Nextgov/FCW - Authors - Amy Harder

Energy Department to Approve Billions in Nuclear Backing

Amy Harder, National Journal — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 10:22:03 -0500

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will announce Wednesday that he is giving final approval for a multibillion-dollar loan guarantee for the first nuclear reactors to be built in the U.S. in more than 30 years, according to a source familiar with the news.

The licensee for the reactors, Southern Company, received conditional approval of the $8.3 billion loan guarantee in February 2010. Once made final, the loan will help support construction of two new reactors at the company's Vogtle plant in Waynesboro, Ga.

The loan conditionally approved in 2010 was actually a set of three related loan guarantees, totaling $8.3 billion. According to another source familiar with the project, Moniz will announce Wednesday that two of the three loan guarantees are going to close on Thursday, totaling $6.5 billion. The last conditional loan guarantee, worth about $1.8 billion, is still pending.

The Energy Department did not provide a comment on the record.

Nuclear power accounts for about 20 percent of the nation's electricity and releases no carbon emissions, but the industry has faced a host of regulatory, policy, political, and economic challenges over the past few decades.

The Three Mile Island incident in 1979 largely slowed the once-promised nuclear renaissance in the country, and in 2011 the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan set back the industry globally. Politically, some environmental groups and lawmakers—mainly Democrats—don't think nuclear power should be part of a clean-energy mix given the associated risks and because Washington is no closer to answering the lingering question of where to store the nuclear waste.

Perhaps more than any of these concerns, however, cheap natural gas has made it much more economically difficult for nuclear power, with its high up-front capital costs, to compete in the electricity market.

(Image via Kris Schmidt/Shutterstock.com)

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Navy’s Use of Biofuels Could Trigger Private-Sector Adoption

Amy Harder, National Journal — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 09:55:16 -0400

The Navy's use of advanced biofuels could help spur private-sector investment, said Dennis McGinn, President Obama's newly confirmed assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, installations, and environment.

"The private-sector benefits are the military's ability to do some pretty good analysis, to manage risk, and to introduce innovative materials and innovative processes," said McGinn, who was confirmed by the Senate earlier this month before the congressional recess. "It significantly lowers the barrier of entry to new industries and new technologies."

From medical devices to space technology, the Pentagon has often been an incubator for the private sector. McGinn said he's going to work to make sure it's the same in the renewable-energy sphere, and especially for biofuels.

"It can have a catalytic effect for large consumers of transportation," said McGinn, who stepped down recently from his post as president of the American Council on Renewable Energy when the Obama administration courted him for this position.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, the Pentagon's de facto advocate for the military's adoption of renewable energy over oil, has set a goal of getting half of the Navy's fuel from alternative sources by 2020 and sailing a "Green Fleet" that runs on nuclear power and biofuels.

McGinn, a retired vice admiral of 35 years, said he hopes to take the debate over this program, which Republicans have criticized for its cost as the Pentagon faces budget cuts, beyond sound bites.

"There have been a lot of sound bites attributed to various folks on both sides of the Defense Department's biofuels program," McGinn said. "I'm hoping to take it beyond that to really some objective cost-benefit risk analysis."

He said when doing that for the biofuels program, the cost will be competitive.

"The Navy is on record saying that there are contracts out there to produce biofuels that are cost-competitive with petroleum, and that is going to be the big task that I'll be working on with the team," McGinn said.

Although Obama has focused on his climate-change agenda lately—he's vowed to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions via executive action—McGinn said the driving force behind the Navy's greening effort is not climate change but military strategy.

"Ultimately, it's to increase military effectiveness, combat effectiveness, and operational efficiency of military forces," McGinn said. "It's all about the mission. The other benefits, whether it's related to climate or what have you, are added benefits."

After McGinn's departure from ACORE, the renewable-energy group named board member Michael Brower as acting CEO. "The only downside of this change is I have to leave ACORE," McGinn said with a laugh.

Brower said in an interview that he hopes the search committee for a new CEO, which he is leading, will find someone by year's end.

"I'd hope this would be a great Christmas present to ACORE," Brower said. "There are some really great people who are interested. We are very proud and honored that they have expressed an interest."

He declined to say who has surfaced as a candidate thus far.

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What you need to know about EPA's carbon rules

Amy Harder, National Journal — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 11:20:57 -0500

Congress has voted on the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules controlling greenhouse gas emissions around 10 times over the past few years, and next year the agency is wading into the most controversial parts of the rulemaking.

