficiency. The state
benefits not only from strategic funding and alignment of programs, but also from
mechanisms for state departments to collaborate and work together in pursuit of
common state goals.
For example, in California the secretary of the agency for Business, Transportation,
and Housing coordinates and oversees 14 departments and several economic
development programs and commissions. By executive order, Connecticuts
Governor Jodi Rell established the Office of Responsible Growth in 2006 to link up
policy development and capital planning in the areas of economic and community
development, environmental protection, agriculture, and transportation. 13 In 2003,
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney created a super agency called the Office of
Commonwealth Development to coordinate the capital budgets of agencies
responsible for environment, transportation, housing, and energy. 14
These examples were intended mainly to coordinate resources around
sustainability-type goals, but today states would benefit from better cabinet-level
coordination between transportation and economic development. Michigan, for
example, has a department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth that brings
together job, workforce, and economic development functions under a single
agency. That office could be expanded to include transportation and environment
and to centralize the economic development planning that is now carried out by the
states 14 regional agencies. New York also has a multiplicity of these agencies and
has made some attempts at coordination through entities such as the Economic
Recovery and Reinvestment and Smart Growth Cabinets, but there is room for
deeper synchronization of these efforts.
State investments must also be coordinated with the land use and zoning
regulations that localities fiercely protect. So after the policy link-up described
above, they should sponsor an interagency, statewide Sustainability Challenge
Competition to ensure that land use, housing, transportation, and energy
conservation and efficiency are always taken into account when planning regionally
for new land use and development. The competition would encourage multijurisdictional planning efforts and broad visions for needs like congestion relief and
carbon reductions (a long-term necessity for the next economy) and reward those
that can pull these disparate strands together with extra flexibility in using those
funds. The sustainability challenge idea is similar to, but more ambitious than,
Ohios $1 million Local Government Services and Regional Collaboration Grant
Program which is intended to improve and enhance collaboration and regional
economic development among the states municipalities. 15
States should protect the investments that they have made over the course of
decades in their metropolitan areas. A fix-it-first approach that makes system
preservation the priority creates more jobs than building new capacity, up to 17
percent more jobs. 16 There is also an economic imperative to keeping
transportation in a state of good repair. Infrastructure deterioration caused by
deferred maintenance (presumably because of budget squeezes in the short term)
can lead to greater costs in the long run. One study found that reconstructing a
poorly maintained road after 25 years of neglect costs three times as much as the
regular maintenance of that road over the same period. 17 And places with heavy
truck trafficsuch as around major ports and freight corridorstend to see the
greatest deterioration.
Only 17 states have some kind of fix-it-first policy in place to prioritize existing
places and existing infrastructure. 18 In Virginia, the state code dictates that
transportation funds must first be spent to pay debt service, then operations and
maintenance of existing assets, then construction. To adhere to this mandate the
state recently transferred $511 million in funds from its construction account to its
maintenance account. 19 However, fix-it-first has to be coupled with rigorous
benefit-cost analyses for all new capacity increases. In some states the
reconstruction of an exurban two-lane road into a four-lane road could technically
be considered a maintenance project.
Use market discipline to find savings and new revenue sources. Governors should
order a full
audit of their states transportation program to ensure it is functionin g in
the most efficient, effective
manner possible. The audit should start with standard (and useful) examinations
of the inner workings of transportation departments accounting, procurement rules,
fleet management, and training.
When he took over as Governor of Virginia in January 2010, Bob McDonnell called
for an independent assessment of his transportation departments organizational
structure, programs, and operations. His request was approved by the state
legislature and in September 2010, the audit found over $600 million in immediate
savings due mainly to better contracting and project acceleration. 20 A January
2009 audit of Idahos transportation department found over $30 million in one-time
savings over five years, and $6 million annually thereafter. 21
But the audit must go farther, to investigate the entire scope of how transportation
investment decisions are made within a state. For example, how closely aligned are
project decisions to a cohesive strategic vision for economic growth? How
coordinated are infrastructure projects? It makes no sense to make efficiency gains
in a program that needs a thorough overhaul. For example, a recent audit of the
Texas department of transportation recommended organizational changes intended
to diminish the singular, deeply entrenched culture of the agency and more
emphasis on business and financial management including the use of metrics to
determine performance. 22
Governors and legislators should also recognize that the fiscal crisis creates
the opportunity to talk about new sources of transportation revenues
including sources that were previously considered politically infeasible. States
should consider adopting market mechanisms like congestion pricing to
maximize metropolitan road networks, as well as the expansion of user
fees. And even voter-approved tax increases (which are evidence of willingness to
pay for services) should be part of the discussion. Residents in metropolitan
Phoenix, for example, recently approved a half-cent sales tax for regional
transportation that is expected to generate $11 billion. Los Angeles county voters
approved a half-cent increase that is projected to raise $40 billion for transportation
improvements. Notably, that vote came in November 2008, right it the middle of the
economic downturn. 23 Governors should encourage this kind of self help.
The counterplan accelerates federalism; the plan reverses this

by dictating priorities to the states
McGuigan, 11 Editor of the Free Congress Family, Law & Democracy Report
(Patrick, CapitolBeakOK: Transportation Federalism -- and Flexibility -- Proposed in
New Bill from Coburn, Lankford, 7/29, http://lankford.house.gov/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=756&Itemid=100023)
In his statement, sent to CapitolBeatOK, Sen. Coburn said, Washingtons addiction

to spending has bankrupted the Highway Trust Fund. For years, lower-priority
projects like earmarks have crowded out important priorities in our states,
such as repairing crumbling roads and bridges.
Instead of burdening states and micromanaging local transportation
decisions from Washington, states like Oklahoma should be free to choose
how their transportation dollars are spent. I have no doubt that Oklahomas
Transportation Director Gary Ridley will do a much better job deciding how
Oklahomas transportation dollars are spent than bureaucrats and politicians in
Washington.
Lankford applauded Coburn's leadership in the matter, observing, This has been
one of my top priorities since coming to Congress, and Im happy to join Senator
Coburn in this effort. This bill is a giant step for states by increasing transportation
flexibility while improving efficiency.
By allowing states to opt-out of the federal bureaucracy, they will be able
to take more control of their own resources. It will free Oklahoma to keep our
own federal gas taxes and to fund new projects at our own discretion.
Joel Kintsel, executive vice president at OCPA, told CapitolBeatOK, "I am so proud of
the leadership shown by Senator Coburn and Congressman Lankford. Hopefully,
this is the beginning of a broader effort by Congress to return to
federalism and withdraw from areas of activity rightfully belonging to the
States.
Sen. McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee for president, said, As a Federalist, I
have long advocated that states should retain the right to keep the revenue from
gas taxes paid by drivers in their own state. This bill would allow for this to happen
and prevent Arizonans from returning their hard earned money to Washington.
Arizonans have always received 95 cents or less for every dollar they pay federal
gas taxes. This continues to be unacceptable, and for that reason I am a proud
supported of the State Highway Flexibility Act.
Sen. Vitter asserted, Its very apparent how badly Congress can mismanage tax
dollars, especially the Highway Trust fund which has needed to be bailed out three
times since 2008. The states know their transportation needs better than Congress,
so lets put them in the drivers seat to manage their own gas tax.
Hatch contended, The federal governments one-size-fits all transportation
policies and mandates are wasting billions of taxpayer dollars and causing
inexcusable delays in the construction of highways, bridges and roads in Utah
and across the nation.
U.S. federalism is modeled worldwide, solving conflict and

boosting the economy
Calabresi 95 (Steven G., Assistant Prof Northwestern U., Michigan Law Review, Lexis)
First, the rules of constitutional federalism should be enforced because federalism is a good thing, and it is the best and most important
structural feature of the U.S. Constitution. Second, the political branches cannot be relied upon to enforce constitutional federalism,
notwithstanding the contrary writings of Professor Jesse Choper. Third, the Supreme Court is institutionally competent to enforce constitutional
federalism. Fourth, the Court is at least as qualified to act in this area as it is in the Fourteenth Amendment area. And, fifth, the doctrine of stare
[*831] decisis does not pose a barrier to the creation of any new, prospectively applicable Commerce Clause case law. The conventional
wisdom is that Lopez is nothing more than a flash in the pan. 232 Elite opinion holds that the future of American constitutional law will involve
the continuing elaboration of the Court's national codes on matters like abortion regulation, pornography, rules on holiday displays, and rules on
how the states should conduct their own criminal investigations and trials. Public choice theory suggests many reasons why it is likely that the
Court will continue to pick on the states and give Congress a free ride. But, it would be a very good thing for this country if the Court decided to
surprise us and continued on its way down the Lopez path. Those of us who comment on the Court's work, whether in the law reviews or in the
newspapers, should encourage the Court to follow the path on which it has now embarked. The country and the world would be a better place if
it did. We have seen that a desire for both international and devolutionary federalism has swept across the world in recent years. To a
significant extent, this is due to global fascination with and emulation of our own American federalism success story.
The global trend toward federalism is an enormously positive development that greatly increases the
likelihood of future peace, free trade, economic growth, respect for social and cultural diversity, and protection
of individual human rights. It depends for its success on the willingness of sovereign nations to strike federalism deals in the belief
that those deals will be kept. 233 The U.S. Supreme Court can do its part to encourage the future striking of such deals by enforcing vigorously
our own American federalism deal. Lopez could be a first step in that process, if only the Justices and the legal academy would wake up to the
importance of what is at stake.
2nc states solve better

Most federal transportation spending is wasted
Wall Street Journal, 12 editorial (Why Your Highway Has Potholes, 4/15,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303815404577333631864470566.
html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
That makes too much sense for Washington. In a typical year only about 65
cents of every gas tax dollar is spent on roads and highways. The rest is
intercepted by the public transit lobby and Congressional earmarkers.
Then there are the union wages that pad the cost of all federal projects.
The New York Times reported in 2010 that 8,074 Metropolitan Transportation
Authority employees made $100,000 or more in 2009 even as the system loses
money.
Transit is the biggest drain. Only in New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
does public transit account for more than 5% of commuter trips. Even with a recent
2.3% gain in bus and rail use due to high gas prices, public transit still accounts for
a mere 2% of all inner-city trips and closer to 1% outside of New York.
Politics and bureaucracy mean even if they fiat the aff federal
cutbacks in OTHER areas of transportation are inevitable
the states are a better forum
Policy, June, http://www.cfr.org/united-states/road-nowhere-federal-transportationinfrastructure-policy/p28419)//DH
The federal government is poorly designed for a coordinated
infrastructure policy. Responsibility for highway and transit policy alone is
split among seven congressional committees. The closest the country has
come to a coordinated national infrastructure plan was the National Transportation
Plan in the 1970s, and the idea sank fast.
Washington shoulders a minority share of the nations transportation costs, or about
25 percent of total transportation costs and 40 percent of capital transportation
costs.11 Infrastructure in the United States has traditionally been a state and local
affair.
With national leaders framing infrastructure as a larger national problem, it would
appear that the federal government is gearing up for a greater role. But
those ambitions are hitting up against the wall of fiscal austerity. Given
political realities, the best outcome could be a continuation of present
transportation spending levels. Deep cuts in spending are a possibility
with a Republican-controlled House opposed to either additional taxes or
increased debt. Advocates of infrastructure investment are faced with
squaring the circle, of doing more with less.
Devolving transportation to the states solves infrastructure

