Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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1 ext. Haas 07 that our solvency checks any risk of international conflict
through increasing US heg
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B. India won’t contain China, it wants strategic independence and
good Chinese relations
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4 And India Deal Good for several reasons
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A. The India deal is key to reinvigorating US/Indian relations
make here is by helping to change India's entitative status from that of a target under
U.S. non-proliferation laws to that of a full partner. The Administration's civilian nuclear
agreement with India is directed fundamentally towards this objective. To be sure, it will produce
important and tangible non-proliferation gains for the United States an argument I have elaborated in Attachment A to this testimony just as it will
at a grand strategic level, it is intended to do much
bestow energy and environmental benefits on India. But,
more: given the lessons learned from over fifty years of alternating engagement and
opposition, the civil nuclear cooperation agreement is intended to convey in one fell
swoop the abiding American interest in crafting a full and productive partnership with
India to advance our common goals in this new century. As Undersecretary of State Burns phrased it in his recent
testimony, "our ongoing diplomatic efforts to conclude a civilian nuclear cooperation
agreement are not simply exercises in bargaining and tough-minded negotiation; they
represent a broad confidence-building effort grounded in a political commitment from the
highest levels of our two governments."
NYT, 6/10/02
Military cooperation between India and the United States has remarkably
quickened since Sept. 11, with a burst of navy, air force and army joint exercises,
the revival of American military sales to India and a blur of high-level
visits by generals and admirals. The fledgling relationship between American and
Indian military leaders will be important to Mr. Rumsfeld in talks intended to put to
rest fears of war between India and Pakistan. "We can hope this translates into some influence
and trust, though I don't want to overstate it," a senior American defense official said in an interview on Thursday. "I don't want to
predict this guarantees success." The American diplomatic efforts yielded their first real gains on Saturday when India welcomed a
pledge by Pakistan's military ruler to stop permanently the infiltration of militants into Kashmir. India indicated that it would soon take
steps to reduce tensions, but a million troops are still fully mobilized along the border -- a situation likely to persist for months -- and
the process of resolving the crisis has just begun. India has linked the killing of civilians in Kashmir to a Pakistan-backed insurgency
India itself
there and has presented its confrontation with Pakistan as part of the global campaign against terrorism.
made an unstinting offer of support to the United States after Sept. 11, and
Washington responded by ending the sanctions placed on India after its 1998 nuclear tests. With that, the estrangement that prevailed between the world's two largest
democracies during the cold war, when India drew close to the Soviet Union and the United States allied with Pakistan, has eased. India, for decades a champion of nonalignment,
seeks warmer ties with the United States in hopes of gaining access to sophisticated military technology and help in dealing with Pakistan. From the start of President Bush's term,
some influential officials in his administration saw India as a potential counterweight to that other Asian behemoth, China, whose growing power was seen as a potential strategic
political ties with India will give it some measure of leverage to prevent a
war between India and Pakistan that could lead to a nuclear holocaust and
would play havoc with the hunt for Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
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B. NUCLEAR COOPERATION KEY TO DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AND RESOLVING
INDIA-PAKISTAN CONFLICTS
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C. US-INDIA NUCLEAR COOPERATION IS KEY TO ALL US NON-PROLIFERATION
EFFORTS
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2AC INDIA DEAL LINK-TURN SCENARIO
4 They’re non-unique : Bush will be able to pass the India deal in the Status Quo:
Economic Times, “US plays 'time running out' tune again,” 7/9 2008
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/US_plays_
time_running_out_tune_again/articleshow/3212777.cms
The statement clearly shows that the US would like India to move fast to get the approval of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors so that the Bush administration can push for a NSG waiver before
September. The aim is to get the nuclear deal to the US Congress before it goes into a recess in September ahead
of the US presidential elections. With this deadline in mind, India had quietly approached the IAEA which has called a
meeting of the board of governors on July 28 to approve the safeguards agreement.
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A deal is possible – Bush can use fears that India will get nuclear supplies from other sources to persuade
Congress
Glenn Kessler. “Congress May Not Pass U.S.-India Nuclear Pact: New Delhi
Could Turn to Other
Nations,”WashingtonPost7/9,2008,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/07/08/AR2008070801523.html?hpid=sec-politics
Now, with the near impossibility of congressional passage by year-end, officials and experts have begun to focus on
the possibility that other countries -- such as France and Russia -- would rush in to make nuclear sales to India
while U.S. companies still face legal restrictions. "India doesn't need the U.S. deal at all" once the NSG grants
approval, said Sharon Squassoni, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It was a fatal
flaw in the logic of the U.S. Congress." A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he
was discussing congressional strategy, agreed. "I don't believe there is anything to prevent them from doing that, if we
don't ratify it," he said, noting the irony of the United States not profiting from a deal it set in motion. But he suggested
the administration would use that awkward situation to pressure Congress not to thwart potential business
opportunities for American companies. "It is the hidden force of this agreement," the official said. "It is U.S.
business that sees an opportunity
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It doesn’t matter that Alt. energy is popular – FUNDING INCENTIVES CAUSES FIGHTS
Herald Sun, 7/3/08 [The Herald Sun, “Congress stalls tax credits,”
7/3/08 Lexis]
Republicans and Democrats seem to agree that tax credits for renewable energy
make a great deal of sense. So why can't they agree on extending the
credits for another year? The answer, we're sorry to say, is the kind of partisan
wrangling that puts ideology above what's best for the country. At issue is a
package of tax breaks worth about $50 billion over the next ten years, including
tax credits for installing solar panels and for businesses that invest in research
and development. Given the nation's desperate need to find alternative energy
sources, this sort of tangible encouragement is sorely needed. Plus, nearly 400
companies, including Goldman Sachs and General Electric, have signed a letter
urging the Senate to approve the bill, which has already passed the House.
Democrats want to extend the credits, but Republicans are blocking the way
because of how Democrats want to pay for it -- by closing a loophole that lets
hedge fund managers shelter income offshore and by delaying a new tax benefit
for multinational corporations.
2. No Link for Algae. Plan closes a “splash and dash” loophole that supports the Capitalism
ideology.
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3. Frame work:
A. interpretation The aff gets the plan and the neg gets the status quo or a competitive policy
option.
B. Reasons To Prefer
1. Key to predictable neg ground- there are an infinite number of alternatives that are
impossible for the affirmative to predict.
2. Private actor fiat is bad- kills our ability to get offense in the 2AC
3. Kills topic specific education- kritik links are generic and link to every topic.
C. It’s a voting issue- you should reject the alternative to preserve competitive equity.
4. Evaluation of consequences is the utmost ethical act – their ethic allows infinite violence
Williams 2005(Michael, Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales—Aberystwyth, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations, p. 174-176)
A commitment to an ethic of consequences reflects a deeper ethic of criticism, of ‘self-clarification’, and thus of reflection upon
the values adopted by an individual or a collectivity. It is part of an attempt to make critical evaluation an intrinsic element of responsibility.
Responsibility to this more fundamental ethic gives the ethic of consequences meaning. Consequentialism and responsibility are here drawn into what
Schluchter, in terms that will be familiar to anyone conversant with constructivism in International Relations, has called a ‘reflexive principle’. In the
wilful Realist vision, scepticism and consequentialism are linked in an attempt to construct not just a more substantial
vision of political responsibility, but also the kinds of actors who might adopt it, and the kinds of social structures
that might support it. A consequentialist ethic is not simply a choice adopted by actors: it is a means of trying to foster particular kinds of self-
critical individuals and societies, and in so doing to encourage a means by which one can justify and foster a politics of responsibility. The ethic of
responsibility in wilful Realism thus involves a commitment to both autonomy and limitation, to freedom and restraint, to
an acceptance of limits and the criticism of limits. Responsibility clearly involves prudence and an accounting for current structures and
their historical evolution; but it is not limited to this, for it seeks ultimately the creation of responsible subjects within a philosophy of limits. Seen in this
light, the Realist commitment to objectivity appears quite differently. Objectivity in terms of consequentialist analysis does not simply take the actor or
action as given, it is a political practice — an attempt to foster a responsible self, undertaken by an analyst with a commitment to objectivity which is
Objectivity in the sense of coming to terms with the ‘reality’ of
itself based in a desire to foster a politics of responsibility.
contextual conditions and likely outcomes of action is not only necessary for success, it is vital for self-reflection,
for sustained engagement with the practical and ethical adequacy of one’s views. The blithe, self-serving, and uncritical
stances of abstract moralism or rationalist objectivism avoid self-criticism by refusing to engage with the intractability of
the world ‘as it is’. Reducing the world to an expression of their theoretical models, political platforms, or ideological
programmes, they fail to engage with this reality, and thus avoid the process of self-reflection at the heart of
responsibility. By contrast, Realist objectivity takes an engagement with this intractable ‘object’ that is not reducible to one’s wishes or will as a
necessary condition of ethical engagement, self-reflection, and self-creation.7 Objectivity is not a naïve naturalism in the sense of scientific laws or
A recognition of the limits imposed by ‘reality’ is
rationalist calculation; it is a necessary engagement with a world that eludes one’s will.
a condition for a recognition of one’s own limits — that the world is not simply an extension of one’s own will.