The politically charged debates conflate facts and myths, and important points with superfluous ones. This primer clears all of that up. Here are the five things you need to know.

1. EPA is Washington’s least-favorite option to address global warming.

EPA regulations were supposed to be the stick to prod lawmakers to enact comprehensive climate-change legislation, such as the cap-and-trade bill the House narrowly passed in 2009. Similar efforts in the Senate collapsed in 2010 and all that was left on the table was the stick of EPA, which in reality turned out to be a polarizing lightning bolt in Congress.

“In 2009, many of my members supported some type of legislation covering greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Christopher Guith, vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy. “However, no two industries, and no more than a handful of companies, could agree on an exact approach or language that they could support. The only durable consensus was they didn’t want EPA unilaterally regulating greenhouse-gas emissions.”

Many environmentalists who were instrumental in crafting the cap-and-trade bills in 2009 and 2010 agree.

“Sure, crafting a law that put together a consensus of legislators would have been my preferred outcome,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, in a recent interview. “In the current situation, lacking consensus in Congress, the Supreme Court has said that EPA has not only the authority but really the responsibility to move forward.”

It’s illustrative of Capitol Hill’s ability to do nothing. And it's also ironic that Washington finds itself left fighting over what everyone could agree they didn’t want after politics soured the better (or less bad) options.

2. The rules are coming because of a suite of court rulings and scientific findings, not because Obama is trying to secretly enact a backdoor cap-and-trade system.

A complicated and politically fraught trail of administrative actions both in the George W. Bush administration and in President Obama’s first four years, along with a web of legal decisions, have compelled EPA to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

A 2007 Supreme Court decision found that greenhouse gases fit into the broad definition of a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, which gave EPA the authority (but not the obligation) to regulate these emissions.

A 2009 “endangerment finding” by Obama’s EPA found that greenhouse-gas emissions endanger the public health and welfare, and thus now EPA had the obligation to regulate the emissions under the Clean Air Act. A D.C. Circuit ruling in June upheld EPA’s authority to regulate these emissions, and subsequent challenges to that decision have not succeeded, including one effort that failed last week.

Some Republicans argue that Obama is forcing these rules when he has the power not to and that he is secretly trying to impose a backdoor cap-and-trade system to combat global warming after congressional efforts to do so failed. Obama and top officials at EPA argue that science is compelling the regulations, not an overzealous regulatory regime or a secret climate agenda.

This argument might still be politically potent, but it’s substantively moot since Obama won reelection and the reality is these rules are coming whether you like them or not. Even when and if a Republican wins the White House, court rulings have backed up EPA to a point where Congress would have to change the Clean Air Act—a herculean task by any measure—before these rules are stopped.

EPA might try to ultimately implement some form of cap-and-trade under the Clean Air Act because that offers industry more flexibility in complying with the rule compared to a command-and-control system. This would be good for industry but bad for politicians.

3. EPA’s greenhouse-gas regulations are a package of several different rules.

Here’s what EPA has done so far: In 2009, the agency promulgated rules controlling greenhouse-gas emissions from cars in 2009; in Jan. 2011, EPA started requiring companies operating major sources of greenhouse-gas emissions, like power plants and oil refineries, to apply for a permit to emit those gases; and in March 2012, EPA proposed draft standards limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from new (but not existing) power plants.

The list of what EPA has not done is longer and will be more difficult to accomplish, both substantively and politically. EPA has not yet finalized the regulations for new power plants; it’s expected to do so in the first part of next year. A much bigger lift: proposing rules to control greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants. A timeline for these rules is highly uncertain. Sources close to the agency don’t expect action on this for another year or more, but environmental groups and states will keep the legal pressure on EPA to follow through.

Meanwhile, EPA has not yet proposed draft standards limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from either new or existing oil and natural gas refineries. A timeline for both sets of these rules are also uncertain.

4. They’re not actually designed to reduce overall greenhouse-gas emissions.

If that statement seems counterintuitive to you, that’s because it is. Technically these regulations, which EPA is promulgating under the Clean Air Act, are designed to control greenhouse-gas emissions, not reduce them. “We do not in fact have any overall projection of what kind of greenhouse-gas emissions will be avoided as a result of this,” Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said on a conference call way back in Nov. 2010 when EPA was a couple months away from implementing the first part of the regulations. “GHG permitting is not a process for reducing overall GHG emissions.”