upgrades better
Turn Back Transportation to the States, 2/7,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/02/turn-back-transportation-to-thestates)//DH
With the latest dispute still unresolved, Congress and the President should try to
escape this predictable money morass and instead craft a plan that benefits the
motorists, bus operators, and truckers who pay the federal fuel tax that fills the
trust fund and finances the system. To accomplish this, any new legislation should:
Be limited to programs that enhance mobility and safety;
Add capacity where needed on modes that people want to use;
Relieve congestion;
Upgrade existing infrastructure; and
Devolve the resources and decision making to the states, which know their priorities
better than Washington does.
The government could accomplish these goals with a simple, efficient, and
attractive option: Return the federal highway programs to the states,
where much of the responsibility had been lodged until the Federal Aid Highway Act
was enacted in 1956.
Conflict and Deficiencies Inherent in a National Program
While these debates over spending totals consume much of the conversation about
transportation policyas well as create much of the conflictthe spending totals
themselves often do little to meet transportation objectives or improve mobility.
Transportation spending totals are determined largely by the overall macroeconomic
budgetary goals of either holding the line on budget deficits (2005) or stimulating
the economy (2012) while preventing any increase in taxes, including the federal
fuel tax that finances the trust fund. It is all about the money, not performance, and
the traveling public suffers accordingly.
Program Deficiency: Regional Inequity
Chief among the ongoing sources of friction have been the pervasive regional
spending inequities embodied in the federal program and maintained in all of its
subsequent reauthorizations. Because of the current laws flawed allocation
formulas, about half of the states (called donors and located mostly in the South
and Great Lakes region) pay proportionately more into the trust fund than they get
back, and vice versa for the other half (called donees and located mostly in the
Northeast).
On a share-by-share basis, some donor states such as Texas, Florida, and South
Carolina get less than an 85 percent share of the highway money they pay in, while
New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts get more than 100 percent. As bad as
this disparity is, the allocation of federal transit spending is even more inequitable.
[1] Many highway donor states are also transit donor states, receiving much less for
transit projects than they paid into the transit account, while many of the highway
donee states are also transit donees.
In response to growing complaints from donor states about the pervasive unfairness
of the program, Congress has proposed a number of halfhearted efforts to
accommodate the donor states. The current goal in draft legislation (S. 1813) is to
achieve at least a 95 percent return, but that still leaves hundreds of millions of
dollars on the table for the perennially shortchanged donor states. [2] The equity
issue has since become more complicated as a consequence of the three generalfund bailouts of the trust fund, but the degree of inequity has not disappeared.
Program Deficiency: Leaks and Diversions from the Trust Fund
For the first several decades of the federal highway programs existence, virtually
all of its energy and resources were devoted to the task it was created to fulfill:
building a 42,000-mile high-speed, limited-access interstate highway system from
coast to coast and border to border, connecting all of the major cities in between.
That task was largely completed by the early 1980s, and with no compelling and
clear objective to guide the highway program in the aftermath of this
accomplishment, successive Congresses began the process of diverting the trust
funds resources to other purposes.
While the diversions focused initially on non-road, transportation-related
investments such as urban transit programs, non-transportation projects such
as nature trails, museums, flower plantings, metropolitan planning
organizations, bicycles, Appalachian regional development programs,
parking lots, university research, thousands of earmarks, and historic
renovation became eligible over time for financial support from the
highway trust fund. As a consequence of this growing number of
diversions, as much as 35 percent of federal fuel tax revenues paid by the
motorists is spent on projects unrelated to general-purpose roads.
The magnitude of these leakages also undermines assertions by many in
Congress and the road-building industry that road conditions and
congestion can be improved if fuel taxes are increased to allow for more
highway spending. To the extent that the existing leakages maintain their share of
total trust fund resourcesas they traditionally doa substantial portion of any
increase in fuel tax revenues will be diverted to spending programs that
offer little or no benefit to general motorists or to improvements in
capacity, safety, or congestion mitigation. Under the allocations mandated by
existing law, an additional dollar raised in tax revenues would provide only
an extra 65 cents for roads because 35 percent would be siphoned off for
other purposes.
Plan cant solve without the counterplan

Next Economy,
The recent dust-up over high speed rail proves an important point: States and
governors are still in the drivers seat when it comes to transportation
decisionmaking and project selection. So even with robust federal action,
and a framework that puts transportation policy in the service of an American
economy driven by exports, powered by low carbon, fuelled by innovation, an rich
with opportunity, it is still incumbent upon the states to carry it out.
States solve uniformity

The NCCUSL exists to coordinate uniform laws among all
states, DC, and the territories, its easier for states to
adapt than federal law
Carter & Miller, 1- *attorney and **Professor at the University of Oklahoma

College of Law and Chair of the Executive Committee of the National Conference of
Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL)
(Truman Carter and Fred H. Miller, American Indian Law Review, Uniform Laws and
tribal legislation; one tribes perspective, 2001/2002, Lexis-Nexis Academic)
One hundred and ten years ago, what was to become the National Conference of
Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL or Conference) held its first
meeting in Saratoga Springs, New York. Today, NCCUSL has representatives from
every state, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. It is
responsible for hundreds of statutes that have been enacted by the jurisdictions
that comprise it, including the Uniform Commercial Code and other equally
important statutes in the areas of business law, family law, trust and estates law,
civil procedure, and other legal areas.
NCCUSL is an organization peculiar to the federal system of government, and is
unique in American law. "American law" of course actually consists of fifty separate,
and potentially differing, bodies of state law, co-existing with, and overlaid by,
federal law. The federal Constitution reserves to the states "powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states." Because of
this limitation, nearly all private law - contracts, negotiable instruments, business
organizations, marriage and divorce, for example - and most areas of criminal law,
are left for definition and regulation by the legislatures and courts of the several
states.
As the United States developed a modern economy national in scope, the need for a
common, predictable, nationwide legal system became crucial. There were at least
two methods for unifying the legal systems of the states. First, state law could be
preempted by the Federal Government through repeal of the Tenth Amendment, or
by an expansive interpretation of the commerce clause and other express powers
delegated to Congress (which, of course, was what ultimately happened to a
degree). Alternatively, the states could create a forum and a vehicle by which they
could voluntarily agree to develop, and then separately adopt, uniform legislation
on important subjects of common concern. That was the path chosen in 1891 when
NCCUSL was conceived; [*90] it remains a viable approach even today
notwithstanding the expansion of federal authority because uniform acts, like
Congressional acts, must fit into the overall body of American law, and that body of
law for the most part is state law. Thus uniform state law is more easily adapted
than uniform federal law.
The NCCUSL has long drafted uniform state policies that meet
the unique needs of all states
NCCUSL 5 (UNIFORM DEBT-MANAGEMENT SERVICES ACT, The National
Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, July 21-28, 2005,
http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/ucdc/2005Final.htm)
The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL), now in

its 114th year, provides states with non-partisan, well-conceived and well-drafted
legislation that brings clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law.
Conference members must be lawyers, qualified to practice law. They are practicing
lawyers, judges, legislators and legislative staff and law professors, who have been
appointed by state governments as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and
the U.S. Virgin Islands to research, draft and promote enactment of uniform state
laws in areas of state law where uniformity is desirable and practical.
NCCUSL strengthens the federal system by providing rules and procedures that
are consistent from state to state but that also reflect the diverse experience of the
states.
NCCUSL statutes are representative of state experience, because the
organization is made up of representatives from each state, appointed by state
government.
NCCUSL keeps state law up-to-date by addressing important and timely legal
issues.
NCCUSLs efforts reduce the need for individuals and businesses to deal with
different laws as they move and do business in different states.
NCCUSLs work facilitates economic development and provides a legal platform for foreign entities to deal with U.S. citizens and businesses.
NCCUSL Commissioners donate thousands of hours of their time and legal and drafting expertise every year as a public service, and receive no salary or
compensation for their work.
NCCUSLs deliberative and uniquely open drafting process draws on the expertise of commissioners, but also utilizes input from legal experts, and
advisors and observers representing the views of other legal organizations or interests that will be subject to the proposed laws.
NCCUSL is a state-supported organization that represents true value for the

states, providing services that most states could not otherwise afford or duplicate.
States solve - modeling

The act of state cooperation in the counterplan makes it visible
internationally their evidence doesnt assume all 50
acting collectively
Chi 90, (Keon S., Expert on Federalism and State Government, Council of State
Governments National Center for State Governance Director, Former
Government/Polisci Professor at Georgetown, Resurgence of Multistate
Regionalism, Council of State Governments, July 1990
http://www.csg.org/programs/ncic/documents/ResurgenceofMultistateRegionalismKeonChi-Spectrum-July1990.pdf)
States gain several advantages when taking a regional approach as compared to

working alone. First, a regional approach allows state officials to pool their
expertise and experience. Second, a regional approach raises policy issues more
effectively and, as a result, has a greater impact. Third, such an approach helps
states better deal with crisis situations by sharing resources and facilities. Fourth, a
regional approach can exert more influence and enhance state visibility in
Washington and overseas. And, fifth, it is cost effective.
State government actions now have foreign policy implications

because of increasing globalization and internalization of
formally domestic issues
Robinson 7 - Yale Law School, J.D. 2006. Currently Fox Fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi (Nick Robinson 2007 Akron Law Review Citizens Not Subjects:
U.S. Foreign Relations Law and the Decentralization of Foreign Policy Lexis)
And yet, state and local governments today have become deeply enmeshed in
international affairs as globalization has decentralized foreign relations. On the one
hand, localities have become more autonomous international actors than they ever
were or could have been before. In pursuing interests with international
implications, they tread in a sphere traditionally monopolized by the federal
government. On the other hand, the internationalization of many formerly domestic
issues means that an increasing number of traditional state and local government
actions now have foreign policy implications.
The emergence of localities as actors in American foreign policy creates new
possibilities for creating more participatory and democratic international relations. It
also merely reflects a world where increased interconnectivity across borders and the global regulation of markets and values has
collapsed local and international concerns. This article will argue that U.S. foreign relations law has failed to address this new reality.
The Supreme Court has largely clung either explicitly or implicitly to a jurisprudence that holds that the country should speak [*649]
with "one voice" in foreign relations. Such a position is not only naive, but it also weakens American democracy. With globalization's
commingling of the local and the international, a strong judicial bias towards federalizing issues with a bearing on foreign relations
States and municipalities will risk

becoming largely units of administrative governance.
will lead to a hollowing out of the decision-making power of localities.
The growing intersection of state and foreign governments

creates influential relationships between governors and
international officials, resulting in collaboration on
policies and reforms
Fry, Earl. Feb 15, 2009 "The Evolving Role of US State Governments in the
International Economy" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISA's 50th
ANNUAL CONVENTION "EXPLORING THE PAST, ANTICIPATING THE FUTURE",
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p310932_index.html
Globalization involves the growing intersection of the local with the global and helps
explain why state and even local governments are involved in what John Kincaid
calls constituent diplomacy, even when they are simply fulfilling their traditional
role of protecting and enhancing the interests of the people whom they
represent.24 During the 2001-2002 legislative years, 886 bills and resolutions linked
to some aspect of foreign relations were introduced in state legislatures, and 306
were adopted. This type of activity is up dramatically from the beginning of the
1990s.25 Governors may also be actively engaged abroad, not only meeting with
their counterparts in other countries, but even occasionally with leaders of national
governments.26 In May 2006, President Vicente Fox came to the United States for
formal visits with governors in California, Washington, and Utah . His visit with Governor Jon
Huntsman, Jr. in sparsely populated Utah was prompted by Huntsmans meeting with Fox in Mexico City a year earlier, and Huntsmans willingness to
sponsor a resolution passed by the Western Governors Association which supports a guest-worker program with Mexico. Utahs government is also one of
several states which allow undocumented residents to attend public colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates and have issued special permits
authorizing them to drive motor vehicles. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California expressed reservations about Washingtons proposal to beef up
U.S. security along the southern border by deploying National Guard troops, echoing Foxs own line of thinking. Mexicos national government also
recognizes that some state governments are potential allies in convincing Washington to endorse more pro-Mexico policies, especially in the area of
immigration and guest workers. This rationale helps explain why Mexico operates 47 consulates which are spread around the United States, far more than
any other nation. These consular officials serve not only the needs of the more than 10 million Mexican citizens who live in the United States and send
over $20 billion in remittances back to their home country annually, but also lobby U.S. state and local government officials in behalf of the Mexican
In a similar vein, other foreign governments have almost 1,500 consular

offices or honorary consuls to represent their interests outside of Washington, D.C.,
and their duties include maintaining close contacts with state and local
governments.27
national government.
AT: Federal leadership key