But it is also a challenge to use that intractability as a source of possibility, as providing a set of openings within which
a suitably chastened and yet paradoxically energised will to action can responsibly be pursued. In the wilful Realist tradition, the essential opacity of
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social orders which embrace the diverse human potentialities which this lack of essential or intrinsic order makes possible.8 But it is
also to be aware of the less salutary possibilities this involves. Indeterminacy is not synonymous with absolute freedom — it is both a condition of, and
imperative toward, responsibility.
6. Perm- Do the plan and withdraw from capital in all other instances
7. Capitalism has been working for hundreds of years, there’s no reason to reject it now.
8. Psychoanalysis Bad-
Psychoanalytic critique causes passivity and destroys political struggle
Paul Gordon, psychotherapist living and working in London, Race & Class, 2001, v. 42, n. 4, p. 30-1
The postmodernists' problem is that they cannot live with disappointment. All the tragedies of the political project of emancipation -- the evils of Stalinism in particular -- are
seen as the inevitable product of men and women trying to create a better society. But, rather than engage in a critical assessment
of how, for instance, radical political movements go wrong, they discard the emancipatory project and impulse itself. The
postmodernists, as Sivanandan puts it, blame modernity for having failed them: `the intellectuals and academics have fled into discourse and deconstruction and
representation -- as though to interpret the world is more important than to change it, as though changing the interpretation is all we could do in a changing
world'.58 To justify their flight from a politics holding out the prospect of radical change through self-activity, the disappointed intellectuals find abundant intellectual alibis
for themselves in the very work they champion, including, in Cohen's case, psychoanalysis. What Marshall Berman says of Foucault seems true also of psychoanalysis; that it offers `a
world-historical alibi' for the passivity and helplessness felt by many in the 1970s, and that it has nothing but contempt for those naive enough to imagine that it might be possible for
modern human- kind to be free. At every turn for such theorists, as Berman argues, whether in sexuality, politics, even our imagination, we are nothing but prisoners: there is no
freedom in Foucault's world, because his language forms a seamless web, a cage far more airtight than anything Weber ever dreamed of, into which no life can break . . . There is no point in trying to resist the
oppressions and injustices of modern life, since even our dreams of freedom only add more links to our chains; however, once we grasp the futility of it all, at least we can relax.59 Cohen's political defeatism and his
conviction in the explanatory power of his new faith of psychoanalysis lead him to be contemptuous and dismissive of any attempt at political solidarity
or collective action. For him, `communities' are always `imagined', which, in his view, means based on fantasy, while different forms of working-class organisation, from the craft fraternity to the
revolutionary group, are dismissed as `fantasies of self-sufficient combination'.60 In this scenario, the idea that people might come together, think together, analyse
together and act together as rational beings is impossible. The idea of a genuine community of equals becomes a pure , `symbolic retrieval' of something that never existed in
the first place: `Community is a magical device for conjuring something apparently solidary out of the thin air of modern times, a mechanism of re-enchantment.' As for history, it is always false, since `We are always
dealing with invented traditions.'61 Now, this is not only nonsense, but dangerous nonsense at that. Is history `always false'? Did the Judeocide happen or did it not? And did not some people even try to
Did slavery exist or did it not, and did not people resist that too and, ultimately, bring it to an end? And are communities always `imagined'? Or, as
resist it?
Sivanandan states, are they beaten out on the smithy of a people's collective struggle? Furthermore, all attempts to legislate against ideology are bound to fail
because they have to adopt `technologies of surveillance and control identical to those used by the state'. Note here the Foucauldian language to set
up the notion that all `surveillance' is bad. But is it? No society can function without surveillance of some kind. The point, surely, is that there should be a public conversation about such
moves and that those responsible for implementing them be at all times accountable. To equate, as Cohen does, a council poster about `Stamping out racism' with Orwell's horrendous prophecy in 1984 of a boot
stamping on a human face is ludicrous and insulting. (Orwell's image was intensely personal and destructive; the other is about the need to challenge not individuals, but a collective evil.) Cohen reveals himself to be
deeply ambivalent about punitive action against racists, as though punishment or other firm action against them (or anyone else transgressing agreed social or legal norms) precluded `understanding' or even help through
psychotherapy. It is indeed a strange kind of `anti-racism' that portrays active racists as the `victims', those who are in need of `help'. But this is where Cohen's argument ends up. In their move from politics to the
postmodernists may have simply exchanged one grand narrative, historical materialism, for another,
academy and the world of `discourse', the
psychoanalysis.62 For psychoanalysis is a grand narrative, par excellence. It is a theory that seeks to account for the world and which recognises few limits on its explanatory
potential. And the claimed radicalism of psychoanalysis, in the hands of the postmodernists at least, is not a radicalism at all but a
prescription for a politics of quietism, fatalism and defeat. Those wanting to change the world, not just to interpret it, need to look elsewhere.
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a. Capitalism solves for war
Imperial wars pre-date capitalism by centuries, war is illogical under capitalism because it
destroys wealth
MacKenzie 3D.W. MacKenzie graduate student in economics at George Mason University Does Capitalism Require War? Monday, April 07, 2003
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1201
Perhaps the oddest aspect of these various, but similar, claims is that their proponents appeal so often to historical
examples. They often claim that history shows how capitalism is imperialistic and warlike or at least benefits from
war. Capitalism supposedly needs a boost from some war spending from time to time, and history shows this. Robert
Higgs demonstrated that the wartime prosperity during the Second World War was illusory[i]. This should come to no surprise to those who lived through the deprivations of wartime rationing. We do
not need wars for prosperity, but does capitalism breed war and imperialism anyway? History is rife with examples of imperialism . The Romans, Alexander, and many
others of the ancient world waged imperialistic wars. The Incan Empire and the empire of Ancient China stand as examples of the universal character of imperialism. Who could possibly claim that
Imperialism precedes modern industrial capitalism by many centuries.
imperialism grew out of the prosperity of these ancient civilizations?
Uneven wealth distribution or underconsumption under capitalism obviously did not cause these instances of
imperialism. Of course, this fact does not prove that modern capitalism lacks its own imperialistic tendencies. The notion that income gets underspent or maldistributed lies at the heart of most
claims that capitalism either needs or produces imperialistic wars. As J.B. Say argued, supply creates its own demand through payments to factors of production. Demand Side economists Hobson and
Keynes argued that there would be too little consumption and too little investment for continuous full employment. We save too much to have peace and prosperity. The difficulty we face is not in
oversaving, but in underestimating the workings of markets and the desires of consumers. Doomsayers have been downplaying consumer demand for ages. As demand side economist J.K. Galbraith
claimed, we live in an affluent society, where most private demands have been met. Of course, Hobson made the same claim much earlier. Earlier and stranger still, mercantilists claimed that 'wasteful
acts' such as tea drinking, gathering at alehouses, taking snuff, and the wearing of ribbons were unnecessary luxuries that detracted from productive endeavors. The prognostications of esteemed
opponents of capitalism have consistently failed to predict consumer demand. Today, consumers consume at levels that few long ago could have imagined possible. There is no reason to doubt that
consumers will continue to press for ever higher levels of consumption. Though it is only a movie, Brewster's Millions illustrates how creative people can be at spending money. People who do actually
inherit, win, or earn large sums of money have little trouble spending it. Indeed, wealthy individuals usually have more trouble holding on to their fortunes than in finding ways to spend them. We are
never going to run out of ways to spend money. Many of the complaints about capitalism center on how people save too much. One should remember that there really is no such thing as saving.
Consumers defer consumption to the future only. As economist Eugen Böhm-Bawerk demonstrated, people save according to time preference. Savings diverts resources into capital formation. This
increases future production. Interest enhanced savings then can purchase these goods as some consumers cease to defer their consumption. Keynes' claim that animal spirits drive investment has no
rational basis. Consumer preferences are the basis for investment. Investors forecast future consumer demand. Interest rates convey knowledge of these demands. The intertemporal coordination of
production through capital markets and interest rates is not a simple matter. But Keynes' marginal propensities to save and Hobson's concentration of wealth arguments fail to account for the real
determinants of production through time. Say's Law of Markets holds precisely because people always want a better life for themselves and those close to them. Falling interest rates deter saving and
increase investment. Rising interest rates induce saving and deter investment. This simple logic of supply and demand derives from a quite basic notion of self interest. Keynes denied that the world
worked this way. Instead, he claimed that bond holders hoard money outside of the banking system, investment periodically collapses from 'the dark forces of time and uncertainty, and consumers save
income in a mechanical fashion according to marginal propensities to save. None of these propositions hold up to scrutiny, either deductive or empirical. Speculators do not hoard cash outside of banks.