In fact, global greenhouse-gas emissions rose 3.2 percent last year despite U.S. carbon emissions being at a 20-year low, thanks in part to increased natural gas that’s offsetting coal (the former burns 50 percent less carbon emissions than the latter). This worldwide rise is due in large part to the developing economies of China and India building hundreds of new coal plants and racing to get their people out of poverty.

5. The political fight over EPA will wear on.

Expect Congress to keep fighting over what to do with EPA’s rules for the indefinite future. Republicans might employ the Congressional Review Act to try to nullify any and all parts of these regulations, but those efforts will probably not succeed (just like the GOP’s CRA efforts on other EPA rules didn’t succeed). Nonetheless, these fights will be particularly potent between now and 2014, when a full third of the Senate is up for reelection and political messaging will be turned up.

In another ironic twist, the Obama administration might try again to use EPA as a stick to prod Congress to act when the agency gets ready to move forward on the rules affecting existing power plants. The threat of those rules might hang more heavily over Congress because their potential impact on the economy will be far greater than the rules affecting only new power plants.

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Utilities and generators are powerless against Sandy

Amy Harder and Olga Belogolova, National Journal — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:51:40 -0400

Major storms like Hurricane Sandy reveal one of the biggest public-perception gaps with energy: You don’t notice it until it’s gone.

Over the next few days, millions of people living along the Eastern Seaboard stretching from the Carolinas to Canada are expected to find out the hard way just how much they rely on a steady supply of electricity.

“The public should anticipate that there’s going to be a lot of power outages,” President Obama said on Monday. “And it may take time for that power to get back on.”

Obama’s comments echo what the Edison Electric Institute, the country’s biggest electric utility trade group, warned in a statement on Sunday. “We strongly urge customers to prepare for the possibility of extended outages due to the enormity of Hurricane Sandy, which forecasters predict may be the worst storm to hit the Northeast in 100 years,” Brian Wolff, EEI’s senior vice president, said in a statement.

As of Monday morning, fewer than 40,000 households throughout the affected areas, including at least seven Northeastern states, were without power, according to the Energy Department. But that number is expected to multiply rapidly as Sandy spreads over the nation’s most populous regions, including New York City.

The utility industry has had plenty of practice for this week’s superstorm. At the end of June, a fast-moving “derecho” storm knocked out power for 4.3 million customers in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, and in the summer of 2011, Hurricane Irene blacked out 6 million homes and businesses in the East. In an ominous sign of things to come, Sandy is already considered much worse—and much bigger—than Irene.

After Irene, between 30,000 and 50,000 utility line workers were involved in the cleanup and power-restoration effort, according to EEI President Tom Kuhn. Utilities must strike a delicate balance between ensuring they have the resources to respond adequately to major storms like Sandy while also keeping electricity rates low.

“It is not realistic for customers to expect perfect service during significant weather events when they also want their rates kept low,” said Christine Tezak, a senior analyst at the Washington-based ClearView Energy Partners.

Sandy is raising concerns about more than a dozen nuclear power plants that are in its projected path. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is taking precautions by sending additional inspectors to sites likely to be impacted by the hurricane in order to supplement the full-time personnel already there.

Plants in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut are receiving “enhanced oversight during the storm,” according to the agency.

Reactors are required to shut down in advance of any projected hurricane-force winds.As plants rely on power from the grid for normal operations, if off-site power is lost during the storm, the plants’ emergency diesel generators are expected to kick in. The NRC insists that “all plants have flood protection above the predicted storm surge and key components and systems are housed in watertight buildings capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds and flooding.”

After the storm, the plants cannot restart until the Federal Emergency Management Agency gives them an all-clear, according to emergency procedures and regulations.

“All U.S. plants have been reviewing their emergency procedures and resources in line with one of our orders from March, which requires the plants to obtain enough emergency portable equipment to cover every reactor at a given site,” NRC spokesman Scott Burnell told National Journal on Monday. “At this point, the plants’ existing permanent backup equipment is ready to respond to any storm-related issues.”

Much of the focus of energy infrastructure has been on traditional electricity sources, but wind turbines, some of which are as tall as the Statue of Liberty (more than 300 feet), are also at risk of hurricane-force winds.

“Wind turbines are designed specifically to harness the wind, but they are also designed to withstand it,” said Ellen Carey, spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association. “Modern wind turbines utilize several techniques to reduce the likelihood of harm.”