Federal leadership is irrelevant to transportation policy
Puentes, 11 - senior fellow with the Brookings Institutions Metropolitan Policy

(Robert, Transportation Reform of 1991 Remains Relevant, 12/19,
http://www.brookings.edu/up-front/posts/2011/12/19-transportation-reformpuentes)//DH
In the absence of federal leadership, metropolitan areas around the
country are acting on their own to envision, design, and finance the next
generation transportation system in America. Places as diverse as Charlotte,
Denver, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Phoenix, and Milwaukeeare taxing
themselves, dedicating substantial local money, and effectively
contributing to the construction of the nations critical infrastructure
system. The federal government needs to follow and align its resources to help
those that help themselves.
Metros like Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and Minneapolis-St. Paul are
examples of places working to move regional planning away from simply
aggregating lists of local projects, and instead specifically connect
metropolitan growth with transportation investments. This approach
examines land use patterns, density, and urban form to find innovative solutions to
challenges like housing, carbon emissions, agricultural preservation, economic
development, and job access.
Others like San Francisco are applying rigorous analytical criteria and performance
assessments to how they plan to spend taxpayer dollars. The Metropolitan
Transportation Commission there ranked their local members projects with a
combination of qualitative assessment from an advisory board and quantitative
modeling of cost-benefit analysis for a select number of projects. The idea is
prioritize those projects that score the highest, not just those with the greatest
political support.
These kinds of innovations and self-help epitomize a new 21st century approach to
strengthening metropolitan economies that Washington should explicitly embrace.
Recognition might include: more direct funding to certain MPOs, more flexible
mode neutral funding, more streamlined planning processes, more direct
reporting to federal agencies, and reduced bureaucracy.
Other examples abound and great potential exists to build on the gains of ISTEA in
order to strengthen the economic vitality of metropolitan areas and, therefore the
nation. The overall vision is not that different from what visionary Congressional
leaders laid out two decades ago. The difference is that, unlike 1991, it is clear the
innovation today is going to come from the bottom-up and not the topdown.
Federal Government Models States

State action is modeled by the federal government
Halberstam and Hills, 1- *assistant professor law at the University of Michigan

Law School specializing in U.S. constitutional law and **professor of law at the
University of Michigan Law School, specializing in U.S. constitutional law, local
government law, the law of federalism and intergovernmental relations
(Daniel Halberstam and Roderick M. Hills, Jr., The American Academy of Political and
Social Science, State Autonomy in Germany and the United States, 03-2001,
Leixs-Nexis Academic)
The states may exploit this power to initiate programs as a practical means to
counteract Congress's constitutional authority to federalize policy areas. For
example, before Congress generates enough political will to legislate in any given
area, states may step into the field with their own policy proposals. One result is
that state policy initiatives may be quite influential in the federal lawmaking process
by providing the initial impetus and sometimes even blueprint for federal action
(Elliot, Ackerman, and Millian 1985). To bypass or overrule the states, not only must
Congress often demonstrate that its proposed regulatory scheme is politically
desirable, but it must do so by arguing specifically against the continued existence
of active state regulation.
AT: No money
States solve better than the federal government - substantially
greater efficiency makes up for resource shortfalls
Holler, 12 - Communications Director for Heritage Action for America (Dan,
Thinking Outside the Beltway, 4/4, National Journals Experts Blog,
http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2012/04/paying-for-it.php#comments)//DH
When it comes to the problem of how to pay for our nations transportation needs,
the temptation in Washington is to view Washington as the solution. After
tens of billions in Highway Trust Fund bailouts and nine short-term extensions, it is
clear Washington does not hold the answer. The real answer is outside the
beltway.
Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell recently scoffed at the idea of looking
beyond Washington for transportation funding solutions, saying proponents of such
a move havent looked at any of the state budgets recently. But the Governor
misses the point. It is not that states are awash in cash (the federal
government isnt either), but rather that states are much more efficient.
Last year, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels explained his state can build in
1/2 the time at 2/3 the cost when we use our own money only and are free
from the federal rulebook. Literally just outside the Washington Beltway, a
private company is adding four high-occupancy toll lanes for half the cost the
government projected, and the lanes are better designed, too.
Instead of looking for an innovative solution, too many in Congress prefer
to debate various funding mechanisms for months on end knowing they
will settle for a gimmick that ensures insolvency. There is a better way;
lawmakers just need to know where to look.
State self reliance is increasing user fees and ballot

initiatives
Orski, 12 editor and publisher of Innovation NewsBriefs, an influential and widely
read transportation newsletter (Ken, WHY PLEAS TO INCREASE INFRASTRUCTURE
FUNDING FALL ON DEAF EARS, 2/5,
http://www.newgeography.com/content/002662-why-pleas-increase-infrastructurefunding-fall-deaf-ears
There are various theories why appeals to increase infrastructure spending do not resonate with the
public. One widely held view is that people simply do not trust the federal
government to spend their tax dollars wisely. As proof, evidence is cited
that a great majority of state and local transportation ballot measures do
get passed, because voters know precisely where their tax money is
going. No doubt there is much truth to that. Indeed, thanks to local funding initiatives
and the use of tolling, state transportation agencies are becoming
increasingly more self-reliant and less dependent on federal funding .
Constrained budgets mean the states will rely on private

sector financing
Ardis, 12 staff writer for State Budget Solutions (Jimmy, Local and state governments look
for creative ways to fund transportation projects 5/14,
http://www.statebudgetsolutions.org/publications/detail/local-and-stategovernments-look-for-creative-ways-to-fund-transportation-projects
Constrained budgets and deficit reduction efforts mean federal fewer
dollars for infrastructure. As the report notes, "the country's Highway Trust Fundthe mainstay for both road and transit projects-is running short of cash." As such,
the burden is shifting more to state and local governments, which are being forced
to find funding solutions.
In their search for transportation funding, state and local governments are
increasingly asking voters to cough up more money at the ballot box.
The report suggests that voters are willing to pay for projects where there is a clear
and direct benefit to their communities. "From 2008 to 2011, ballots that allocated
funds to transit capital or operations had a 73 percent success rate, while those that
included a combination of road and transit capital and operations had a 64 percent
success rate." Even if voters are showing a willingness to approve new funding at
the ballot box, higher taxes in a recession can only go so far.
Local and state governments are also slowly becoming more receptive to
the idea of public-private partnerships (PPP). While many localities are still
weary at entering into these arrangements, others are finding that private sector
entities can bring much needed capital to the table. "Over the past decade,
about half the states have used PPPs to help build nearly 100
transportation projects, totaling approximately$54 billion." Interest is
growing but PPP's remain a small percentage of overall transportation projects at
this time.
Other creative financing mechanisms being utilized on the state and local
levels include tax increment financing and special assessment districts.
Sovereign wealth funds and pension plans are also showing some interest
in investing in infrastructure projects.
The outlook for transportation funding remains tight in the coming decade. As
budgets continue to be reduced and governments are forced by necessity to do
more with less, innovative solutions will be needed more than ever.
Funding mechanism: agency reform

State transportation spending is misallocated the CP corrects
the imbalance
Next Economy,
Second, state investments are not made in a sufficiently strategic,
economy-enhancing way. States also face challenges because they spend
their (now-declining) transportation dollars poorly. For example, many states
have tended to allocate investments via logrolling rather than evidence. As
a result, projects are spread around the state like peanut butter. 10 The
metropolitan areas that will deliver the next economysince they already
concentrate the assets that matter to smart economic growth like transportation
are often undermined by spending and policy decisions that fail to
recognize the economic engines they are and focus investments
accordingly. Nor have states been deliberate about recognizing and supporting the
particular needs and challenges of both metro and non-metro areas.
State transportation policies also remain rigidly stovepiped and
disconnected as states fail to take advantage of potential efficiencies
gained through integrated systems. By failing to join up transportation up
with other policy areassuch as housing, land use, energystates are
diminishing the power of their interventions and reducing the return on
their investments. This is a very different approach from how the economy
functions and is out-of-step with innovations to connect transportation investments
to economic prosperity. The benefits of federal, state and private investments are
amplified when metropolitan areas pursue deliberate strategies across city and
suburban lines that build on the distinctive advantages of the broader metropolis.
Lastly, states have generally not had the courage to make hard choices and truly tie
their transportation programs to achieving the kinds of outcomes described above.
Benefit/cost or economic impact analyses are rarely, if ever, used in
deciding among alternative projects and regular evaluations of outcomes are
typically not conducted. 11 Most states fail to prioritize rehabilitation and
maintenance on a programmatic level and instead react on a project-by-project
basis. So far, efforts to reduce oil dependency are largely ephemeral. And only three
states consider social equity a primary transportation goal. 12 Incoming governors
and state legislatures face serious transportation-related challenges. They can
pursue band-aid approaches to shore up their budgets through standard program
cuts and allow their existing programs to limp along. Or they can begin to put in
place a policy framework that connects transportation to the elements of the postrecession economy in a pragmatic manner.
Funding mechanism: P3s

States can use public-private partnerships to increase
investment will leverage billions
Ruane, 11 - President and CEO, American Road & Transportation Builders'
Association (Pete, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
Hearing - "Building American Transportation Infrastructure Through Innovative
Funding.", 7/20, Congressional Documents and Publications lexis)//DH
According to a report ARTBA commissioned from .Public Works Financing. Editor
William Reinhardt, 24 states have used innovative procurement methods
and/or public-private financing mechanisms since 1989 to build at least 96
transportation projects valued at more than $54 billion. Sixty-five percent of
these projects have come in eight states: Florida, California, Texas, Colorado,
Virginia, Minnesota, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Unfortunately, 26 states have not yet taken advantage of a P3 process for
transportation improvements. In fact, almost half of the states have not yet
approved P3 enabling legislation and, therefore, are not able to take advantage of
these opportunities.
Funding mechanism: SIB

State infrastructure banks solve and provide adequate
financing
Next Economy,
Create new public/private institutions. To finance the kind of major investments
necessary to support the Next Economy, such as high-functioning global ports and
gateways, or infrastructure that supports electric vehicles or clean technologies,
states should establish a state infrastructure bank (SIB) or enhance it if
one is already in place.
Beginning in 1998, when the federal government provided $150 million in seed
funding for initial capitalization, SIBs have become an attractive financing tool
for states. Since then, 33 states have established SIBs to finance transportation
projects. Most of this support comes in the form of below-market revolving
loans and loan guarantees. States are able to capitalize their accounts with
federal transportation dollars but are then subject to federal regulations over how
the funds are spent. Others, including Kansas, Ohio, Georgia, and Florida, capitalize
their accounts with a variety of state funds and are not bound by the federal
oversight which they feel helps accelerate project delivery. Other statessuch as
Virginia, Texas, and New Yorkare also examining ways to recapitalize their SIBs
with state funds. 24
But rather than bringing a tough, merit-based approach to funding, many SIBs are
simply used to pay for the projects selected from the states wish list of
transportation improvements, without filtering projects through a
competitive application process. A better approach would be for states to
use their infrastructure banks more strategically, focusing on those
transportation projects that will facilitate the flow of exports or connect
workers to jobs. The projects should be evaluated according to strict return on
investment criteria, not selected with an eye towards spreading funding evenly
across the state. (Such an approach is analogous for how the federal government
should establish a national infrastructure bank.)
States should also think beyond just transportation and create true
infrastructure and economic development banks to finance not just roads
and rails, but also energy and water infrastructure, perhaps even school and
manufacturing development. Californias Infrastructure and Economic Development
Bank (I-Bank) provides a compelling model. After its initial capitalization of $181
million in 1999, the I-Bank has funded itself on interest earnings, loan repayments,
and other fees, and has supported over $400 million in loans. 25
Then, either as part of the augmented SIB or separate, states should help
broker the often complex infrastructure partnerships between the public
and private sectors. A poll by the financial advisory firm Lazard shows strong
willingness for states to consider private investments rather than increasing taxes,
cutting budgets, or taking on more debt. 26 However, the private sector is now
seeking more legislative certainty prior to bidding on projects and has
little appetite for negotiating transactions that are subject to legislative
or other major political approvals. While half of the states have enacted
enabling statutes for public/private partnerships (PPPs), the wide differences
between them makes it time consuming and costly for private partners wishing to
engage in PPPs in multiple states to handle the different procurement and
management processes. 27 States should therefore move to enact
comprehensive PPP legislation that is accountable, transparent, and
permanent. They should also push the federal government to play a helpful role
with its state and metropolitan partners by creating standards and providing
technical advice to be considered in PPPs. The GAO recently noted that the federal
government has done much to promote the benefits of PPPs but it needs to do more
to assist states and metro areas in this way. 28
State structures solve best --- federal programs 30% more

expensive
Plautz, 11 (9/8/2011, Jason --- of Greenwire, In I-Bank Debate, States Provide