To do this means a loss of interest on assets. People do move assets from one part of the financial system to another. This does not cause deficient aggregate demand. Most money exists in the banking
system, and is always available for lending. In fact, the advent of e-banking makes such a practice even less sensible. Why hoard cash when you can move money around with your computer? It is
common knowledge that people save for homes, education, and other expensive items, not because they have some innate urge to squirrel some portion of their income away. This renders half of the
market for credit rational. Investors do in fact calculate rates of return on investment. This is not a simple matter. Investment entails some speculation. Long term investment projects entail some
uncertainty, but investors who want to actually reap profits will estimate the returns on investment using the best available data. Keynes feared that the dark forces of time and uncertainty could scare
investors. This possibility, he thought, called for government intervention. However, government intervention (especially warfare) generally serves to increase uncertainty. Private markets have enough
uncertainties without throwing politics into the fray. The vagaries of political intervention serve only to darken an already uncertain future. Capital markets are best left to capitalists. Nor is capital not
extracted surplus value. It comes not from exploitation. It is simply a matter of people valuing their future wellbeing. Capitalists will hire workers up to the point where the discounted marginal product
of their labor equals the wage rate. To do otherwise would mean a loss of potential profit. Since workers earn the marginal product of labor and capital derives from deferred consumption, Marxist
arguments about reserve armies of the unemployed and surplus extraction fail. It is quite odd to worry about capitalists oversaving when many complain about how the savings rate in the U.S. is too low.
Why does the U.S., as the world's 'greatest capitalist/imperialist power', attract so much foreign investment? Many Americans worry about America's international accounts. Fears about foreigners
buying up America are unfounded, but not because this does not happen. America does have a relatively low national savings rate. It does attract much foreign investment, precisely because it has
relatively secure property rights. Indeed, much of the third world suffers from too little investment. The claims of Marxists, and Hobson, directly contradict the historical record. Sound theory tells us that
it should. The Marxist claim that capitalists must find investments overseas fails miserably. Larry Kudlow has put his own spin on the false connection between capitalism and war. We need the War as
shock therapy to get the economy on its feet. Kudlow also endorses massive airline subsidies as a means of restoring economic prosperity. Kudlow and Krugman both endorse the alleged destructive
creation of warfare and terrorism. Kudlow has rechristened the Broken Window fallacy the Broken Window principle. Kudlow claims that may lose money and wealth in one way, but we gain it back
many time over when the rebuilding is done. Kudlow and Krugman have quite an affinity for deficits. Krugman sees debt as a sponge to absorb excess saving. Kudlow see debt as a short term nuisance
that we can dispel by maximizing growth. One would think that such famous economists would realize that competition does work to achieve the goal of optimum growth based on time preference, but
this is not the case. While these economists have expressed their belief in writing, they could do more. If the destruction of
assets leads to increased prosperity, then they should teach this principle by example. Kudlow and Krugman could,
for instance, help build the economy by demolishing their own private homes. This would have the immediate
effect of stimulating demand for demolition experts, and the longer term affect of stimulating the demand for
construction workers. They can create additional wealth by financing the reconstruction of their homes through debt. By borrowing funds, they draw idle resources into use and stimulate
financial activity. Of course, they would both initially lose wealth in one way. But if their thinking is sound, they will gain it back many times over as they rebuild. The truth is that their
beliefs are fallacious. Bastiat demonstrated the absurdity of destructive creation in his original explanation of the
opportunity costs from repairing broken windows. Kudlow is quite clear about his intentions. He wants to grow the economy to finance the war. As Kudlow told
some students, "The trick here is to grow the economy and let the economic growth raise the revenue for the war effort"[ii]. Kudlow also praises the Reagan Administration for growing the economy to
fund national defense. Here Kudlow's attempts to give economic advice cease completely. His argument here is not that capitalism needs a shot in the arm. It is that resources should be redirected
towards ends that he sees fit. Kudlow is a war hawk who, obviously, cannot fund this or any war personally. He instead favors using the state to tax others to fund what he wants, but cannot afford. He
seems to think that his values matter more than any other's. Why should anyone else agree with this? Kudlow tarnishes the image of laissez faire economics by parading his faulty reasoning and his
claims that his wants should reign supreme as a pro-market stance. Unfortunately, it is sometimes necessary to defend capitalism from alleged advocates of liberty, who employ false dogmas in pursuit of
Capitalism neither requires nor promotes imperialist expansion. Capitalism did not create
their own militaristic desires.
imperialism or warfare. Warlike societies predate societies with secure private property. The idea that inequity or
underspending give rise to militarism lacks any rational basis. Imperialistic tendencies exist due to ethnic and nationalistic bigotries, and the want for power.
Prosperity depends upon our ability to prevent destructive acts. The dogma of destructive creation fails as a silver lining to the cloud of warfare. Destructive acts entail real costs that diminish available
opportunities. The idea that we need to find work for idle hands in capitalism at best leads to a kind of Sisyphus economy where unproductive industries garner subsidies from productive people. At
worst, it serves as a supporting argument for war. The more recent versions of the false charges against capitalism do nothing to invalidate two simple facts. Capitalism generates prosperity by creating
new products. War inflicts poverty by destroying existing wealth. There is no sound reason to think otherwise.
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b. Total rejection of capitalism fragments resistance – the alternative never solves
J.K. Gibson-Graham, feminist economist, 1996, End of Capitalism
uncloaked the ideologically-clothed, obscure monster, but we have installed a naked and visible monster in its place. In
return for our labors of creation, the monster has robbed us of all force. We hear – and find it easy to believe – that the left is in disarray. Part of what produces the
disarray of the left is the vision of what the left is arrayed against. When capitalism is represented as a unified system coextensive with the nation or
even the world, when it is portrayed as crowding out all other economic forms, when it is allowed to define entire societies, it
becomes something that can only be defeated and replaced by a mass collective movement (or by a process of systemic dissolution that such a movement
might assist). The revolutionary task of replacing capitalism now seems outmoded and unrealistic, yet we do not seem to have an
alternative conception of class transformation to take its place. The old political economic “systems” and “structures” that call forth a vision of revolution as systemic
replacement still seem to be dominant in the Marxist political imagination. The New World Order is often represented as political fragmentation founded upon economic unification. In this vision the economy appears
as the last stronghold of unity and singularity in a world of diversity and plurality. But why can’t the economy be fragmented too? If we theorized it as fragmented in the United States, we could being to see a huge
state sector (incorporating a variety of forms of appropriation of surplus labor), a very large sector of self-employed and family-based producers (most noncapitalist), a huge household sector (again, quite various in
terms of forms of exploitation, with some households moving towards communal or collective appropriation and others operating in a traditional mode in which one adult appropriates surplus labor from another). None
If capitalism takes up the available social space, there’s no room for anything else. If capitalism cannot
of these things is easy to see.
coexist, there’s no possibility of anything else. If capitalism functions as a unity, it cannot be partially or locally replaced.
My intent is to help create the discursive conception under which socialist or other noncapitalist construction becomes
“realistic” present activity rather than a ludicrous or utopian goal. To achieve this I must smash Capitalism and see it in a
thousand pieces. I must make its unity a fantasy, visible as a denial of diversity and change.
c. Capitalism decreases poverty – we’ll be the only ones with uniqueness because poverty is rapidly
decreasing in the world of globalization
Norberg, author of In Defense of Capitalism, 2003
Johan, September 15, http://www.cato.org/special/symposium/debate.html
This is the revolution that is transforming the world today. As the United Nations Development Programme has
observed, in the last 50 years global poverty has declined more quickly than in the previous 500. If we allow
globalization to continue, this trend will continue as well. The World Bank has calculated that a substantial free
trade agreement would add as much as $520 billion to global incomes by 2015, lifting 144 million people out of
poverty.
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Extend the MacKenzie in 03 evidence that states that imperial wars have happened long before
Capitalism became an ideology.
a far more important factor, leading to what Columbia University's Erik Gartzke calls a "capitalist peace." It's a reason for even the left to support free markets.
The capitalist peace theory isn't new: Montesquieu and Adam Smith believed in it. Many of Britain's classical liberals, such as Richard Cobden, pushed free markets while opposing imperialism.
But World War I demonstrated that increased trade was not enough. The prospect of economic ruin did not prevent rampant nationalism, ethnic hatred, and security fears from trumping the power of
markets.
An even greater conflict followed a generation later. Thankfully, World War II left war essentially unthinkable among leading industrialized - and democratic - states. Support grew for the argument,
going back to Immanual Kant, that republics are less warlike than other systems.
Today's corollary is that creating democracies out of dictatorships will reduce conflict. This contention animated some support outside as well as inside the United States for the invasion of Iraq.
But Gartzke argues that "the 'democratic peace' is a mirage created by the overlap between economic and political freedom." That is, democracies typically have freer economies than do authoritarian
states.
Thus, while "democracy is desirable for many reasons," he notes in a chapter in the latest volume of Economic Freedom in the World, created by the Fraser Institute,
"representative governments are unlikely to contribute directly to international peace." Capitalism is by far the more
important factor.
The shift from statist mercantilism to high-tech capitalism has transformed the economics behind war. Markets generate economic opportunities that make war
less desirable. Territorial aggrandizement no longer provides the best path to riches.
Free-flowing capital markets and other aspects of globalization simultaneously draw nations together and raise the economic
price of military conflict. Moreover, sanctions, which interfere with economic prosperity, provides a coercive step short of war to achieve foreign policy ends.
Also extend the Norberg in 03 evidence that says that Capitalism decreases poverty because it
increases the free markets.
Also extend that the alternative can’t solve because it looks at Capitalism as a whole, instead of
recognizing its individual parts. This is the Gibson-Graham 96 evidence.
Lastly, extend the Gordon in 01 card. It talks about how to assume that all humans can think as
one entity with the same thoughts ideas and morals is completely ridiculous. Debate very
obviously counters that.
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1AR ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT PERM BLOCK
Extend the Perm- Do Both. Pass the plan and reject capitalism simultaneously.