Most wind turbines are built to withstand wind speeds of 120 to 135 miles per hour, Carey added. Sandy is expected to carry wind speeds up to 90 mph.

It’s not just electricity that’s at risk of Sandy’s wrath. Several oil refineries along the East Coast are planning to shut down or have already done so. The impact on gasoline prices and other refined oil products like diesel, heating fuel, and jet fuel depends on the severity of the storm.

“If there is any damage to those refineries as a result of flooding or wind damage and those refineries are not able to resume production relatively quickly, within a week, there is some potential for price spikes in gasoline, diesel, and heating fuel,” said Alfred Luaces, senior director of global petroleum markets’ research and analysis division at the consulting firm HIS, in a phone interview on Monday.

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Cops, cameras and copters keep eyes on Charlotte

Amy Harder, National Journal — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:59:05 -0400

Watch out, convention-goers, because most of the time you’re going to be watched.

To ensure the Democratic National Convention is as safe an event as possible, local and federal security forces are employing 4,000 police officers, 500 cameras, and two helicopters.

The Charlotte police force, about 1,700 officers strong, is beefing up its presence by bringing in 2,300 reinforcements from across the country, including Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Denver, the Democrats’ host city in 2008.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Rodney Monroe describes the convention as a “monstrous event,” one that he has been planning since the day after the Democratic National Committee selected Charlotte as its convention site in January 2011.

Of the 4,000 police officers, 1,500 will be patrolling protests and marches, and at least 250 will be riding around on bikes. The sole job of 20 people will be to sit in a room and continuously monitor the 500 cameras, the bulk of which will be installed in uptown Charlotte, where most of the convention events will occur.

The city was awarded a $50 million federal grant for security purposes, which Monroe said was mostly spent on advanced technology, including a live video feed in both helicopters.

If gunshots are fired, police will be poised to use new technology called “shot spotter” that can identify what kind of gun was used, when it was fired, and where the shot originated. Sensors will be placed on uptown buildings, Monroe said at a recent briefing about security plans for the convention.

Both the Democratic and Republican conventions are designated “National Special Security Events,” which means the Secret Service, FBI, and other top-level federal security teams will coordinate with local forces.

Only a handful of other events are designated as such, including presidential inaugurations and major economic summits. President Obama’s presence at the convention on Thursday to accept his party’s nomination will add a layer of security that the Republican National Convention did not have. “That brings a whole new set of road closures and checkpoints and everything else,” Monroe said.

The biggest protest of the week may already be over. The March on Wall Street South, a loose coalition of groups and individuals decrying economic inequality, protested throughout Charlotte on Sunday. Monroe said before the march that between 5,000 to 15,000 protesters were expected. Early estimates had turnout at almost 1,000.

Overall, police are expecting more than 35,000 people at the convention, including delegates, media, and protesters.

More than 1,000 other convention-related events are scheduled throughout the week, and police are dispatching at least 60 officers at each of those events, depending on their size. “You can best believe that each person thinks their event is just as important as the next event,” Monroe said.

Protesters seeking to either demonstrate or march will be confined to certain areas. The so-called speakers platform is several blocks away from the Time Warner Cable Arena, which has led some protesters to complain that their activities, although they will be allowed to take place, probably won’t be heard by anyone integral to the nomination process, such as the delegates. The designated march route will also be several blocks away from all the official convention action.

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Solyndra: 'Bad bet or the tip of the iceberg?'

Amy Harder — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400

As Washington policymakers point fingers over the failure of a single federally backed solar company, the entire renewable-energy industry could end up being the big loser.

A House investigations subcommittee on Wednesday held the first of what will be at least two congressional hearings on the $535 million federal loan guarantee the Energy Department green-lighted in September 2009 for California-based Solyndra. The company's top executives are expected to testify before the same panel on Sept. 23. Solyndra, which President Obama once portrayed as a prototype of renewable energy's potential, is now spiraling into bankruptcy and facing an FBI probe.

Top officials from the Energy Department's loan guarantee program and the White House Office of Management and Budget testified Wednesday, noting that the loan process for Solyndra dated back to the George W. Bush administration. They also argued that a single failing company is not emblematic of the value of government loan guarantees to other renewable energy firms.

The White House echoed that testimony. "As the Department of Energy has made clear, they have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies helped would succeed, but we can't stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America's leadership in the global economy," said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. "While we are disappointed by this particular outcome, we continue to believe the clean energy jobs race is one that America can, must and will win."