Successful Model, http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/09/08/08greenwire-in-ibank-debate-states-provide-successful-mod-49268.html?pagewanted=all, JMP)
Kansas -- which used $25 million of state money in 2004 for its first equity transfer
-- has now funded some 120 projects with the TRF bank. Martin said that as of fiscal
2010, when it stopped loaning off the initial transfer, the bank had approved $135
million in loans off that initial $25 million. That places it among the largest and most
successful state banks in the country.
In fact, the success in states like Kansas and the ease of working with state officials
has some leaders in Washington convinced that the best approach might not be
setting up a structure in D.C., but simply offering more money to the states.
'Like buying a house'
Cam Gilmour, director of the Transportation Department for Oregon's Clackamas
County, is one of the hundreds of project managers who have dipped into a state
infrastructure bank to help finance a road, bridge or transit development. Gilmour
has already tapped the Oregon SIB on two occasions, once for a four-phase, 5-mile
road improvement project outside of Portland.
"We didn't have the cash on hand and we didn't want to go to the general bond
market because of some front-end costs and the general interest rates," Gilmour
said. "We were aware of Oregon's infrastructure bank and we worked out a lot of
details with them."
In the end, Gilmour's agency was able to get a sizable share of the project's $20
million price tag from the state bank, which was able to leverage against other
sources to fund the project, to widen a key road in the region to seven lanes and
another to four. Most importantly, Gilmour said, the state gave him a much better
interest rate than he could have gotten through the private market.
That is a purposeful move, said Tom Meek, who runs the Oregon bank.
"We figure out what kind of interest you'd be paying if you had to borrow a loan, and
then we try to make ours a bit cheaper, usually around 15 basis points," he said.
"We offer the cheap interest rate as an incentive for them to do these types of
projects."
For example, Meek said some projects have not been able to net any financing in
the private market, but the appeal of an interest rate that low will attract more
partners and get things moving.
The strategy has paid off -- since offering its first loan in 1997, the Oregon bank has
paid out more than $80 million in loans, based on an initial federal and state
investment totaling about $35 million. That has helped the state build everything
from a parking facility for buses to large highway expansions.
Gilmour said that working with the state bank was not unlike dealing with a private
body, which really made the whole process easier. Once the two sides discussed the
possibility of a loan, Gilmour said the next step was a lot of paperwork, "just like
buying a house." Among the pieces of information that officials had to provide was a
clear source of revenue, which Gilmour said was not hard to find.
"We had already spent quite a bit of time dealing with the cash flow and we had a
fairly rigorous analysis," Gilmour said. "We informed ODOT that our source of
revenue was ... related to the amount of development," essentially banking that the
larger road would bring more business and growth to the region. That normally
would set off red flags, Gilmour said.
In fact, those concerns would have been right, since the economic downturn has
caused nearby development to stall. However, the state was able to secure a more
reliable form of collateral -- the very gas tax dollars that it would distribute to
Clackamas County.
"That's as good as gold," Gilmour said. "They have the authority to reduce our
monthly service. For us, that works out very favorably."
Meek said that the application review process generally takes about 60 days,
including checking to make sure the project is up to both the state and federal code
(because some initial money came from the federal government, it must meet those
standards). However, most projects with a reliable funding stream will end up
getting funded, he said, and there have been few problems with the repayment
process.
Some projects, especially those that rely on transit, can even use farebox fees to
repay the project, essentially tying the repayment to the success of the project and
shielding it from external forces.
In all, Meek said there have been few complaints. And, most importantly, the
program has proved a financial success -- not one project has ever defaulted on its
loan.
National vs. state level
With successful test cases like those in Oregon and Kansas, it is obvious why the
White House would want to create a bank on the national level. The loans can be
used to draw in private partners for large projects, putting more people to work.
But some policymakers are wary of the added bureaucracy and political
complications the federal government's involvement would carry with it. Under a
transportation reauthorization proposal from House Transportation and
Infrastructure Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.), a national proposal would be replaced
with expanded authority for state infrastructure banks, which Mica said would free
up more money faster.
Even some of the recipients of state money agree.
"I don't see any advantage to a national bank," Gilmour said. "I'm concerned
that there's been a disconnect at the federal levelbetween those benefiting from
transportation investments and those paying for them. ... I can't make my debt
payment to ODOT with more debt."
Gilmour, who worked for the Oregon DOT for 26 years, added that he tried to do
very little with the federal government because federal red tape can add up to
30 percent of time and cost to a project.
The CP reforms state infrastructure banks to create

competitive bidding connecting the bank to a particular
goal solves all prior problems
Puentes, 12 - Senior Fellow and Director, Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative at
Brookings (Robert, New Federalism Already Forming, 5/22,
http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/not-waiting-for-thefeds.php#comments)
Increasingly, public infrastructure investment is taking place through innovative
finance tools, revolving loan funds, trusts, and so-called banks. Most of these offer
direct loans at low interest rates to public and private entities, while some also offer
grants, loan guarantees, bonds, and other financial instruments. According to
forthcoming Brookings research, since 1995 thirty-three states have used
infrastructure banks and funds to invest nearly $7 billion in over 900
different projects. These projects range from local road maintenance and highway
construction to emergency relief for damaged infrastructure. The structure of the
banks and projects in which they invest reflect the diversity of needs and resources
across the U.S.
But rather than bringing a tough, merit-based approach to funding, most
state banks do not filter projects through a competitive application
process. A better approach would be for states to use their infrastructure
banks to achieve specific economic goals, e.g., the flow of exports or
connect workers to jobs. The projects should be evaluated according to
strict return on investment criteria, not selected with an eye towards
spreading funding evenly across the state. (Such an approach is analogous for
how the federal government should establish a national infrastructure bank.)
Funding mechanism: user fees

User fees and congestion pricing can raise state transportation
revenues
Next Economy,
Governors and legislators should also recognize that the fiscal crisis creates
the opportunity to talk about new sources of transportation revenues
including sources that were previously considered politically infeasible.
States should consider adopting market mechanisms like congestion
pricing to maximize metropolitan road networks, as well as the expansion
of user fees. And even voter-approved tax increases (which are evidence of
willingness to pay for services) should be part of the discussion. Residents in
metropolitan Phoenix, for example, recently approved a half-cent sales tax
for regional transportation that is expected to generate $11 billion. Los
Angeles county voters approved a half-cent increase that is projected to raise $40
billion for transportation improvements. Notably, that vote came in November 2008,
right it the middle of the economic downturn. 23 Governors should encourage this
kind of self help.
AT: State economies disad

State budgets are recovering newest data exceeds forecasts
Selway, 12 (William, Business Week, State Revenue Tops Forecasts as U.S.
Governors Reduce Spending, 6/12, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-0612/state-revenue-tops-forecasts-as-u-dot-s-dot-governors-reduce-spending)
Most U.S. states are collecting more revenue than they forecast this year
as the economy recovers, reducing budget deficits that have persisted in the
nations capitals since the recession.
Thirty-one states collected more than they expected when drafting
budgets for the current fiscal year, which ends this month in most states,
according to a report released today by the National Governors Association. Still,
state leaders moved to slow the growth of spending in the coming year, reflecting
uncertainty about the economy, the report found.
State fiscal conditions are continuing to improve in fiscal 2013, although
many state budgets are not fully back to pre-recession levels, according to the
report.
U.S. states are slowly recovering from the 18-month recession that ended three
years ago, which forced them to cut back on spending on education, welfare and
transportation projects as tax collections tumbled. The need to balance budgets,
often mandated by state constitutions, exerted a drag on the economy.
With tax collections improving, only eight states were forced to close a
collective $1.7 billion of deficits that emerged in the budgets in the middle of
the year, the fewest since the recession.
Revenues are increasing reaching pre-recession levels

Freeburn, 12 InvestorPlace writer (Christopher, States See Recovering Tax
Revenues, 6/12, http://www.investorplace.com/2012/06/states-see-recovering-taxrevenues/)
Tax revenues generated by U.S. states will recover during the next fiscal
year, finally exceeding the tax receipts prior to the economic downturn.
Sales, corporate and personal income taxes revenues are growing nationwide, the
Associated Press noted.
According to the National Governors Association (NGA), overall state tax receipts
are projected to increase by 4.1% in fiscal 2013, reaching $690.3 billion, marking
the third consecutive year that tax receipts have increased.
Fiscal 2013 will also top 2008s tax revenues by $10 billion.
Spending by state governments, by contrast, was projected to rise by just 2.2%,
well below levels seen before the recession.
States are also beginning to add employees again. States added an average 3,000
employees per month over the last six months, though they shed 5,000 employees
last month.
Government officials commented that the rising tax revenues were stabilizing
state budgets, with only eight states experiencing sudden financing
shortfalls this year. In 2010, 39 states encountered budget shortfalls.
Some states continue to struggle, however, including California, which faces a $16
billion budget gap this year despite rising tax revenue.
While tax receipts have grown overall, not every state has benefited equally. In fact,
in fiscal 2013, 23 states will see tax revenues lower than those received in 2008.
The CP saves state economies in the short-term

Next Economy,
Few areas of policy are as critical to states long term economic health, or
as significant a share of state budgets, as transportation. However, state
transportation systems face two overarching challenges: their funding sources are
shrinking and their investments are not made in a sufficiently strategic, economyenhancing way. In short, the systems are both broke and broken. An emphasis on
fiscal responsibility does not mean states should slow down investing in
transportation. In fact, these investments are more important than ever
because of the short-term job creation effects and the long-term
implications for economic competitiveness. But states cannot rely on the same
sources of revenue to fund transportation projects, nor can they spend
transportation dollars in the same ways. Specifically, states should:
n Use transportation dollars to leverage other state investments and the
strengths of metropolitan areas.
n Use market discipline to find savings and new revenue sources
n Create or augment new public/private institutions like State
Infrastructure Banks
I. Introduction
Infrastructurealong with human capital and innovationis one of the assets that
will drive the next economy and is of paramount importance to maximizing growth
and opportunity. Yet in the United States, transportation and infrastructure policy is
at a crossroads. The current system is both broke and broken, most recently
illustrated by delays in reauthorizing federal transportation laws. Though
infrastructure was a prominent feature of the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (the stimulus package) no consensus over the next generation of transportation
policy has yet emerged in Washington.
In the absence of federal action, the debate on transportation policy will
shift to the state level. Few areas of policy are as critical to states long term
economic health. Transportation is also a relatively significant portion of most
states budgets. At 7.9 percent of general state expenditures, transportation
generally ranks third among state spending categories after only education and
public welfare, though this varies quite a bit among the states (Alabama ranks
last at 3.1 percent; Nevada ranks first at 16.7 percent. Missouri is the median at
10.7 percent). 1
Local experimentation is vital to state economies
Puentes, 11 - senior fellow with the Brookings Institutions Metropolitan Policy

