TTR is back yet again. This week we've got the latest reports on the public opinion surrounding environmental issues, the challenges of regulating the oil industry, the need for service industry unions and the potential for a strategic reset of the U.S. relationship with Cuba. Check it out:
- Public eco-attitudes. [PDF] Just in time for Earth Day, the American Enterprise Institute has compiled 59 pages of of poll data dating back to the 1970s that tracks public perception of the government's handling of environmental issues. Many surveys found high levels of concern for green issues and a general consensus that global warming is human-caused and needs to be addressed, yet the environment has still scarcely ranked higher than the single digits on voters' priority lists. Some discouraging results: many polls included in the conservative think tank's analysis found a plurality of the public approving of the way George W. Bush handled the environment for most of his presidency, and as recently as three months ago, only 30 percent of those queried thought dealing with global warming should be a top priority. -- MK
- No such thing as a free ... drill? Government agencies are perfectly willing to admit that oil and gas drilling is a source of air pollution and toxic wastewater, but they haven't been willing to enact stricter regulations. Oil and gas drilling has skyrocketed over the past 8 years, with nearly 120,000 new wells in operation -- almost half of the total number of wells created since 1980. Ninety-nine percent of these new drilling operations are in six Western states whose water supply is already threatened by drought and over-usage. The chemicals injected into the ground during drilling have been cited by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as dangerous contaminants, yet oil and gas companies still enjoy obscene exemptions under federal law. The Environmental Working Group hopes that new Interior Secretary Salazar will act swiftly with congress to limit hazardous drilling and protect the pristine lands of the American West. -- JL
- Service-sector employees need the (union) love too. [PDF] Although unions are generally associated with the manufacturing sector, the de-industrialization of America has marginalized those jobs over the last few decades; today, the service sector makes up three-fourths of all U.S. jobs. But service unions are generally not as powerful as their manufacturing forebears were during labor's heyday, largely due to rigid labor laws and vehemently anti-union employers. This is unfortunate, as a new study by The Center for Economic and Policy Research shows, because service employees benefit greatly from unionization, making $2.00 an hour more than their non-union counterparts. In addition they are also 19 percent more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, 25 percent more likely to have an employer-provided pension. -- JB
- Hell freezing over? To coincide with last weekend's Summit of the Americas, Brookings produced a paper on U.S. policy towards Cuba, the only Latin American country not invited to the summit. Among many other necessary short- and long-term steps that the report suggests, the U.S. should unilaterally delimit tradeable medicines, the exchange of art, cinema, and music, the donation and sale of communications equipment; and the transfer of funds for human rights activities. Freeing up travel and remittance restrictions, which the administration did last week, made the top of the list. Brookings also anticipated what ALBA (the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, a group of the region's most Left governments) insisted over the weekend in Port of Spain: "Do not object to Cuba's reinstatement to the Organization of American States if the General Assembly consents." Will we see thawing relations between the U.S. and Cuba? One can only hope we don't trip over our history trying to get there -- the key players' intentions are set for progress. The prospect of improved U.S.-Cuba relations becomes even more coveted when you consider, as the report reminds, that U.S. relations with Cuba are a bellwether for U.S. relations with the rest of the region. -- CP
-- TAP Staff
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