Extend the No link argument from the 2AC. The plan doesn’t link to this Kritik. We close a
loophole that would support capitalism. So the perm is not mutually exclusive. Both teams are
now rejecting a capitalistic ideology.
and that it is extremely mobile. What does and does not count as universal, as the universal reach of human obligation and right? That is a question that is constantly on the
table. For instance, when the Vatican says that it is very interested in human rights but that homosexuality is an assault on “the human,” what it is in effect saying is that homosexual humans are
destroying the human by virtue of their homosexuality, and the rights that pertain to humans do not pertain to them because they have in some sense disqualified themselves from the human by virtue of
their homosexuality. If the homosexual then, nevertheless, gets up out of her or his abject state and says, “I am human, and I deserve some rights,” then in that moment there’s a certain paradox:
universality is actually being asserted precisely by the one who represents what must be foreclosed
for universality to take place. This is one who’s outside of the legitimating structure of universality but who nevertheless speaks in its terms and makes the claim without
prior legitimation in order to assume legitimation as a performative consequence of the claim itself.
It seems to me that this is the position that gay rights activists are in time and time again, often in relation to other human rights activists groups. It took a long time, for instance, for Human Rights Watch
or the ACLU or Amnesty International or other organizations to bring gay questions into human rights issues because they were afraid that they would lose the ability to have connections with certain
countries, so they made the case for human rights on other grounds. So what does this mean? It means that the notion of universality is in crisis. As Laclau points out,
any notion of universality is based on a foreclosure: there must be something that is not included within the universal; there must be something that is outside of it for the universal to make sense;
there must be something that is particular, that is not assimilable into the universal. What happens
when that particular – that particular identity that cannot lay claim to the universal and who may not – nevertheless lays claim to the
universal? It seems to me that the very notion of universality is brought into an extremely productive
crisis and that we get what might be understood as spectral invocations of the universal among those
who have no established, legitimate right to make the claim.
So, I like the idea that universality is a discourse that is driven into crisis again and again by the foreclosures
that it makes and that it’s forced to rearticulate itself. Where I agree with the project of hegemony that Laclau and Mouffe lay out is that for me the
process of a universality that is brought into crisis again and again by what is outside of itself is an open-ended
one. Universality, in that sense, would not be violent or totalizing; it would be an open-ended process, and
the task of politics would be to keep it open, to keep it as a contested site of persistent crisis and not
to let it be settled.
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1AR ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK BLOCK
Extend Framework interpretation from the 2AC. The affirmative is only aloud to defend their
plan, the negative should only be aloud to defend ONE Competitive policy option, OR the status
quo; and nothing else.
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AT: BACKSTOPPING CP
NO LINK:
Second, OPEC no longer has anywhere near the spare capacity necessary to flood the world market.
In fact, due to the meteoric rise in global demand for oil, I doubt OPEC has the capacity to cause even
a significant drop in the price of oil. Thirdly, technology and regulatory protections in every aspect of
oil, gas, and mining have matured impressively since the early 1980's. Those advances not only make
oil shale development much more viable, but they also ensure much better protections for the
environment.
The massive reserves of Saudi Arabia have also historically been a tool to encourage quota
compliance. The Saudis, with their massive oil reserves and high levels of spare production capacity,
have in the past threatened to flood the market with oil to engineer a collapse in price. With the
world’s cheapest production costs and lots of spare capacity, it was a threat the Saudis could
theoretically carry out. Not anymore.
Saudi Arabia no longer has the buffer of excess production, and there is a lack of confidence in the
sustainability of its largest fields. The long standing threat to flood the market with cheap oil has now
become a bluff, and the other members of OPEC know it.
OPEC goes to great trouble to pretend that it can influence prices. It holds regular meetings where it
ordains a new production target with much ceremony. But honestly, you would have to be a mug to
believe that OPEC countries are purposefully limiting production. When oil prices rise, so does the
opportunity cost of sticking to the allocated quota. So while its possible to maintain a cartel when
prices are low, you can bet your life that each member is pumping out as much crude as it possibly
can at $140 a barrel.
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AT: BACKSTOPPING CP
OPEC can’t control pricing through flooding the market
Gary Nicks Daily Star June 23, 2008 HEADLINE: PLEASE SIR. . .COULD WE HAVE MORE OIL;
It's the kind of thing he could do here at home." And Tory Alan Duncan blasted: "The
idea that Opec can just go like that and
flood the market with oil and bring the price down shows Gordon Brown does not understand global
markets." The summit was arranged after oil doubled in a year to hit a record $140 per barrel two weeks ago, sending prices rocketing so high at UK
forecourts that gangs of thieves are draining lorry fuel tanks across the country.
There was an excellent article by Jim Kingsdale this weekend on the coming end of OPEC. You are
probably thinking why would OPEC disappear when their control over oil prices is so strong.
Unfortunately that is no longer true. OPEC has lost control over prices and that was the main reason
the organization was formed in 1960.
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A2: RENEWABLES CP
Renewable development is not dependent on high oil prices
Environment News Service, 6-21-07, http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2007/2007-06-21-04.asp
While the report finds that high oil prices have driven investors into the renewable energy market, UNEP Executive Director
Achim Steiner says many investors are choosing renewables regardless of oil prices. "One of the new and fundamental
messages of this report is that renewable energies are no longer subject to the vagaries of rising and falling oil prices - they are
becoming generating systems of choice for increasing numbers of power companies, communities and countries irrespective of
the costs of fossil fuels, said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, introducing the report Wednesday.
Even without high oil prices, the renewable energy industry will
still grow: (non-UQ)
Science Letter July 8, 2008 HEADLINE: INTEGRITY INTERNATIONAL; Integrity International Launches Renewable Energy Staffing Division
"While business ideas in the renewable energy field will work and fail, we project that the job
opportunities will grow dramatically in the near term," Ahumada said. "Even without the recent spike in oil prices,
the pressure to increase renewable energy is strong and will continue to grow."
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AT : SAUDI ARABIA CP
1.Saudi Arabia has diversified their economy and can stay on a
growth path even if oil prices decline.
Arsene Aka Global Insight August 2, 2007 HEADLINE: Fitch Raises Outlook for Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Foreign Currency
Saudi Arabia
Significance: A sharp decrease in international oil prices remains the main risk facing the kingdom. However, during the current oil boom,
has used part of its oil-revenue windfall to build up assets overseas, which could be drawn upon if
global energy prices falter in the future. With global oil demand expected to remain strong over the next two years, the sovereign's
creditworthiness seems relatively secure. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has made good progress in promoting the non-oil
sector. Despite a fall in oil production in 2006, the economy expanded robustly, on the back of strong
growth in the non-oil sector.
Still, Saudi economic reforms do merit attention. The UNCTAD report came roughly two weeks after a World Bank report, Doing
Business 2008, described Saudi Arabia as the world's seventh fastest reforming economy. It also stated that the country had joined the
ranks of the top 25 countries worldwide in terms of the ease of doing business.
3. High oil prices have allowed Saudi Arabia to reform its economy
Erlend Paasche Saudi Arabia's economic liberalization Wednesday, December 12, 2007 http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=12974
According to conventional wisdom, high oil prices would render economic reform in oil-rich countries a poor chance of success with
increases in state income lessening the pressure for such change. In a time of sky-high oil prices, Saudi Arabia proves that
conventional wisdom sometimes misses the mark.
Saudi oil export revenues constituted a meager US$34.3 billion in 1998, but rose to US$46.8 billion in 1999 and US$65.5 billion in
2002. SABB, one of the kingdom's largest banks, projects oil revenues of US$165 billion this year. Even though the Saudi state has
thus gradually gained access to a greatly increased volume of external rent, it has somewhat paradoxically loosened its tight grip on
the economy, opened up its markets for privatization and foreign investment and actively strengthened its private sector.
Compounding this problem, the huge money flows into the region from oil purchases help finance terrorist networks. Saudi money
provides critical support for madrassas with virulent anti-American views. Still worse, diplomatic efforts to enlist Saudi government help in choking
off such funding, or even to investigate terrorist attacks, are hampered by the priority we attach to preserving Saudi cooperation in
managing world oil markets.
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A2: SAUDI ARABIA CP
Saudi Arabia has reformed its economy and diversified away from
oil
Rehab Al Mahfudh Global Insight July 3, 2008 HEADLINE: Saudi Arabia Moves Up in Forbes' List of Best Countries for Business in 2008
Saudi Arabia made a substantial improvement this year moving up 37 places. Saudi
authorities have implemented a wide range of
economic reforms over the past few years to diversify the economy away from oil and create
employment opportunities for Saudi nationals. Saudi Arabia's recent economic reforms have
received wide acknowledgement from international organisations. Saudi Arabia ranked the twenty third out of 178 countries
and the first among Arab countries on the ease of doing business report for 2008 published by International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group.