(Robert, Transportation Reform of 1991 Remains Relevant, 12/19,
http://www.brookings.edu/up-front/posts/2011/12/19-transportation-reformpuentes)//DH
ISTEA is rightly considered to be a watershed moment in U.S. transportation policy.
It offered a new framework for thinking about transportation by assuring states and
metropolitan areas of specific levels of funding and giving them the flexibility
needed to design transportation mixes that met their needs. Spurred on by these
reforms, a small but increasing number of states and localities began to
experiment with a more balanced mix including expanding and preserving
highways, addressing the needs of older and newer communities, and deciding
between building roads or enlarging public transit systems.
Make no mistake, ISTEA turned transportation policy on its head.
One area of particular importance is often attributed to the keen insights of the late
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a key architect of ISTEA. Moynihan and other urban
thinkers and policymakers have long recognized the need for a metropolitan
approach when it comes to addressing transportation.
There are many reasons. Supplier networks and customer relationships are
regional rather than local in nature. Labor markets and commuting
patterns cross jurisdictional and state lines. Firms make decisions on
location and expansion based on regional advantages and
amenities. Metropolitan areas are where most Americans live, work, and
produce the majority of the nations economic output. The services and
revenues they generate drive state economies.
ISTEA established a greater voice for metropolitan areas by devolving
greater responsibility for planning and implementation to metropolitan
planning organizations (MPOs). These regional bodies were originally research
organizations charged with advising state departments of transportation. By
enhancing the powers and responsibilities of MPOs, ISTEA enabled
metropolitan areas to tailor transportation plans to the realities of their
distinct markets. MPOs are held accountable through a regular certification
process intended to ensure adherence to statutory economic and environmental
performance measures, principles of effective citizen engagement, and compliance
with other applicable federal laws, such as environmental protection and civil rights.
Federal transportation earmarks exacerbate state budget

deficits by diverting resources
Transportation Policy and Congressional Earmarks, 2/1,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/02/transportation-policy-andcongressional-earmarks)//DH
Of Little or Negative Value to States
Importantlyand something generally ignored or misunderstood by both the public
and Members of Congresstransportation earmarks provide no additional
money to any state or to transportation spending in general. Rather, most
transportation earmarks are carved out of each states formula allocation
so that each dollar devoted to an earmark means one dollar less that is
available to the states own priority projects. Worse, only about half of the
authorized earmarks are utilized by the end of the bills term, because many states
view them as low-value projects and refrain from providing mandated matching
funds.
AT: Perm do both

Federal money comes with regulatory strings attached that
destroy program effectiveness
Turn Back Transportation to the States, 2/7,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/02/turn-back-transportation-to-thestates)//DH
Program Deficiency: Regulatory Mandates
Over time, the highway program has been subject to a number of
regulatory burdens. Many of these burdens are designed to assist select
segments of the workforce in achieving goals other than, and often in conflict
with, enhanced mobility. These regulations have added substantially to
project costs and/or project delays. Such regulations include the DavisBacon
Act, Section 13(c) of the Urban Mass Transit Act, the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA), small-business and minority contracting requirements, and Buy America
provisions. Federal regulations also discourage and complicate the use of
publicprivate partnerships; tolled express lanes; conversion of HOV (high
occupancy vehicle) lanes to HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes; and general
tolling of the interstate system even though these highways are owned by
the states.
Threats to withhold federal transportation money have also been used to
force states and regions to adopt regulations that foster other federal
goalsa tactic used by the Clinton Administration in its attempts to force Atlanta to
change its land-use policies. Currently, a states failure to meet federal
environmental standards could lead to a suspension of federal
transportation funds.
Expanding federal power undermines state competence
Nivola, 05 - Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution (Pietro,

Why Federalism Matters, BROOKINGS POLICY BRIEF SERIES | # 146,
http://www3.brookings.edu/papers/2005/10governance_nivola.aspx
Why the paternalists in Washington cannot resist dabbling in the quotidian tasks
that need to be performed by state and local officials would require a lengthy
treatise on bureaucratic behavior, congressional politics, and judicial activism.
Suffice it to say that the propensity, whatever its source, poses at least two
fundamental problems.
The first is that some state and local governments may become sloppier about
fulfilling their basic obligations. The Hurricane Katrina debacle revealed how illprepared the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana were for a potent
tropical storm that could inundate the region. There were multiple explanations for
this error, but one may well have been habitual dependence of state and local
officials on direction, and deliverance, by Uncle Sam. In Louisiana, a state that was
receiving more federal aid than any other for Army Corps of Engineers projects, the
expectation seemed to be that shoring up the local defenses against floods was
chiefly the responsibility of Congress and the Corps, and that if the defenses failed,
bureaucrats in the Federal Emergency Management Agency would instantly ride to
the rescue. That assumption proved fatal. Relentlessly pressured to spend money
on other local projects, and unable to plan centrally for every possible calamity that
might occur somewhere in this huge country, the federal government botched its
role in the Katrina crisis every step of the waythe flood prevention, the response,
and the recovery. The local authorities in this tragedy should have known better,
and taken greater precautions.
Federalism is vital to a clear division of labor between state

and federal governments, it is key maximizing US
leadership
Nivola, 07 - Vice president and Director of Governance Studies at the Brookings
Institution (Pietro, Rediscovering Federalism, April,
http://www3.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2007/07governance_nivola/07governance_nivola.pdf
Whatever else it is supposed to do, a federal system of government should offer

policy-makers a division of labor.1 Perhaps the first to fully appreciate that benefit
was Alexis de Tocqueville. He admired the federated regime of the United States
because, among other virtues, it enabled its central government to focus on primary
public obligations (a small number of objects, he stressed, sufficiently prominent
to attract its attention), leaving what he called societys countless
secondary affairs to lower levels of administration.2 Such a system, in other
words, could help officials in Washington keep their priorities straight.
It is this potential advantage, above all others, that warrants renewed emphasis
today. Americas national government has its hands full coping with its continental,
indeed global, security responsibilities, and cannot keep expanding a domestic
policy agenda that injudiciously dabbles in too many duties best consigned to local
authorities. Indeed, in the habit of attempting to do a little of everything, rather
than a few important things well, our overstretched government suffers a kind of
attention deficit disorder. Although this state of overload and distraction obviously is
not a cause of catastrophes such as the successful surprise attacks of September
11, 2001, the ferocity of the insurgency in Iraq, or the submersion of a historic
American city inundated by a hurricane in 2005, it may render such tragedies
harder to prevent or mitigate.
Leadership stops multiple global nuclear wars & a new Dark

Age
LIEBER 05 Prof. Gov and Intl. Affairs @ Georgetown U. (Robert, The American
Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century, p. 53-54)
Withdrawal from foreign commitments might seem to be a means of evading

hostility toward the United States, but the consequences would almost certainly be
harmful both to regional stability and to U.S. national interests. Although Europe
would almost certainly not see the return to competitive balancing among regional
powers (i.e., competition and even military rivalry between France and Germany) of
the kind that some realist scholars of international relations have predicted,"
elsewhere the dangers could increase. In Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan would
have strong motivation to acquire nuclear weapons which they have the technological
capacity to do quite quickly. Instability and regional competition could also escalate, not
only between India and Pakistan, but also in Southeast Asia involving Vietnam, Thailand,
Indonesia, and possibly the Philippines. Risks in the Middle East would be likely to
increase, with regional competition among the major countries of the Gulf region
(Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq) as well as Egypt, Syria, and Israel. Major regional wars,
eventually involving the use of weapons of mass destruction plus human suffering on a
vast scale, floods of refugees, economic disruption, and risks to oil supplies are all readily
conceivable. Based on past experience, the United States would almost certainly be
drawn back into these areas, whether to defend friendly states, to cope with a humanitarian catastrophe, or to prevent a hostile power
from dominating an entire region. Steven Peter Rosen has thus fit-tingly observed, "If the logic of American empire is unappealing, it is not at all clear that
the alternatives are that much more attractive."2z Similarly, Niall Ferguson has added that those who dislike American predominance ought to bear in
mind that the alternative may not be a world of competing great powers, but one with no hegemon at all. Ferguson's warning may be hyperbolic, but it
the absence of a dominant power, "apolarity," could bring "an anarchic new
Dark Age of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic plunder and pillage in the
world's forgotten regions; of economic stagnation and civilization's retreat into a few fortified
enclaves.
hints at the perils that
AT: 50 state fiat bad

50 state fiat isnt unprecedented
Mountjoy 4, (John J., Director of National Center for Interstate Compacts and
Associate Director for National Policy Coordination, The Council of State
Governments, Solutions for States: Interstate Compacts as a Tool,
http://www.csg.org/programs/ncic/documents/SolutionsForStates.pdf)
Interstate compacts are contracts between states and carry with them the force and
effect of statutory law. While most interstate compacts are rudimentary in function
(regulating boundaries and water rights) and have signatories numbering below
fifteen, several interstate compacts maintain membership of all 50 states (or close
to it) and have administrative/regulatory agencies that oversee the functionality of
the compact between states. The Drivers License Compact and its American Association of Motor
Vehicle Administrators regulate and allow states to recognize drivers licenses issued in other states. The Interstate
Compact for Education and its Education Commission of the States maintain close cooperation and understanding
among executive, legislative, professional, educational leadership on a nationwide basis at the State and local
levels.
State collective action is a legitimate option in the literature

Harvard Law Review, 06 the author isnt named but the qualifications are: John
M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Business at Harvard Law School (119 Harv. L.
Rev. 1855, STATE COLLECTIVE ACTION*, April, lexis)
Consider now the reasons why states may act collectively. In the simplest terms,
collective action may be more desirable than individual state action because it
opens a panoply of otherwise unavailable policy choices and may be more desirable
than federal action because it allocates power to a better-positioned actor. n12 These
advantages may exist [*1859] because regional organizations have better information, are better positioned to
act on that information, or avoid duplicative costs or coordination problems.
n13
Also,
collective action may
be desirable politically because it may make certain programs either more or less politically salient. n14
Similarly, political actors may want to act collectively because doing so spreads or diversifies
political risk. Lastly, collective action may provide opportunities for economies of scale or rent-seeking behavior that states cannot achieve
n15
independently. n16
Some brief examples of how states may act collectively illustrate the importance of the topic. n17 As in the stylized examples, states may act collectively to
reduce pollution. Groups of states also could develop plans to use common reserves of natural resources, including oil fields or aquifers that cross state
lines, or plans to allocate the use of rivers, lakes, forests, or other natural resources. They may also regulate wildlife that lives in multiple states, either to
protect that wildlife or to use it for commercial purposes. States may take similar action to regulate or allocate energy or to develop interstate transit
infrastructure, such as highways, rail lines, or regional airports. States may regulate the production or distribution of goods or create economic
development organizations organized either geographically or by some other trait, such as agricultural or oil and gas production. They also may wish to
regulate certain industries or set labor standards in common ways or may wish to regulate products commonly by adopting similar production standards
states may collectivize

to provide better social welfare or governmental insurance programs.
or tort rules. As a final example - although one can imagine many other motivations for state collective action -
Avoids politics
State action is insulated from politics
Celli 1 Chief of the Civil Rights Bureau, New York State Attorney General's Office
(Andrew, 64 Alb. L. Rev. 1091, A CONVERSATION ON FEDERALISM AND THE STATES:
THE BALANCING ACT OF DEVOLUTION, lexis
I also saw that state enforcement officers, like me and like Peter Lehner, with our
small and agile offices operating below the national political radar, that we can use
these federal laws in creative and aggressive ways and perhaps in a way that is
insulated from the kinds of political pressure that, say, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department faces. For
instance, we have a continuing case involving predatory lending where we use a very old, very unused, law called the Equal Credit Opportunities Act.
When we described to our adversary our theory under E.C.O.A. as to why they were liable for targeting African-American and Latino borrowers for the
worst kind of loans, the guy said to us, "You guys are out on the frontier." Which we took as a great compliment - especially when, two months later, his
client signed an enormous consent decree based on our lawsuit in federal court, based on our frontier theory. So, I think that state officers can act in ways
that are beyond or below, maybe, political pressure to do the kind of things that the national interests wants us to do, as expressed in the federal civil
rights laws.
AT: Requires congressional approval