But the optics alone surrounding Solyndra, including the congressional hearings and questions about the White House handling of the case, could further depress a renewable energy industry already enjoying only limited support in Congress.

"Is Solyndra one bad bet or the tip of the iceberg?" asked House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.

In 2009, Solyndra was the first company to receive a federal clean-energy loan guarantee as part of the stimulus package.%C2%A0 The Fremont, Calif.-based maker of solar photovoltaic systems then received photo-op visits from Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, all touting the job-generating potential of solar and other renewable energy industries.

But on Aug. 31, Solyndra shuttered operations, laying off its 1,100 workers while seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Most clean energy experts and investors say Solyndra's demise was an anomaly, not indicative of the health of other renewable energy companies. Solyndra sold an unusual type of solar panel that ultimately did not succeed in the global markets.

But Solyndra's impact in Washington could be another story.

"It could have a very significant adverse implication as it relates to the continuation of federal financing for clean energy," said Michael Schwartz, CEO of New Wave Energy Capital Partners, an energy investment and strategic advisory firm. "This bankruptcy will be used by the opponents to justify not supporting any new federal financing for clean energy."

House Republicans have already passed legislation axing most of the federal government's support for renewable energy, and the Solyndra saga will only strengthen Republican hands. In addition, Energy Department funds for renewable energy loan guarantees expire at the end of this month.

One of the GOP's few vocal supporters of clean energy, Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., lamented Solyndra's failing in Wednesday's hearing. He said the government needs to be more careful in vetting loan guarantees, but should not use Solyndra's bankruptcy as a reason to end support for renewable energy. "It needs to be driven by science and a good investment, not by the assumption that whatever is renewable is going to be great," he said.

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Energy Department budget holds major cuts

Amy Harder — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0500

President Obama's proposed 2012 budget for the Energy Department slashes spending for hydrogen and fossil fuel research programs by almost 50 percent and shutters parts of two national labs, according to a fact sheet on the department's budget obtained by National Journal.

"Fiscal responsibility demands shared sacrifice - it means cutting programs we would not cut in better fiscal times," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in an e-mail sent out today to all Energy staff, labs, and sites.

As Obama called for in his State of the Union address, Energy's budget eliminates $3.6 billion worth of oil and gas subsidies. It also repeals coal subsidies, which the president did not mention in his speech last month. Obama has made such cuts in his past two budget proposals, but they never got Congress's approval.%C2%A0%C2%A0And he isn't expected to get it this time either,%C2%A0given that he's dealing with a GOP-controlled House and a more conservative Senate than the one in the last Congress.

The budget will also include more than $8 billion for research, development and deployment investments in clean energy technology programs, as Obama previewed in his address.

The budget cuts the hydrogen technology program within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy by more than 41 percent, or almost $70 million, "in order to focus on technologies at large scale in the near term," the e-mail says. The administration has been trying to cut this budget for years. Retired Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., had always put the money back in because a prominent university in North Dakota has a hydrogen research lab. But given Dorgan retired last year, that won't be an issue this time.

The Office of Fossil Energy's budget is cut by 45 percent, or $418 million. "This includes zeroing out the Fuels Program, the Fuel Cells Program, the Oil and Gas Research and Development Program, and the Unconventional Fossil Technology Program," the e-mail states. The administration's past two budgets have also slashed funding for fossil fuels.

The Tevatron facility at Fermi National Laboratory in Illinois and Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee would be closed if this plan is enacted. This would save the administration $35 million and $10 million, respectively. DOE announced in January that it would end operation of the facility in Tennessee.%C2%A0

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Cyber threat bill clears Senate panel

Amy Harder — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

A Senate committee on Thursday approved legislation that gives the Energy secretary power to issue emergency orders for imminent cybersecurity threats to the electric grid.

The Energy and Natural Resources Committee was initially considering a similar measure that passed the House in June. Sponsored by Global Warming Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., that bill grants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission -- not the Energy secretary -- the authority to issue emergency orders to protect the power grid if the president declares an imminent cybersecurity threat. The Senate's measure gives authority to FERC for risks that are not as imminent.

The point behind designating power to a single person rather than an agency like FERC is to help ensure a more rapid response.

he measure approved today is actually the cybersecurity title from a sweeping energy bill the Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved last year. The panel swapped the House language for the Senate's language with hopes it would have a better chance of passing the upper chamber.