Oil dependency forces the U.S. to support oil regimes that oppress their citizens. As a result, other
states and the citizens of oppressive oil regimes see the U.S. as their real enemy. It isn't surprising that
Osama bin Laden's first Fatwah was against the U.S. for stationing troops in Saudi Arabia to protect
the oppressive Saudi Royal Family. U.S. oil dependency also strengthens worldwide Islamist terror
campaigns as funding for these groups comes primarily from Middle Eastern Islamic charities,
located primarily in Saudi Arabia. Because of oil dependency, we both motivate the terrorists and
provide the money to fund their attacks on us. American oil dependency also strengthens other states opposed to
American foreign policy interests, such as Venezuela and Russia. Foreign policy options are further reduced when other oil importing
countries, such as China, block our UN Security Council resolutions targeted at their sources of oil. This has already occurred in regard
to Sudan and Myanmar.
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A2 RUSSIA SCENARIO 1
LX-TURN
High oil prices are collapsing democracy and creating increased authoritarianism in Russia
States News Service June 24, 2008 HEADLINE: AS OIL WEALTH RISES IN EURASIA, DEMOCRACY DECLINES SIGNIFICANTLY
To coincide with today's release of the Freedom House Nations in Transit 2008 report, three of the study's authors gathered at RFE/RL's Washington, DC
headquarters to discuss one of its key findings - that,as oil and natural gas revenues surge in Russia and Central Asia,
democratic institutions in these countries are eroding significantly. [Read more about the Nations in Transit 2008
Report] "The resource curse is taking root," Freedom House Director of Studies Christopher Walker told the group. "The growing
authoritarianism in oil and natural gas-rich countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan is severely restricting the
ability of democratic institutions to operate." According to the report, the regression in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia has occurred
systematically and across sectors, including in the areas of electoral process, civil society, independent media and judicial independence. "Russia's decline
in all of the report's categories over the past eight years is dramatic," said Robert Orttung, the author of the section on Russia and a
Senior Fellow at the Jefferson Institute. "For years, Vladimir Putin has been
using oil and natural gas revenues to build up his police forces and consolidate power in such a way that there is no space for democracy to
grow."
Muravchik 2001 (Joshua- Resident Scholar at the AEI, “Democracy and Nuclear Peace” July 14,
http://www.npec-web.org/Syllabus/Muravchik.pdf, Date Accessed 7/29/2006)
That this momentum has slackened somewhat since its pinnacle in 1989, destined to be remembered as one of the most revolutionary years in all
history, was inevitable. So many peoples were swept up in the democratic tide that there was certain to be some backsliding. Most countries' democratic
evolution has included some fits and starts rather than a smooth progression. So it must be for the world as a whole. Nonetheless,
the overall
trend remains powerful and clear. Despite the backsliding, the number and proportion of democracies stands
higher today than ever before. This progress offers a source of hope for enduring nuclear peace. The
danger of nuclear war was radically reduced almost overnight when Russia abandoned Communism
and turned to democracy. For other ominous corners of the world, we may be in a kind of race
between the emergence or growth of nuclear arsenals and the advent of democratization. If this is so, the
greatest cause for worry may rest with the Moslem Middle East where nuclear arsenals do not yet exist but where the prospects for democracy may be
still more remote.
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A2 RUSSIA SCENARIO 1
Sustained high oil prices would turn Russia into a petro-state, rife with poverty, corruption, and an
inevitably collapsing economy
Moises Naim (Editor) Jan/Feb 2004 Foreign Policy
Russia's future will be defined as much by the geology of its subsoil as by the ideology of its leaders. Unfortunately,
whereas policymakers can choose their ideology, they don't have much leeway when it comes to geology. Russia has a lot of oil, and this
inescapable geological fact will determine many of the policy choices available to its leaders. Oil and gas now
account for roughly 20 percent of Russia's economy, 55 percent of its export earnings, and 40 percent of its total
tax revenues. Russia is the world's second largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, and its subsoil contains 33 percent of the world's gas reserves. It already supplies
30 percent of Europe's gas needs. In the future, Russia's oil and gas industry will become even more important, as no other sector
can be as internationally competitive, grow as rapidly, or be as profitable. Thus, Russia risks becoming, and in many respects may already be, a
"petro-state." The arrest of oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky sparked a debate over what kind of country Russia will be. In this discussion, Russia's
characteristics as a petro-state deserve as much attention as its factional struggles. Petro-states are oil-rich countries plagued by weak
institutions, a poorly functioning public sector, and a high concentration of power and wealth. Their population is
chronically frustrated by the lack of proportion between their nation's oil wealth and their widespread poverty. Nigeria and Venezucla are good examples. That Russia
has lots of oil is old news. What's
new is the dramatically enhanced role that changes in Russian politics, oil technology,
and energy markets have given to its petrolcum sector. Throughout the 1990s, privatization in Russia and innovations in exploration and
drilling technologies brought into production oil fields that had hitherto been underperforming or completely off-limits. To energy companies worried about growing
domestic instability among the major oil exporters of the Middle East, Russia became an even more attractive hedge. Regardless
of its political
turmoil, Russia will continue to appeal to oil companies, which know how to operate profitably in countries with weak property rights and
unstable politics. Thus, while the Khodorkovsky affair may temporarily scare away some investors, Russia's beguiling geology will eventually attract energy companies
that cannot afford to be left out of some of the world's richest oil reservoirs. But when oil revenues flood a nation with a fragile system of
democratic checks and balances, dysfunctional politics and economics ensue, and a petro-state emerges. A strong
democracy and an effective public sector explain why oil has not distorted the United States or Norway as it has Nigeria and Venezuela. A lot of oil combined
with weak public institutions produces poverty, inequality, and corruption. It also undermines democracy. No
petro-state has succeeded in converting oil into prosperity for the majority of the population. An economy that
relies mostly on oil exports inevitably ends up with an exchange rate that makes imported goods less expensive
and exports more costly. This overvalued exchange rate makes other sectors--agriculture, manufacturing,
tourism--less internationally competitive and hinders their growth. Petro-states also have jobless, volatile economic growth. Oil
generates export revenues and taxes for the state, but it creates few jobs. Despite its economic heft, Russia's oil and gas industry employs only around 2 million workers
out of a total workforce of 67 million. Also, because the international price of oil is volatile, petro-states
suffer constant and debilitating
economic boombust cycles. The busts lead to banking crises and public budget cuts that hurt the poor who critically
depend on government programs. Russia already experienced this effect in 1998 when the drop in oil prices sparked a financial crash. If oil prices fall below $20 a
barrel, Russia will surely face another bout of painful economic instability. Petro-states also suffer from a narrow tax base, with the bulk of government revenues
coming from just a few large taxpayers. In Russia, the 10 largest companies account for more than half of total tax revenues. Weak governmental accountability is a
The political consequences
typical side effect of this dependency, as the link between the electorate and government spending is indirect and tenuous.
are also corrosive. Thanks to the inevitable concentration of the oil industry into a few large firms, owners and managers acquire enormous political clout. In
turn, corruption often thrives, as a handful of politicians and government regulators make decisions that are worth millions to these companies.
Nationalizing the oil industry fails to solve these problems: State-owned oil companies quickly become relatively independent political actors that are rife with
corruption, inefficiency, and politicization, and can dominate other weak public institutions. Privatizing
the industry without strong and
independent regulatory and tax agencies is also not a solution, as unbridled private monopolists can be as predatory as public ones. In
petro-states, bitter fights over the control and distribution of the nation's oil rents become the gravitational center of political life. It is no accident that the current crisis
in Russia hinges on control of the country's largest oil company and the political uses of its profits. But Russia is not Nigeria and has yet to become a full-fledged
petro-state. It is a large, complex country with a highly educated
A2 RUSSIA SCENARIO 1
population, a relatively strong technological base, and a still somewhat diversified economy. A strong
democracy could help Russia
compensate for the economic and political weaknesses that plague all
countries dominated by oil. Russia is still struggling to overcome the crippling effects of its ideological past. Let's hope it will also be able
to avoid the crippling effects of its geological present.
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A2 RUSSIA SCENARIO 2
LX TAKEOUT:
Oil price drop would have no effect on the Russian economy. Prices
could get as low as $55 a barrel and the effect would still be
insignificant
Russia & CIS Banking & Finance Weekly June 20, 2008 headline: russia does not fear drop in oil prices - kudrin
Russia should be prepared for both further growth as well as a rapid drop in oil prices, he said. It is better for Russia when oil prices are high, he said, but
these prices must be utilized soundly and oil windfalls should not be wasted. "If oil prices are higher and is spent immediately, the ruble's exchange rate will
strengthen," he said, stressing that the appreciation of the ruble would have a negative effect on Russian industry. A decline in the price of oil will not have
a significant impact on the Russian budget, Kudrin said.
"Russia is not afraid of a price drop," Kudrin said in an interview with Vesti 24 TV while in Osaka following the meeting of the G8 finance chiefs. "Our
budget would not have a deficit at a price of $55 per barrel. The tax system for our oil companies is set up so that as the price of oil declines, taxation
declines. So no substantial changes will take place. It will have some effect on our GDP growth, but an insignificant one compared
with the earlier period. I repeat, the effect will be insignificant," he said.
Low oil prices will not affect Russia - they have shielded
themselves from price decline and diversified their economy.