The counterplan isnt a compact its multistate regional coordination and
doesnt require Congressional approval
Chi 90, (Keon S., Expert on Federalism and State Government, Council of State
Governments National Center for State Governance Director, Former
Government/Polisci Professor at Georgetown, Resurgence of Multistate
Regionalism, Council of State Governments, July 1990
http://www.csg.org/programs/ncic/documents/ResurgenceofMultistateRegionalismKeonChi-Spectrum-July1990.pdf)
Third, although the number of interstate compacts has declined to less than 10 in
the 1980s compared to 50 in the 1960s and 20 in the 1970s, recent compacts tend
to be more regional in scope. This is evidenced in the Great Lakes Interstate Sales
Compact, Middle Atlantic Governors Compact on Alcohol and Drug Abuse,
Northeast Interstate Low-level Radioactive Waste Compact and proposed compacts
such as the Northwest compact for the Pacific Marine Resources Commission and
the Midwestern Higher Education Compact.
Fourth, states are initiating regional innovations in policy and management areas
without using the traditional form of interstate compact. These interstate regional
innovations do not require congressional approval and can be implemented more
easily. Over the years, individual states have been management and policy innovators within the American
federalism system. Today states are contemplating regional innovations as well.
The counterplan isnt an interstate compact, it doesnt require

consent
Harvard Law Review, 06 the author isnt named but the qualifications are: John
M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Business at Harvard Law School (119 Harv. L.
Rev. 1855, STATE COLLECTIVE ACTION*, April, lexis)
A less formal type of interstate collective action may look similar to the operation of
an oligopoly since states could make an implicit arrangement to adopt a certain
policy or one state could act as the leader and set certain policies knowing that
other states would follow suit. n33 Of course, informal arrangements suffer from the
same problems as all cartels, namely the difficulty of ensuring the continued
cooperation of all members. n34 However, informal arrangements have several
benefits relative to formal compacts. First, informal agreements may be less costly
to reach and may entail fewer political risks than formal compacts, perhaps as a
consequence of their lack of enforceability. n35 Second, this approach may allow
states to act on some matters that otherwise would require Congress's approval
under Compact Clause jurisprudence. Third, even when Congress's approval is
unnecessary, Congress may be less inclined to disapprove of informal agreements
because it may be less likely to focus its attention on a subject absent a formal
agreement. n36
informal state cooperation is legal and doesnt require

Congressional consent
Razook 2k, (Nim, Professor of Legal Studies, University of Oklahoma Price College
of Business, Uniform private laws, National Conference of Commissioners for
Uniform State Laws, Signaling and Federal Preemption. American Business Law
Journal, 9/22/00 http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_028628751607_ITM)
States can forge cooperative solutions to the problems arising from interstate
competition without formalizing their arrangement through a compact.
Examples include the recent efforts by several states Attorneys General
to pursue claims against the largest U.S. tobacco companies 5' and NAAG's
(National Association of Attorneys General) less recent but notable decision to
support enforcement guidelines under federal and state antitrust laws
governing vertical restraints 6' One commentator cited the latter example as
one in which interstate cooperation, rather than the coercive forces of the
national government, were capable of resolving a problem of potentially
diverse and divisive enforcement policies and the resulting race to the
bottom." Addressing the reasons why such an informal arrangement might survive
when the incentive of individual states to defect may be powerful, the author
theorized that the repeated interactions among the Attorneys General, the relatively
small number of participants and the ability of these participants unilaterally to
make significant, discretionary decisions about antitrust prosecution supported this
cooperative effort over time.'*
Administrative agreements between states dont require

Congressional consent
Corothers, 06 (Claire, 41 Ga. L. Rev. 229, UNITED WE STAND: THE INTERSTATE
COMPACT AS A TOOL FOR EFFECTING CLIMATE CHANGE, Fall, lexis)
A compact is viewed by the courts as a contract replacing preceding and conflicting state statutes. n60 Once
enacted, provisions of a compact replace state laws, thus the sovereignty of the participating states is diminished
by the terms of the agreement. n61 The supremacy of compacts over state law differentiates them from treaties,
which may exist alongside conflicting legislation. n62 A state may not unilaterally revoke or amend a compact
unless the provisions of the agreement so provide. n63 Due to the permanence of compacts, an identical bill passed
Though
there are many types of compacts, n65 for the purposes of this Note, they may
generally be grouped into three broad categories: administrative agreements,
interstate compacts not requiring congressional consent, and interstate compacts
requiring congressional consent. n66 Because administrative agreements do not
require the approval of Congress and compacts already enacted with consent do not
need it, the majority of questions arise over those compacts which do not
necessarily need, or perhaps seek to avoid, federal approval. n67
by the legislatures of all fifty states would eliminate the need for a similar congressional statute. n64
***Federalism Net Benefit***
Uniqueness: devolution now

Transportation authority is being devolved now

Policy, June, http://www.cfr.org/united-states/road-nowhere-federal-transportationinfrastructure-policy/p28419)//DH, italics in original
With or without a set of national transportation strategic priorities, more
responsibility is set to
devolve to state and local municipalities and the private sector. There is
some indication that local
municipalities are stepping up to the challenge, with the support of voters
who appear more willing
to pay for improving their own local infrastructure. Since 2000, 71 percent of
state and local transportation
ballot initiatives have passed.18 In several western citiesLos Angeles, Denver,
Phoenix,
Las Vegas, and Salt Lake Cityvoters agreed to raise their own sales tax to finance
specific local infrastructure
projects. Without using any federal funds, Chicago is embarking on an ambitious
multibilliondollar, multiyear infrastructure improvement plan, complete with an infrastructure
fund to
leverage private capital.19
AT: No link / no snowball

Expansion of federal power is a slippery slope --- each violation
key
Johnson 01
(Virginia H., JD Candidate, Cardoza Law Review, November, Lexis)
Although the Lue court agreed that the "plainly adapted" 139 standard was the appropriate test to be
applied to the Hostage Taking Act, it found that, contrary to appellant's interpretation, the Act was
"plainly adapted" to the Convention, in that "it tracks the language of the Convention in all material
respects." 140 [*380] Specifically, the court found that the Act satisfied the means-ends relationship
required by the prevailing view of the Necessary and Proper Clause because the statutory language did
not stray too far, if at all, from the terms of the treaty, thus insulating the legislation from appellant's
Necessary and Proper Clause attack. 141 Based on the judiciary's long-standing treatment of the
Necessary and Proper Clause as conferring upon Congress broad implementation powers, 142 it is not
surprising that the Lue court premised its opinion on the presumptive validity of treaty-implementing
legislation. 143 However, what this analysis fails to take into account is the slippery slope toward a limitless treaty power that could
ultimately result in the over-expansion of federal power, especially in the area of human rights. 144 The reasoning employed in
Lue therefore provides a useful example of the typical but flawed understanding of the Necessary and
Proper Clause, in that the Lue court simply assumed "necessary" and "proper" to be interchangeable
constitutional requirements. 145
Small decisions are the greatest threat to federalism
Lebow 97
(Cynthia C., Associate Dir RAND, U. Tennessee Law Review, Spring, Lexis)
n162 See Southland, 465 U.S. at 21 (O'Connor, J., dissenting) (noting Rehnquist, C.J., joining opinion of
O'Connor, J.); FERC, 456 U.S. at 775 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting
Rehnquist, C.J., joining in opinion of O'Connor, J.). Justice Powell filed his own partial dissent in FERC
that also deserves mention. FERC, 456 U.S. at 771 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Lauding the "appeal" and "wisdom" of Justice O'Connor's dissent, Powell stated that PURPA "intrusively
requires [states] to make a place on their administrative agenda for consideration and potential
adoption of federally proposed standards.'" Id. at 771, 775 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting
in part). While finding that precedents of the Court supported the constitutionality of the substantive
provisions of PURPA "on this facial attack," Powell also evoked principles of federalism to warn against
the encroachment of federal authority into state affairs: But I know of no other attempt by the Federal
Government to supplant state-prescribed procedures that in part define the nature of their
administrative agencies. If Congress may do this, presumably it has the power to pre-empt state-court
rules of civil procedure and judicial review in classes of cases found to affect commerce. This would be
the type of gradual encroachment hypothesized by Professor Tribe: "Of course, no one expects Congress to
obliterate the states, at least in one fell swoop. If there is any danger, it lies in the tyranny of small decisions in the prospect that Congress will
nibble away at state sovereignty, bit by bit, until someday essentially nothing is left but a gutted shell." Id. at 774-75 (Powell, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part) (quoting Laurence H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 302
(1978)). Despite his warning, Justice Powell could probably never have envisioned the degree to which
Congress would attempt to preempt state court procedures with respect to tort and product liability
actions, areas so traditionally anchored in state common law.
Federal and state powers are zero-sum --- they trade off
Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 2K
(Spring, Lexis)
The new term actually gives us a new perspective on the enumerated powers. No power granted to Congress think of the Commerce Clause - may be so construed as to preempt entirely the states' power over the people. I employ the
phrase "power over the people" for two reasons. First, this phrase emphasizes that the reserved
powers of the states must somehow reflect general sovereign powers, which are powers over people.
60 The "States qua States" cases preserve the states' power over some people - those who are state
employees. A state that may resist commandeering so as to retain only the power to exist in name possesses no meaningful powers.
Second, I refer to the states' power over "people" because the Court has overlooked "the people" in its
arguments over the Tenth Amendment, and "the people's" rights are also reserved. The Tenth
Amendment expresses a triangular relationship among the federal government, state governments,
and the people. Although the context for Tenth Amendment litigation has involved disputes between
states and the federal government, residual state authority also inures to the benefit of "the people." In
any contest between Congress and the [*566] states, a decision that favors expanded federal powers necessarily disfavors the states and
the people. When Justice Souter wrote in Alden that "the commerce power is no longer thought to be
circumscribed," 61 he meant, implicitly, that the people have reserved no powers over commerce or
anything affecting it.
Federalism is modeled
American federalism is modeled worldwide laundry list
proves
Steven G. Calabresi, Associate Professor, Northwestern University School of Law. A Government of Limited
and Enumerated Powers, Michigan Law Review December, 1995
The fifty years since then have seen the birth of the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), the European Union, the European Convention on Human Rights, the British Commonwealth, the
Confederation of Independent States (CIS), the GATT, the NAFTA, and countless other transnational
"federal" entities of varying degrees of importance. 24 Many of these were openly inspired by the success
story of American federalism, which, for example, led many Europeans to want to build a Common
Market that could become a "United States of Europe." While many of these new democratic
transnational entities are very weak, they nonetheless have developed important powers: they have
helped to keep the peace, and in some instances, as with the European Union, they show real potential for
some day attaining essentially all the attributes of sovereignty commonly associated with a federal nationstate, like the United States. The growth and success of transnational confederal forms since 1945 is truly
astonishing and rightly is viewed by many - either with alarm or with hope - as holding out the eventual
prospect of a future global federal government or at least the prospect of several continental-sized federal
governments. At the same time, U.S.-style constitutional federalism has become the order of the day in
an extraordinarily large number of [*760] very important countries, some of which once might have
been thought of as pure nation-states. Thus, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of Austria, the
Russian Federation, Spain, India, and Nigeria all have decentralized power by adopting constitutions
that are significantly more federalist than the ones they replaced. 25 Many other nations that had been
influenced long ago by American federalism have chosen to retain and formalize their federal
structures. Thus, the federalist constitutions of Australia, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, for
example, all are basically alive and well today. As one surveys the world in 1995, American-style
federalism of some kind or another is everywhere triumphant, while the forces of nationalism, although still
dangerous, seem to be contained or in retreat. The few remaining highly centralized democratic nation-states
like Great Britain, 26 France, and Italy all face serious secessionist or devolutionary crises. 27 Other highly
centralized nation-states, like China, also seem ripe for a federalist, as well as a democratic, change. Even
many existing federal and confederal entities seem to face serious pressure to devolve power further
than they have done so far: thus, Russia, Spain, Canada, and Belgium all have very serious devolutionary
or secessionist movements of some kind. Indeed, secessionist pressure has been so great that some federal
structures recently have collapsed under its weight, as has happened in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the
former Soviet Union.
The U.S. is a global federalist model
Mallat 03
(Chilibi, PhD U London, Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law,
Winter, Lexis)
Laurence Tribe, in Constitutional Choices, summarized what he calls the underlying political ideas of
the American system into a list of six categories: representative republicanism, federalism, separation
of powers, equality before the law, individual autonomy and procedural fairness. America has shared
many of these traits with other democracies for a long time, but two constitutional features stand out
on a world level as typically American -- federalism and the Supreme Court. The American people
deserve credit for both inventions which brought new dimensions to democracy and the rule of law for
the rest of the planet. Perhaps America does not know it, but the world has been a consistently better
place wherever her two home-grown intellectual products have found anchor.
Federalism is modeled
Steven G. Calabresi, Associate Professor, Northwestern University School of Law
Arkansas Law Review, 1995
In addition to judicial review and presidential government, the United States has also had an enormous
influence on global notions of federalism and of the value of a written constitution. Thus, it is not an
overstatement to say that the United States is perhaps the world's leading exporter of concepts of public
law.
New policies that empower the states to protect rights from