"Both the House and the Senate developed thoughtful, and needed, cyber bills which address many of the same issues," said Bill Wicker, spokesman for Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. "We think that the Senate's version is more likely to move more quickly on this side of the Capitol. And that is our main objective -- to have Congress act quickly on this critically important issue."

Moderate members from both parties doubt though that the Senate has the political will to pass such a bill.

"I don't see many things that can get bipartisan support yet this year," Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said today.

While noting that cybersecurity is a serious issue that deserves consideration, Nelson said that "what seems to be driving most of the policy decisions over here is the outcome of this next election."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., predicted no big measures will pass before November, noting that cybersecurity is a national security issue and thus qualifies.

The cybersecurity measure was one of 17 bills the energy committee approved today without a single Republican present. The GOP members wanted the panel to postpone the markup until after the August recess. Noting the dwindling legislative calendar, the majority decided to move forward now, Wicker said.

While taking issue with the procedural side of the markup and some of the other energy bills that passed today, Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, does not have any objections to the cybersecurity measure, her spokesman said.

Of the 17 bills approved today, six deal with energy and 11 with public lands. The energy bills include those that incentivize electric vehicle technology and solar energy, and one that creates a Supply Star program within the Energy Department. The program would incentivize the use of efficient supply chains by companies.

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Clinton State Department looks to boost online presence

Amy Harder — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500

While face-to-face diplomacy will always be a mainstay at the State Department, the increasing ubiquity of the Internet is pushing the agency to follow its audience online. In a handful of recent online efforts, the department has began to explore the opportunities and limitations of its newest medium of engagement.

"There is no doubt in my mind that we've barely scratched the surface as to what we can use to communicate with people around the world," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at a Feb. 4 meeting with agency staffers in Washington. Clinton went on to acknowledge that the government "is behind nearly everybody, except in certain discrete areas, in terms of technology. And we are, in my view, wasting time, wasting money, wasting opportunities, because we are not prepared to communicate effectively with what is out there in the business world and the private world."

Last month, then-Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy James K. Glassman ventured into the virtual world Second Life to debate eight Egyptian bloggers. To be technically correct, it was the avatars -- online representations -- of Glassman and the bloggers that debated each other. Two hundred people participated in the discussion, 45 percent of them from the Middle East.

The U.S. Institute of Peace recently used Twitter for the first time at a conference on media and diplomacy, enabling nearly 40 "Twitterers" from places like India, Morocco and Egypt to participate. And in October, the State Department launched ExchangesConnect, one of the first federal social networking sites.

These examples illustrate a point Glassman conveyed at the U.S.I.P. conference, held Feb. 3 at the Newseum in Washington. "We would like to see the government as a facilitator and convener," Glassman said. "We think it's more effective than using a megaphone or preaching at people. What we want to do is encourage a conversation in which we are part."

The government has a long history of relying on one-way communication tools such as print or radio to shape debate within other countries. But the Internet has opened a forum where people expect to have their voices heard and where public diplomacy efforts require engagement and debate rather than simply broadcasting.

Kathy Bushkin Calvin, executive vice president of the United Nations Foundation, sees the Internet as particularly resistant to heavy-handed PR campaigns. "New media and the Internet are the ultimate bullshit detectors," she said. "You know going into that media you can't just do PR, it's not a vehicle of PR."

But, of course, the Web is hardly immune to propaganda, as was demonstrated during the Israeli invasion of Gaza last December, when supporters of both sides brought the conflict online by hacking and creating Web sites like Help Us Win. Nor is it always going to be used in ways that are hospitable to U.S. policy -- witness the reliance of al-Qaida and other terrorist networks on the Internet for recruitment and communication.

That may be why Jeremy Curtin, coordinator of the State's Bureau of International Information Programs (which runs America.gov, among other new media public diplomacy efforts), adds a caveat to Glassman's notion of encouraging conversation. The State Department has a vested interest, Curtin said, in "trying to help lead the conversation in ways that are constructive," emphasizing that part of the department's mission is to advocate U.S. policies.

In her remarks on Feb. 4, Clinton said the government should turn to new technologies as "tools... to further our own work." But she has yet to appoint a successor to Glassman, out of whose office came two of the department's most recent -- and ambitious -- public diplomacy efforts: ExchangesConnect and the Alliance of Youth Movement, an online campaign Glassman says is geared toward empowering young people to "rise up against the kind of violent extremism represented by al-Qaida and the FARC," a Colombian guerrilla organization.