Belfast Telegraph, Mary Dejevsky, "Russia will not cut oil and gas production, Putin says"
September 17, 2007 lexis
Mr Putin was answering questions from foreign Russia-watchers at his summer residence near the southern resort city of Sochi. What had prompted a response that
should reassure Russia's Western customers, at least in the short term, was a comment by a senior official two days before to the effect that Russia's oil and gas
bonanza was almost as much trouble as it was worth. He had said that, while Russia had benefited hugely from the high energy prices of recent years, these had also
created problems. Because the Russian economy simply could not absorb so much money productively in such a short time, the
government had to spend much specialist time and energy on how best to use it. A proportion goes to the "stabilisation fund", now
standing at $130bn, seen as an insurance against energy prices falling. Another share goes into an "investment fund" for
infrastructure projects, higher pensions and public service salaries. What is left over is invested abroad, much of it in foreign bonds,
to be as safe as possible. Russia's foreign investment policy was, the official said, deliberately"conservative". The official also said that
Russia was looking to invest more in foreign companies, and would already have done so but for what it saw as unwarranted suspicion of Russia's intentions and
closet protectionism on the part of foreign governments. It was in this context that a participant in the discussion with Mr Putin asked this question: Why, if Russia
found administering its new oil and gas wealth so burdensome, did it not consider cutting production? Keeping the stuff in the ground, he suggested, would have
several beneficial effects for Russia. It would raise the world price, so yielding more money for less effort. It would, assuming no dramatic fall in prices in the near
future, guarantee Russia a good income for many more years. And it would save ministers the time and effort involved in figuring out how to invest its windfall. The
question clearly appealed to Mr Putin. He smiled and described the proposition as interesting, as he seemed to turn it over in his mind. But his response was
categorical. "We will extend and increase production of both oil and gas, and we will do that because global demand is growing." He
said that Russia had no intention of banking on further rises in energy prices. "We remember that there was a time when coal was the
main source of energy, and then all at once the price fell sharply. What good would come of speculating?" Russia, he said, "wants to
behave responsibly" not for its own sake, but because "harmonious relations" with the rest of the world was as much in the national
interest as high energy prices. Apparently alluding to Western charges that Russia used its position as an energy supplier as a weapon, Mr Putin said that
Russia had never " blackmailed" the world market. He went on: "We are not a member of Opec though we keep a close eye on what it does and one reason is that we
don't have the level of state monopoly over energy production that most Opec countries have."
A2 RUSSIA SCENARIO 2
Russia’s economy has diversified: no impact
Journal of Commerce 4/26/2004
Although Russia's remoteness from the U.S. - and its proximity to the huge European market - limits its potential as an economic partner, Russian companies in
such sectors as information technology, telecommunications and aerospace are becoming competitive, Marshall said. Even Russia's
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agriculture sector is becoming viable. Last year, Russia became a net exporter of grain, which is "mind-boggling" to Marshall, who remembers the
ineptitude of the Soviet era. "Yes, they are still heavily dependent on energy, but not completely. Sure, the foreign reserves of $85 billion - because
of high energy prices - has helped. But it's not just that."
A little less than a year ago, August 17 to be precise, the post-Cold War Russian economic experiment imploded. The ruble collapsed and debt payments
to foreigners were frozen. Wall Street lost billions of dollars. Long Term Capital Management, one of the world's biggest hedge funds, had to be taken over by its
bankers. Once burned, international investors yanked their capital out of all emerging markets— from Latin America to East Asia— causing world interest rates to
spike. The global economy teetered on the edge of depression. But, much to the surprise of most economic pundits, international
markets quickly righted themselves. The Russian economy proved far more resilient than anticipated. And, in retrospect, the events of
August, 1998 were little more than a very large bump in the road. The lessons of this "crisis that wasn't" are now clear: Russia is not too big to
fail (the volume of its debts do not dictate special treatment by its creditors); the financial world can cope with such failure; and the Russian
economy can bounce back without much overt help from the West. But the impending $4.5 billion loan to Russia by the International Monetary Fund
— reflecting Washington's gratitude for Moscow's help in Kosovo, continued fear of Russian nuclear proliferation and concern about Russia's internal political
stability— demonstrates that Russia still remains too important for the world to ignore. This contradiction— not too big to fail, but still too big to
flounder— highlights the friction inherent when economic policy is used to further geo-political goals. Up until a year ago, the Clinton Administration argued that
aid to Russia was needed, in part, to avoid global economic collapse. August, 1998 exposed that rationale as a charade. Now American support for assistance to
Russia can only be justified for two reasons: to reinforce Russia's transition to a market economy or as ransom in Moscow's continued strategic blackmail of the West.
Evidence to justify the former is dubious. Its time to own up to the latter. Last summer's fleeting economic fright reflected Russia's staggering economic collapse.
The ruble fell by more than 70 per cent in a couple of weeks. The economy shrank by 4.3 per cent. Real wages fell 41 per cent. But the crisis
was cathartic. "The shock accomplished what reform was intended to achieve," said Anders Aslund, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace in Washington. The banking system now functions better. Barter is declining. Most important, there has been no reversion to
central planning, government-directed lending, industrial subsidies or government reliance on simply printing money.
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AT: ALGAE FAILS
A)First, their arguments about algae being impossible to mass produce
are ridiculous. Extend our Freedman 07 card, stating that the entire
transportation sector could easily be supported on algae biodiesel.
Algae is clearly the best solution.
B)Second, ignore their Biopact arguments that algae isn’t a capable
alternative. It solves best.
The Boston Globe, October 23, 2007 Tuesday , EDITORIAL; Pg. A10
The holy grail for biodiesel researchers is to develop and stabilize algae as a source of
vegetable oil. Certain forms of algae produce thousands of gallons of oil per acre, versus
the 46 gallons of soybeans. Production would be either in large concrete ponds or giant
test tubes. This would keep biofuels from being the exclusive domain of grain producers
and agribusiness, already the villains in the just-released documentary, "Big Corn," which explores corn's role in the
obesity epidemic. Incentives are key to industry The Boston Globe, October 23, 2007 Tuesday , EDITORIAL; Pg. A10
by offering incentives to local
Massachusetts can help put green fuel in auto and home heating tanks, both
firms that are improving biofuel technology and by ensuring that the state's drivers and
homeowners have access to vegeta-ble-based alternatives to gasoline and oil. When the
environmental and national security costs are added to the high price of heating oil,
biofuels - especially ones that do not depend on relatively costly corn or soybeans - are a
bargain. Investment in biofuels is increasing in the SQ Scott and Bryner in 6 ALEX SCOTT with MICHELLE BRYNER,
Chemical Week, December 20, 2006 / December 27, 2006, Alternative Fuels; Rolling Out Next-Generation Technologies, PS
Leading companies in a variety of industries, including chemicals and oil, are competing
hard to secure a position in the market for alternative fuels, particularly biofuels. Firms such
as BP, Broin Companies (Sioux Falls, SD), Cargill, DuPont, Iogen (McLean, VA), Novozymes, Shell, and Xethanol
(New York) are developing novel process technologies and building manufacturing plants to
establish themselves in the rapidly growing sector for fuels such as bioethanol, biodiesel,
syngas produced from biomass, and hydrogen. Industry's assumption that the high price of crude oil --
which today makes biofuels attractive -- will last, appears to be holding true.
C)Third, the neg’s time frame arguments are just plain wrong. Algae
could be utilized as soon as next year as a stable energy alternative.
Beveridge in 7 JOHN BEVERIDGE, Herald Sun (Australia), February 1, 2007 Thursday , Powered by pond scum
POND scum could be one answer to the renewable energy crisis. Researchers at Utah State have
found that algae is a particularly good producer of biodiesel. They now plan to produce an
algae-biodiesel that is cost-competitive by 2009. One of the big benefits of algae is that it
is easy to grow and can yield thousands of litres of oil per hectare. The attraction of
biodiesel is that it is a renewable fuel that is carbon-dioxide neutral. Its development has attracted
criticism due to the low yields when made from the current sources -- usually soybean or corn oil. ''This is perhaps the most
important scientific challenge facing humanity in the 21st century,'' said Professor Lance Seefeldt. Algae will be ready to
U.S.
produce on mass scale by 2009 The Toronto Sun, February 7, 2007 Wednesday , Fill'er up with pond scum
researchers are working on extracting oil from algae -- a.k.a. pond scum -- and converting
it to biodiesel fuel. The project calls for cost-competitive production of the pond scum
biodiesel by 2009. Algae can produce up to 40,000 litres of oil per acre and can be grown
virtually anywhere. Biodiesel is a clean and carbon-dioxide-neutral fuel that is becoming more
popular, but most of the current product comes from soybean and corn oil.
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Economist in 7 [The Economist September 22, 2007 Sea green; Alternative energy, LN, PS]
the sea
ONE of the crazier ideas for dealing with global warming is to sprinkle the oceans with iron filings. One reason
(unlike the land) is not covered with plants is that it lacks crucial nutrients--iron, in
particular. Add iron, the theory goes, and you will promote the growth of algae. These will
absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then conveniently sink when they die.
Thus, over the course of a few decades, the concentration of the gas in the atmosphere
will return to pre-industrial levels. Presto! Problem solved. Algae biodiesel is only a few years away and can be
used in Jets Clover in 7 [Charles Clover, The Daily Telegraph (LONDON), May 9, 2007 Wednesday, Flying with algae air]
COMMERCIAL airliners could be using biofuels made from algae within five years, Boeing, the world's largest aircraft
manufacturer, said yesterday. It brings the prospect of more environmentally-friendly air travel decades closer than had
been previously thought. The semi-tropical algae, which has a natural oil content, can be used to make biodiesel. Boeing is
planning tests using conventional biodiesel next year with Virgin Atlantic and General Electric.