the incursions of the central government will lead to a
worldwide federalism revolution
Robert B. & Helen S. Meyner, Gov Prof and Dir. Meyner Center @ Lafayette, 1995,
Camden Rutgers L.J.
Given that it is increasingly necessary to think globally while acting locally, it is pertinent to suggest that
this American experience with the new judicial federalism, however muddled, may have useful
implications for an emerging federalist revolution worldwide. n132 This potential utility lies primarily
in the concept of independent and adequate state constitutional powers that enable constituent
governments to protect rights not available from a national government, thereby providing multiple and
potentially competing forums for citizen access. The new judicial federalism shows that rights protection
cannot be entrusted to a monopoly guardian, whether it be the national government or each constituent government acting monopolistically and
autonomously within its jurisdiction. If the American historical experience has been one of overcoming state tyrannies against individual rights, the historical experience of much of
The new judicial federalism, moreover, is

situated at a critical intersection between individual rights and local autonomy, a matter of increasing
importance and conflict in the post-Cold War era.
the rest of the world has been one of overcoming central government tyrannies against individual rights.
Federalism solves war

Federalism solves war
Calabresi 95 (Steven G., Assistant Prof Northwestern U., Michigan Law Review, Lexis)
Small state federalism is a big part of what keeps the peace in countries like the United States and Switzerland. It is a big part of the reason
why we do not have a Bosnia or a Northern Ireland or a Basque country or a Chechnya or a Corsica or a Quebec problem. 51 American
federalism in the end is not a trivial matter or a quaint historical anachronism. American-style federalism is a thriving and vital institutional
arrangement - partly planned by the Framers, partly the accident of history - and it prevents violence and war. It prevents religious warfare, it
prevents secessionist warfare, and it prevents racial warfare. It is part of the reason why democratic majoritarianism in the United States has
not produced violence or secession for 130 years, unlike the situation for example, in England, France, Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia, Cyprus, or Spain. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that is more important or that has done more to promote peace,
prosperity, and freedom than the federal structure of that great document. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that shouldabsorb more
completely the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Federalism solves multiple theaters for war and conflict

Norman Ornstein, resident scholar in social and political processes at American
Enterprise Institute, Jan-Feb 1992. The American Enterprise, v3 n1 p20(5)
No word in political theory more consistently causes eyes to glaze over than federalism. Yet no concept is
more critical to solving many major political crises in the world right now. The former Soviet Union,
Yugoslavia, Eastern and Western Europe, South Africa, Turkey, the Middle East, and Canada are suffering from problems that could be solved, if solutions are possible, by instituting creative forms of
federalism. Federalism is not a sexy concept like democracy or freedom; it describes a more mundane
mechanism that balances the need for a central and coordinating authority at the level of a nation-state
with a degree of state and local autonomy, while also protecting minority interests, preserving ethnic
and regional identification and sensibilities, and allowing as much self-government as possible. Federalism
starts with governing structures put in place by formal, constitutional arrangements, but beyond that it is a
partnership that requires trust. Trust cant be forged overnight by formal arrangements, but bad arrangements
can exacerbate hostilities and tensions. Good ones can be the basis for building trust. Why is federalism so
important now? There are political reasons: the breakup of the old world order has released resentments
and tensions that had been suppressed for decades or even centuries. Ethnic pride and self-identifica tion
are surging in many places around the globe. Add to this the easy availability of weapons, and you have a
potent mixture for discontent, instability, and violence. There are also economic considerations: simply
breaking up existing nation-states into separate entities cannot work when economies are interlinked in
complex ways. And there are humane factors, too. No provinces or territories are ethnically pure. Creating
an independent Quebec, Croatia, or Kazakhstan would be uplifting for French Quebecois, Croats, and
Kazakhs but terrifying for the large numbers of minorities who reside in these same territories. The only way
to begin to craft solutions, then, is to create structures that preserve necessary economic links while providing
economic independence, to create political autonomy while preserving freedom of movement and individual
rights, and to respect ethnic identity while protecting minority rights. Each country has unique problems that
require different kinds of federal structures, which can range from a federation that is tightly controlled at the
center to a confederation having autonomous units and a loose central authority. The United States pioneered
federalism in its Union and its Constitution. Its invention of a federation that balanced power between a
vigorous national government and its numerous states was every bit as significant an innovation as its
instituting a separation of powers was in governanceand defining the federal-state relationship was far
more difficult to work out at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The U.S. federalist structure was,
obviously, not sufficient by itself to eliminate the economic and social disparities between the North and the
South. Despite the federal guarantees built into the Constitution, the divisive questions of states rights
dominated political conflict from the beginning and resulted ultimately in the Civil War. But the federal
system did keep conflict from boiling over into disaster for 75 years, and it has enabled the United States to
keep its union together without constitutional crisis or major bloodshed for the 125 years since the
conclusion of the War Between the States. It has also enabled us to meliorate problems of regional and ethnic
discontent. The American form of federalism fits the American culture and historical experienceit is not
directly transferable to other societies. But if ever there was a time to apply the lessons that can be drawn
from the U.S. experience or to create new federal approaches, this is it. What is striking is the present number
of countries and regions where deep-seated problems could respond to a new focus on federalism.
Federalism promotes consolidation which reduces the risk of

war
Calebresi 95
[Stephen, Associate Professor, Northwestern University School of Law. B.A. 1980,
J.D. 1983, Yale, Reflections on United States v. Lopez: "A GOVERNMENT OF LIMITED
AND ENUMERATED POWERS": IN DEFENSE OF UNITED STATES v. LOPEZ, 94 Mich. L.
Rev. 752, Michigan Law Review, December, 1995]
Internationalist Federalism: Preventing War, Promoting Free Trade, and Exploiting Economies of Scale.
So far, I have focused on the advantages of American-style small-state federalism in defusing
centrifugal devolutionary tendencies, alleviating majority tyranny, and accentuating crosscutting social
cleavages. But what about the advantages of international federalism; what are the advantages of
consolidating states into larger federal entities, as happened in North America in 1787 or in Europe in
1957? A first and obvious advantage is that consolidation reduces the threat of war. Because war
usually occurs when two or more states compete for land or other resources, a reduction in the
number of states also will reduce the likelihood of war. This result is especially true if the reduction in
the number of states eliminates land boundaries between states that are hard to police, generate
friction and border disputes, and that may require large standing armies to defend. In a brilliant article,
Professor Akhil Amar has noted the importance of this point to both to the Framers of our Constitution
and to President Abraham Lincoln. n52 Professor Amar shows that they believed a Union of States was
essential in North America because otherwise the existence of land boundaries would lead here - as it
had in Europe - to the creation of standing armies and ultimately to war. n53 The Framers accepted the
old British notion that it was Britain's island situation that had kept her free of war and, importantly,
free of a standing army that could be used to oppress the liberties of the people in a way that the
British navy never could.
Federalism prevents war and violence

Calabresi 95
(Steven G., Assistant Prof Northwestern U., Michigan Law Review, Lexis)
Some of the best arguments for centripetal international federalism, then, resemble some of the best
arguments for centrifugal devolutionary federalism: in both cases - and for differing reasons - federalism
helps prevent bloodshed and war. It is no wonder, then, that we live in an age of federalism at both the
international and subnational level. Under the right circumstances, federalism can help to promote peace, prosperity,
and happiness. It can alleviate the threat of majority tyranny - which is the central flaw of democracy. In some situations, it can reduce
the visibility of dangerous social fault lines, thereby preventing bloodshed and violence. This necessarily brief comparative,
historical, and empirical survey of the world's experience with federalism amply demonstrates the
benefits at least of American-style small-state federalism. In light of this evidence, the United States
would be foolish indeed to abandon its federal system. [*774]
61
Federalism solves democracy

US leadership on federalism is essential to democracy
worldwide
David Broder, Washington Post, June 24, 2001, Lessons On Freedom.
Even more persistent were the questions about the role the United States would play, under this new
administration, in supporting democratic movements around the world . It is sobering to be reminded how often,
during the long decades of the Cold War, this country backed (and in some cases, created) undemocratic regimes, simply because we
thought military rulers and other autocrats were more reliable allies against communism. The week of the Salzburg Seminar coincided
with President Bush's first tour of Europe. He was a target of jokes and ridicule for many of the fellows as the week began. But the
coverage of his meetings and, especially, his major address in Poland on his vision of Europe's future and America's role in it, earned
him grudging respect, even though it remains uncertain how high a priority human rights and promotion of democracy will have in the
Bush foreign policy. Another great lesson for an American reporter is that the struggle to maintain the legitimacy of
representative government in the eyes of the public is a worldwide battle. Election turnouts are dropping in
almost all the established democracies, so much so that seminar participants seriously discussed the advisability of compulsory voting,
before most of them rejected it as smacking too much of authoritarian regimes. Political parties -- which most of us have regarded as
essential agents of democracy -- are in decline everywhere. They are viewed by more and more of the national publics as being tied to
special interests or locked in increasingly irrelevant or petty rivalries -- anything but effective instruments for tackling current
challenges. One large but unresolved question throughout the week: Can you organize and sustain representative government without
strong parties? The single most impressive visitor to the seminar was Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the president of Latvia, a woman of
Thatcherite determination when it comes to pressing for her country's admission to NATO, but a democrat who has gone through exile
four times in her quest for freedom. She is a member of no party, chosen unanimously by a parliament of eight parties, and bolstered by
her popular support. But how many such leaders are there? Meantime, even as democracy is tested everywhere from Venezuela to
Romania to the Philippines, a new and perhaps tougher accountability examination awaits in the supranational organizations. The
European Union has operated so far with a strong council, where each nation has a veto, and a weak parliament, with majority rule. But
with its membership seemingly certain to expand, the age-old dilemma of democracy -- majority rule vs. minority
and individual rights -- is bound to come to the fore. The principle of federalism will be vital to its
success. And, once again, the United States has important lessons to teach. But only if we can keep
democracy strong and vital in our own country.
That solves extinction.

Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, October 1995, Promoting Democracy in
the 1990s, http://www.carnegie.org//sub/pubs/deadly/dia95_01.html, accessed on 12/11/99
OTHER THREATS This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the
former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies
through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly
corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very
source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to
security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for
legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness. LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The experience of
this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to
war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic
governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do
not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another.
Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable
climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who
organize to protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal
obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own
borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on
which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built.
Federalism solves economy

Federalism is key economic consolidation which is vital for
economic growth
Calebresi 95
A third related advantage is that international federations can undertake a host of governmental
activities in which there are significant economies of scale. This is one reason why federations can
provide better for the common defense than can their constituent parts. Intercontinental ballistic
missiles, nuclear-powered aircraft [*772] carriers and submarines, and B-2 stealth bombers tend to be
expensive. Economies of scale make it cheaper for fifty states to produce one set of these items than it
would be for fifty states to try to produce fifty sets. This is true even without factoring in the North
American regional tensions that would be created if this continent had to endure the presence of fifty
nuclear minipowers, assuming that each small state could afford to own at least one Hiroshima-sized
nuclear bomb. Important governmental economies of scale obtain in other areas, as well, however,
going well beyond national defense. For example, there are important economies of scale to the
governmental provision of space programs, scientific and biomedical research programs, the creation
of transportation infrastructure, and even the running of some kinds of income and wealth
redistribution programs.
Growth is key to prevent a US-China war
Mead 04
[Walter Russell, Senior Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations, America's STICKY
Power, Foreign Policy, Mar/Apr, Proquest]
Similarly, in the last 60 years, as foreigners have acquired a greater value in the United Statesgovernment and private bonds, direct and portfolio private investments-more and more of them have
acquired an interest in maintaining the strength of the U.S.-led system. A collapse of the U.S. economy
and the ruin of the dollar would do more than dent the prosperity of the United States. Without their
best customer, countries including China and Japan would fall into depressions. The financial strength
of every country would be severely shaken should the United States collapse. Under those
circumstances, debt becomes a strength, not a weakness, and other countries fear to break with the
United States because they need its market and own its securities. Of course, pressed too far, a large
national debt can turn from a source of strength to a crippling liability, and the United States must
continue to justify other countries' faith by maintaining its long-term record of meeting its financial
obligations. But, like Samson in the temple of the Philistines, a collapsing U.S. economy would inflict
enormous, unacceptable damage on the rest of the world. That is sticky power with a vengeance. The United
States' global economic might is therefore not simply, to use Nye's formulations, hard power that compels others or soft power that
attracts the rest of the world. Certainly, the U.S. economic system provides the United States with the prosperity needed to
underwrite its security strategy, but it also encourages other countries to accept U.S. leadership. U.S. economic might is sticky
power. How will sticky power help the United States address today's challenges? One pressing need is to ensure that Iraq's econome
reconstruction integrates the nation more firmly in the global economy. Countries with open economies develop powerful tradeoriented businesses; the leaders of these businesses can promote economic policies that respect property rights, democracy, and
the rule of law. Such leaders also lobby governments to avoid the isolation that characterized Iraq and Libya under economic
sanctions. And looking beyond Iraq, the allure of access to Western capital and global markets is one of the few forces protecting the
rule of law from even further erosion in Russia. China's rise to global prominence will offer a key test case for sticky power. As China
develops economically, it should gain wealth that could support a military rivaling that of the United States; China is also gaining
political influence in the world. Some analysts in both China and the United States believe that the laws of history mean that
Chinese power will someday clash with the reigning U.S. power. Sticky power offers a way out. China benefits from participating in
the U.S. economic system and integrating itself into the global economy. Between 1970 and 2003, China's gross domestic product
grew from an estimated $106 billion to more than $1.3 trillion. By 2003, an estimated $450 billion of foreign money had flowed into
the Chinese economy. Moreover, China is becoming increasingly dependent on both imports and exports to keep its economy (and
its military machine) going . Hostilities between the United States and China would cripple China's industry,
and cut off supplies of oil and other key commodities. Sticky power works both ways, though. If China
cannot afford war with the United States, the United States will have an increasingly hard time
breaking off commercial relations with China. In an era of weapons of mass destruction, this mutual
dependence is probably good for both sides. Sticky power did not prevent World War I, but economic
interdependence runs deeper now; as a result, the "inevitable" U.S.-Chinese conflict is less likely to
occur.
Federalism solves trade

Federalism is key to establish bonds that create free trade
Calebresi 95
A fourth and vital advantage to international federations is that they can promote the free movement of goods and labor
both among the components of the federation by reducing internal transaction costs and internationally by providing a unified
front that reduces the costs of collective action when bargaining with other federations and nations. This reduces the barriers to an enormous
range of utility-maximizing transactions thereby producing an enormous increase in social wealth. Many federations have been
formed in part for this reason, including the United States, the European Union, and the British
Commonwealth, as well as all the trade-specific "federations" like the GATT and NAFTA.
Free trade is key to avert nuclear annihilation

Copley News Service 99
[Dec 1, LN]
For decades, many children in America and other countries went to bed fearing annihilation by nuclear
war. The specter of nuclear winter freezing the life out of planet Earth seemed very real. Activists
protesting the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle apparently have forgotten that threat. The
truth is that nations join together in groups like the WTO not just to further their own prosperity, but
also to forestall conflict with other nations. In a way, our planet has traded in the threat of a worldwide
nuclear war for the benefit of cooperative global economics. Some Seattle protesters clearly fancy
themselves to be in the mold of nuclear disarmament or anti-Vietnam War protesters of decades past.
But they're not. They're special-interest activists, whether the cause is environmental, labor or
paranoia about global government. Actually, most of the demonstrators in Seattle are very much
unlike yesterday's peace activists, such as Beatle John Lennon or philosopher Bertrand Russell, the
father of the nuclear disarmament movement, both of whom urged people and nations to work
together rather than strive against each other. These and other war protesters would probably approve
of 135 WTO nations sitting down peacefully to discuss economic issues that in the past might have
been settled by bullets and bombs. As long as nations are trading peacefully, and their economies are
built on exports to other countries, they have a major disincentive to wage war. That's why bringing
China, a budding superpower, into the WTO is so important. As exports to the United States and the
rest of the world feed Chinese prosperity, and that prosperity increases demand for the goods we
produce, the threat of hostility diminishes. Many anti-trade protesters in Seattle claim that only
multinational corporations benefit from global trade, and that it's the everyday wage earners who get
hurt. That's just plain wrong. First of all, it's not the military-industrial complex benefiting. It's U.S.
companies that make high-tech goods. And those companies provide a growing number of jobs for
Americans. In San Diego, many people have good jobs at Qualcomm, Solar Turbines and other
companies for whom overseas markets are essential. In Seattle, many of the 100,000 people who work
at Boeing would lose their livelihoods without world trade. Foreign trade today accounts for 30 percent
of our gross domestic product. That's a lot of jobs for everyday workers. Growing global prosperity has
helped counter the specter of nuclear winter. Nations of the world are learning to live and work
together, like the singers of anti-war songs once imagined. Those who care about world peace
shouldn't be protesting world trade. They should be celebrating it.
Federalism key to hegemony

A. US leadership is preserved by the balance of federalism
Alice Rivlin, Brookings Institution, Reviving the American Dream: The Economy, The
States, and the Federal Government, 1992.
The inexorably rising frequency and complexity of U.S. interaction with the rest of the world add to the
stress on federal decisionmaking processes and underline the need for making those processes simpler and
more effective. If the United States is to be an effective world leader, it cannot afford a cumbersome
national government overlapping responsibilities between the federal government and the states, and
confusion over which level is in charge of specific domestic government functions. As the world shrinks,
international concerns will continue threatening to crowd out domestic policy on the federal agenda.
Paradoxically, however, effective domestic policy is now more crucial than ever precisely because it is
essential to U.S. leadership in world affairs. Unless we have a strong productive economy, a healthy,
well-educated population, and a responsive democratic government, we will not be among the major
shapers of the future of this interdependent world. If the American standard of living is falling behind that
of other countries and its government structure is paralyzed, the United States will find its credibility in
world councils eroding. International considerations provide additional rationale, if more were needed, for
the United States to have a strong effective domestic policy. One answer to this paradox is to rediscover
the strengths of our federal system, the division of labor between the states and the national
government. Washington not only has too much to do, it has taken on domestic responsibilities that would
be handled better by the states. Revitalizing the economy may depend on restoring a cleaner division of
responsibility between the states and the national government.
B. Nuclear war.
Zalmay Khalilzad, RAND, The Washington Quarterly, Spring 1995
Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a
global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding
principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the
United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would
be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second,
such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as
nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S.
leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the
world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear
exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a
multipolar balance of power system.

MND I Opening Packet

Diunggah oleh

Informasi Dokumen

Judul Asli

Hak Cipta

Format Tersedia

Bagikan dokumen Ini

Bagikan atau Tanam Dokumen

Opsi Berbagi

Apakah menurut Anda dokumen ini bermanfaat?

Apakah konten ini tidak pantas?

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

MND I Opening Packet

Diunggah oleh

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

***Affirmative***

Mass transit 1ac

1ac economy advantage

This threatens US economic competitiveness and risks

Building Americas Future, 11 a bipartisan coalition of elected officials

children and grandchildren to strengthennot squander that inheritance, and to

Causes global escalatory conflicts

Burrows (counselor in the National Intelligence Council (NIC), PhD in

Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis

Substantially expanding investment in transportation

Ruane, 11 - President and CEO, American Road & Transportation Builders'

fact, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office publication references a

Infrastructure spending creates a short term stimulus

1ac oil advantage

Oil dependence escalates multiple flashpoints globally

Lendman (Research Associate of the Centre for Research on

1ac warming advantage

Plan is a credible international signal of the need to reduce

Left unchecked, warming will cause extinction

Sify 2010 Sydney newspaper citing Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, professor at

effectiveness. Funding is also subject to annual congressional appropriations.

Federal action is key to investor predictability the private

transportation needs of millions of Americans. While Congress continues to

Expanding mass transit facilitates higher density land use

Increasing land use density reduces emissions and leads to

Expanding mass transit investments solves energy

Puentes, 8 - Fellow and Director, Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative Brookings

of a three-pronged strategy to lead, empower, and maximize performance across

Federal mass transit spending decreasing

Building Americas Future, 12 a bipartisan coalition of elected officials

Mass transit limited now

Building Americas Future, 11 a bipartisan coalition of elected officials

Infrastructure declining now

US transportation infrastructure is in decline and will threaten

Strauss, 12 - associate director of Renewing America Publications at the Council on

Infrastructure investment key to the economy

Treasury Department, 12 - A REPORT PREPARED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF THE

Many studies confirm the link

The economic impact is massive

Infrastructure is key to the economy

mobility and facilitates efficiency. It enables a healthy economy to channel

Increasing transportation infrastructure investment increases

American firms rely on infrastructure to enable efficient supply chain

Infrastructure investment is key to US competitiveness

can offer a useful benchmark to assess our investment decisions. We spend

Transportation infrastructure is vital to the US economy

Transportation investment is key to jobs and economic growth

Benefits of Multi-Year Surface Transportation Legislation

benefits to the region's long term growth and productivity. A significant

Roubini (professor of economics at New York University's Stern School

No resiliency now is different

Gary Clyde Hufbauer et al (Reginald Jones Senior Fellow at the Peterson

2010 US Protectionist Impulses in the Wake of the Great Recession

necessities such as food, water, and energy, efforts to secure adequate

Interdependence makes the probability of your impacts zero

Hillebrand (Professor of Diplomacy at University of Kentucky and a

These endless boom and bust cycles and mercantilism make

Jeffrey E. Garten (Juan Trippe Professor in the Practice of International Trade,

voices are muted, some silenced. It is not easy

commerce, the damage could be severe.

The U.S. is a good example. It is inconceivable that Uncle Sam could

. As happened in the 1930s, economic nationalism

Oil dependence impacts

Affirmative