The Alliance, modeled on "One million voices against FARC," a Facebook group started by young Colombians, offers a glimpse into the future of government engagement online, according to both Glassman and Calvin. Part of that means partnering with private organizations -- the Alliance includes Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV and Howcast.

"To some degree, the answer for the government's role online is dexterity and willingness to foster work of NGOs and be prepared constantly in the changing media environment," said Calvin. She stressed, though, that in order for government not to appear biased in favor of any single private company, it must act as an "alliance-builder" rather than relying on one-to-one partnerships.

For all its efforts, however, there is more the government could be doing. Josh Fouts of the consulting firm Dancing Ink Productions (which helped facilitate the Second Life discussion featuring Glassman), said that the State Department "has been very cautious in regard to using new technology." He emphasized how "critically important" it is for Glassman's successor not to restrict engagement with the world to those outlets set up and controlled by government. "If public diplomacy officers are not in the mix of [online conversation], then they're basically out of the game," Fouts said.

State's digital outreach team -- federal officials who log on to discussion forums in Arabic, Persian and Urdu to discuss U.S. foreign policy -- has only a dozen people. Glassman recalled a former Defense Department official commenting that if such a program had been in the DOD, that number would have been 800.

Curtin acknowledged a general shortcoming of funding and expertise, saying there is "room for exponential growth" in some areas of the department's online diplomacy efforts. For the 2009 budget, Curtin said he has requested funding to hire more people to continue revamping America.gov, which was launched a year ago and has been adding a slew of interactive and multimedia components such as Web chats and videos. It's also published in six languages other than English -- something else Curtin hopes to expand.

Curtin said that "signs are there that Secretary Clinton will lead us in a direction to use technology to advance our communication mission."

Money isn't the only challenge, though, and Curtin said that the hurdles the federal government must overcome are uniquely difficult compared to those private companies face when adopting online tools. Issues of privacy, security (which Clinton mentioned as a concern at the Department meeting last week) and accountability arise. "It's a real challenge for any large organization to act with the nimbleness and the informality of voice that is necessary for the Web 2.0 world," Curtin said.

"Government has always been driven by an effort to control information, but to be part of this conversation inherent in Internet culture is to let go of control of information and roll with it," Fouts said. "That's very challenging to the culture of government. Bureaucracy abhors that."

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Panelists push Web-savvy, open government

Amy Harder — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Fast-forward 10 or 20 years and you might see a Congress that passes "wikied" legislation created by millions of Americans, a president who submits a daily diary via video, and a vast online repository of all the Freedom of Information Act requests ever submitted.

Rewind back to today, and you'll see a handful of innovative tech experts discussing these ideas at Google's Washington headquarters. During a panel discussion today, a packed room listened to Internet-savvy people within Congress, from the presidential campaign and third parties weigh in on how President-elect Obama should use the Web to promote open government.

The discussion centered on the ways Obama's transition Web site, change.gov, has used the Internet to encourage participation and transparency. But Meredith Fuchs, general counsel for the National Security Archive, said that while the Obama team's efforts to allow commenting on its site is a good start, the administration will need to do more. Making federal information more readily available online would be a huge improvement, she said, over past standards of transparency.

Chris Barkley, an aide to Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., acknowledged that the government is not that efficient at "packaging information," but that lawmakers can, at the very least, be good at making that information available. Coburn helped pass, along with then-Sen. Obama, the "Google for government" legislation in September 2006, which mandated the creation of a search engine and database that tracks federal spending. Peering over at the moderator, Google government affairs director Andrew McLaughlin, Barkley quipped that his presence on the panel meant the company didn't mind the senators using its name to promote the bill.

Concerns were raised both in the audience and among the panelists about "white noise" -- that participatory government conducted via the Internet could ultimately create a scenario where no opinion is effectively conveyed because so many voices are clamoring to be heard.

But while these concerns remained unanswered, Barkley stressed the importance of experimenting with the Web, considering the myriad different possibilities it presents for democratic engagement. The government should, in the short term, "throw as much as we can against the wall," and look to "folks on the outside" -- third-party groups that focus on government transparency -- to "package it," he said.

Fuchs argued that any effort to increase government transparency would be a positive step forward, but that this would be a formidable challenge. "The main obstacle is the mess that is being left behind not just by the outgoing administration, but all past administrations," she said.

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