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2AC AT: FOOD PRICES DA
1. Their uniqueness is bad says there is still speculation that prevents full stability food
prices are tied to oil prices which continue to increase
2. US production of corn for ethanol to food price spikes and instability
McIntosh in 7 [Craig McIntosh, As Corn Ethanol Threatens, Algae makes Promises,
http://www.celsias.com/article/pressurerisingoverbiofuelsplusalgaetobiodie/, Janurary 8th 2007,
PS]
The U.S. is undergoing a biofuel building blitz 79 plants are under construction, 116 are operating and another 200 are
in the planning stages.
That amounts to a lot of corn 139 million tons, the study estimates. That's half the entire 2008 projected U.S. harvest.
"With the corn supplies tightening fast," the report warns, "rising prices will affect not only products made directly from
corn but also those produced using corn." That includes chicken, pork and beef.
"The risk is that soaring food prices could generate a consumer backlash against the fuel ethanol industry," the Earth
Policy Institute predicted.
Because the U.S. supplies 70% of the world's corn exports, the price spike could trigger "urban food riots" in Third
World countries.
3. Turn we increase food stability. Extend across our food stability advantage. Development of
algae as a biofuel means that the US doesn’t have to use corn to produce biofuel. All the
corn that is used for biofuel now will be available to use for food after the plan.
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A2 DOHA DA
1. Not unique Doha rounds have collapsed at every meeting: Cancun 03, Geneva 04, Paris
05, Hong Kong 05, Geneva 06, Postdam 07 no reason why this one will be any different
2. Doha Breakthrough Won’t Happen
Reuters ’07 Routers, G4 talks collapse, throw trade round into doubt, Thu Jun 21, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2179513320070621
Talks between four of the world's big trade powers collapsed on Thursday, throwing the future
of global WTO talks on free commerce into deeper crisis.
The United States and the European Union, representing rich nation interests, and Brazil and India,
for the developing world, were quick to blame the other side for the collapse of the meeting which had
been scheduled to run until Saturday.
Diplomats and trade officials had warned it would be hard for the full 150member state World Trade
Organisation to meet an endJuly target for a deal, without a preparatory agreement by the socalled
G4 group of trade powers.
But ministers insisted that despite the severe setback, the near sixyearold WTO negotiations seen
as a bulwark against creeping protectionism were not yet dead.
"Potsdam, once again, was not very successful," Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told a news
conference. "It was useless to continue the discussion on the basis of the numbers put on the table."
The four were attempting to overcome deep differences over how far to open up agricultural and
industrial markets and cut rich nation farm subsidies.
"It (the failure) places a very major question mark on the ability of the wider membership of the
WTO to complete this round," EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told journalists. "(But) it
does not in itself mean that the negotiations cannot be put back on track," he added.
2. No link our plan would not be perceived as an overall increase in biofuel because we our
production of algae would trade off with the production of corn ethanol.
3.Their link is terrible it doesn’t say that increasing support for algae production would
collapse the meeting. The last sentence actually says that creating new infrastructure and
encouraging R&D can save the DOHA our aff does both of these.
4. Their internal link is bad there is no warrant for why the DOHA round is key to free trade.
Its just a one sentence statement.
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5. Their impact card is terrible peace between 1945 and 1970 cannot only be attributed to the
existence of free trade.
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AT: DOHA DA
6. DOHA destroys ecosystems and entrenches poverty
Green Peace International 6 (Green Peace International 24 July 2006, Daniel Mittler is a Political Advisor with Greenpeace
International, “Face it, Doha is dead”: time to look at alternatives to WTO, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/releases/dohaisdead)
“As on climate change, Bush had nothing but sweet words to offer on trade; he is squarely to blame for this current impasse. The US’s
unwillingness to wean their large scaleagro businesses off their unfair support is an outrage” said Daniel Mittler, Trade Policy Advisor of
Greenpeace International. “Governments must now abandon the Doha talks that have been going nowhere over the last five
years”. “The WTO failure today proves yet again, that the time of bulldozing the interests of the
developing world has passed,” added Mittler. “The global community must now act to put an end to trade
policies that promote the destruction of ecosystems and undermine the interests of the poor.”
b. Poverty is spiritual and intellectual torture, wasting human potential
Angell 2000 (Marcia Angel, February/March 2000, American physician, author, and the first woman
to serve as editorinchief of the New England Journal of Medicine, Pockets of Poverty,
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR25.1/angell.html)
A response to justice is good for our health, by Norman Daniels, Bruce Kennedy, and Ichiro Kawachi. One need not
invoke some mysterious effect of inequality on health to make a very strong argument for lessening inequalities that lead
to deprivation at the low end of the scale. Poverty is crippling not only physically but intellectually and spiritually. It cripples
any wealthy society that tolerates it on a large scale, as does the United States. In addition to the loss of human potential
and the social pathology that grows out of poverty, the costs include the callousness that injures the rest of society to it’s
presence, even as many people enjoy extraordinary riches.
The fact that there are also health consequences of poverty, whether they are exacerbated by inequality or not, is doubly
punishing and adds greatly to the injustice. Daniels, Kennedy, and Kawachi are right about that. F. Scott Fitzgerald
famously pointed out that the rich are different from the rest of us. But what is less well known is that he observes that no
difference that divides people is so important as that between the well and the sick. I agree.
7. No risk of passage too many divergent interests
States News Service 8 (States News Service, March 2, 2008, Democrats, Off Course on Trade, LN)
If that sounds defeatist, consider the reasons for Doha's failure. The global trading system has come
to include ever more countries, rendering negotiations eever more difficult. As Daniel Tarullo of
Georgetown University points out, the lag between the completion of one global trade round and the
next was five or six years even back when fewer than 100 countries were involved. But the Tokyo
Round, which had 102 members, was completed 12 years after the previous round concluded; and
the Uruguay Round (123 members) was completed 15 years after the Tokyo Round. The Doha Round
(151 members) stands at 13 years and counting.
8. Case outweighs evident that Doha breakthrough won’t happen, none of their link
arguments reach the impact of war they have zero offense, while on the other hand passing
Doha entrenches poverty, causes spiritual and intellectual torture, and destroys ecosystems.
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2. Solvency Deficit –
The counter – plan can’t solve for “splash and dash”. The IRS can’t pass a piece of legislation.
Extend LaJeunesse in 8, Liu in 5, and Mistral ’04 from the 1AC that indicates that not closing the
“splash and dash” loophole will cause a trade war with the EU that will lead to global economic
collapse. Cross- apply our Bearden 00 that economic collapse leads to nuclear war.
The New York Times in 07 (David Cay Johnston, The NY Times, March 9th, 07, I.R.S. Letting Tax Lawyers
Write Rules
http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu:2047/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do/DN)
The Internal Revenue Service is asking tax lawyers and accountants who create tax shelters and exploit
loopholes to take the lead in writing some of its new tax rules. The pilot project represents a further
expansion of the increasingly common federal government practice of asking outsiders to do more of its
work, prompting academics and other critics to complain that the government is going too far. They worry
that having private lawyers and accountants draft tax rules could allow them to subtly skew them in favor
of their clients. The I.R.S. staff has been cut by a fifth in the last decade, even as Congress has made the tax
code vastly more complex. The agency, in a formal notice, said it lacked the resources to issue as much
guidance as taxpayers are seeking. Rule making is the heart of what Washington does, though it gets little
news coverage. Once a bill becomes law it must be carried out through rules that range from advice
memoranda to formal regulations, which are printed in the Federal Register. At that point, they are subject
to public comment and at times public hearings before being revised and then formally adopted as the way
the executive branch will carry out the new law. For many years, the government has relied on contractors
to provide research and technical advice on regulations. Since 1980 one such firm, the Regulatory Group,
has trained government employees in the art of writing regulations and has provided research and editorial
consulting. It also works for private companies subject to regulation. I.R.S. rule making has been especially
contentious, including decades of efforts by the I.R.S. general counsel's office to keep secret the guidance
issued to agency executives and field personnel. Several regulation experts and tax lawyers warned of
dangers if the tax police must enforce rules written by those skilled at devising tax-free paths through the
maze of the Internal Revenue Code. Looking at the issue in its broadest terms, Gary D. Bass, executive
director of OMB Watch, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization that tracks the Office of
Management and Budget, warned that the Bush administration was turning over too much government
responsibility to those it is supposed to be keeping an eye on. ''People would chuckle at letting the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce or OMB Watch write the laws,'' he went on, ''but that is what is being done by this
administration, which keeps outsourcing more and more regulation work.''
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5. <insert conditionality or dispo theory>
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Both the USFG and the IRS can do the plan which makes the cp non competitive
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A2 DELEGATION CP-1AR EXT. D/B
Double Bind
1. The plan isn’t perceived and businesses don’t take the incentives. If companies don’t perceive
the incentives they don’t solve for our case.
or
2. The incentives are perceived. Extend the NY times in 2007 – Bush has recently received a lot of
public criticism for delegating his authority to the IRS. This proves that people will pay
attention and attribute the CP to Bush. This means they have no net benefit and in a world
with no net benefit you should vote affirmative.
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A2 DELEGATION CP-1AR EXT. SOLVE DEF
Solvency deficit
a. the CP can’t solve the Splash and Dash loop hole they can’t pass the piece of legislation
that closes it.
b. Extend our impact arguments from the 1 and 2ACs LaJeunesse in 8, Liu in 5, Mistral ’04,
and Bearden 00 that proves that trade wars lead to nuc wars.
i. Timeframe – The EU is already threatening a trade war over “splash and dash” if
we don’t solve the problem immediately there will be a trade war. Where as the
impact of the net benefit won’t be felt until after January.
ii. Probability – its much more likely the U.S. will go to war over the economy than
<insert neg impact>
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A2 DELEGATION CP-1AR EXT. IRS NO SOLVE
The IRS can’t solve
OUR NEW YORK TIMES IN 07 CARD PROVES THAT THE IRS IS OVERSTRETCHED AND
CAN’T POSSIBLY TAKE ON ANYMORE RESPONSIBILITIES. IF THEY DON’T SOLVE ALL OF
OUR IMPACTS WILL HAPPEN
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A2 DELEGATION CP-1AR EXT. DEMOCRACY
1. Extend our Sankatsing 04 democracy prevents global war and
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A2: ELECTIONS DA 2AC
Uniqueness
2. Mccain will win-hillary defectors, independans, red states, and latin votes
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Montopolic, 6/25/08 (Brian political correspondent, CBS news www.
CBSnews.com/blogs/politcs/horserace/entry42)
Obama is no Dukakis: The Illinois senator is a far more charismatic campaigner, and will not take the sort of
time off from running for president that Dukakis disastrously did in 1988. And as Power Line points out, June
polls have become far more predictive of final results since Dukakis’ failed run. But even now, McCain’s
chances may be better than these early national polls suggest: CBS News chief political consultant Marc
Ambinder examined the general election map Friday and found that between base states and those leaning
towards McCain, the Arizona senator could claim 220 electoral votes. Obama culd claim 212.
Links
4. Bush is very unpopular to begin with, the country is too mad at him for not acting sooner, acting now
will not increase his popularity dramatically
CBS news, 08 (cbs news, June 21 2008, President Bush flawed energy)
Most, if not all, of the damage was avoidable. Shortly after taking office, George W. Bush undertook a sweeping
review of U.S. energy policy aimed at expanding the nation's supply of vital fuels. The "reality is the nation has
got a real problem when it comes to energy," he declared on March 14, 2001. "We need more sources of
energy." At that time many of the problems evident today were already visible. Energy demand in mature
industrial nations was continuing to grow as the rising economic dynamos of Asia, especially China, were
beginning to make an impact. By 2002 the Energy Department was predicting that China would soon overtake
Japan, becoming the world's second-largest petroleum consumer, and that developing Asia as a whole would
account for about one-fourth of global consumption by 2020. Also evident was an unmistakable slowdown in
the growth of world production, the telltale sign of an imminent "peaking" in global output [see Klare, "Beyond
the Age of Petroleum," November 12, 2007].
Because continued reliance on oil would mean increased reliance on imported petroleum, especially from the
Middle East, Bush sought to deflect public concern by calling for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
and other protected areas. As a result, most public discourse on the Bush/Cheney plan focused on drilling in
ANWR, and no attention was paid to the implications of increased dependence on imported oil — even though
oil from ANWR, in the most optimistic scenario, would reduce US need for imports (now about 60 percent) by
just 4 percent.
It follows, then, that while the hike in prices is due largely to ever increasing demand chasing insufficiently
expanding supply, the Bush Administration's energy policies have greatly intensified the problem, andering the
majority of Americans.energy system at any cost, and by adding to the "fear factor" in international speculation through its
bungled invasion of Iraq and bellicose statements on Iran, it has made a bad problem much worse.
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Enviroment and Energy Daily, 4/2/08
The percentage of Americans who said global warming requires immediate attention also declined over
the two-year period, from 77 to 69 percent, raising a potential public opnion barrier for Congress.
Somethin is not getting to the puclic about climate change.
Anduin McElroy, will biodiesel tax credit be extended, May 2008, Biodiesel Magazine)
Because the biodiesel tax credit is a tax pakage, it is difficutlt to add on to a bill. They Ways and means
committee is the principle committee that has tauthority over tax legislation. A tax package was
negotiated with the commeitee for the EISA, but it didn’t make the final bill. Because the administration
dind not want a tax package in the energy bill, we are looking for other vehicles where the tax package
will be welcome.
8. Tax credits are not popular with the public, they actually take money from them
Hurst 08,( April 8th 2008, Clean energy tax credits will not be extended, google)
“I would argue that wind is over-subsidized,” said Alexander. “Wind is a proven technology… and this
amendment would focus on emerging baseload technologies.” The amendments are being considered as
part of a housing and foreclosure package and they are completely unrelated to the House’s Renewable
Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act (H.R. 3221), which would have rolled back tax breaks for oil
companies in order to pay for the renewable tax incentives. The tax package last fell short of passage in
the Senate in February - by a margin of one vote. These tax credits are part of a package, and may in fact
cost the public money, this is one reason it is not poplar with them. I am a strong advocate of renewable
energy, but I’m not totally convinced that federal tax credits are the most effective or efficient way of
building a clean energy presence in our national portfolio.
10. Customary International Law already solves all the nenefits of LOS ratification
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Glodsmith and Rabkin, 07 (Jack, prof at Harvard, Washington post)
Supporters note that many of the treaty's "freedom of the seas" provisions favor U.S. interests. But the United
States already receives the benefits of these provisions because, as Negroponte and England acknowledged,
they are "already widely accepted in practice." They maintain that ratifying the convention would nonetheless
provide "welcome legal certainty." In recent years, however, the United States has not received much legal
certainty from international tribunals dominated by non-American judges, and what it has received has not been
very welcome. There is little reason to expect different results from these tribunals.
President Bush invokes a different rationale for ratifying the convention, arguing that it would "give the United
States a seat at the table when the rights that are vital to our interests are debated and interpreted." What this
really means is that American views of the law of the sea, even on issues related to national security, could be
outvoted by a majority in an international forum. How can this make us safer?
9. Alternate Causalities: Studies show Africans do not go to clinics for family planning because of social
stigma.
Caldwell 02 (John, the Australian national university)
One solution to the problems of service density and motivation has been identified as social marketing,. Beegle
concluded from her study of the situation in Tanzana that levels of contraceptive use could be raised if
pharmacies dispensed pills and injectables. The availability of pills, injectables, pharmacies, and foams at
pharmacies and siple medical stores ad raised levels of contraceptive practice sustantiall even though the costs
were three to fice times those charged by the clinics. The anonomous nature f the market, the fact that one could
purchase a method privately, and the no- questions asked approach resulted in the supplying of a much wider
clientele. The same effect could be achieved, however, wer the national family planning program to provide
contraceptive supplies to such outlets.
10.Empiraccly Denied-The gag rule hs been in effect, but the impacts have not happened, their timeframe is
terrible, case outweighs
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10. Even in the wake of Iran’s new missile testing, McCain’s stance is as moderate as Obama’s
Strobel, 08(Warren, US news, Knight Ridder)
The White House and two major presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, immediately condemned the
missile launches. Obama, who has advocated direct talks with Iran, said they highlighted the need for “direct
and aggressive diplomacy,” backed by tougher sanctions. McCain questioned the usefulness of past overtures to
Iran and also called for more sanctions.
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AT: STATES CP
A. Perm, do both it’s double the solvency.
Sanya Carleyolsen, PhD candidate Public Policy @ UNC, Summer 2006, “Tangled in the Wires,” 46
Nat. Resources J. 759, ln
A transition to wide-scale RE deployment will require continued government efforts to develop feasible and consistent
economic incentives, comprehensive national- and state-level energy plans, and a stronger regulatory environment. State
governments need to enhance their energy plans with tighter environmental targets and more extensive initiatives. Local
governments need to expand the scope of planning initiatives to include policies that protect, legitimize, and advance RE
development. All levels of government and public actors need to coordinate RE efforts in order to advance a more effective,
cohesive movement.
B. Second, there is an obvious solvency deficit, the CP can’t solve international modeling, and
therefore can’t access our global warming advantage.
Robert K. Huffman, lawyer, and Jonathan M. Weisgall, VP at MidAmerican Holdings,Winter 2008,
“Climate Change and the States,” Sustainable Development Journal,
http://www.wcl.american.edu/org/sustainabledevelopment/2008/winter08.pdf?rd=1
However, it is difficult to see how a linked international cap-and-trade framework could be crafted so as not to constitute a
compact or even a treaty, which would be impermissible under Article I, § 10, cl. 1, regardless of the presence or absence of
congressional approval. In order to have a properly functioning linkage between markets, there would need to be guarantees
regarding enforceability and permanence. Without legally enforceable guarantees about the quality of the credits being traded,
the markets are unlikely to succeed. There would be a serious problem, for example, if an offset project in California created
credits that were purchased by a steel manufacturer in France, and California de-linked itself from the markets. The problem of
how the French manufacturer would account for the credits in the absence of a monitoring or verification mechanism to
account for what is happening in California is a significant one. The only way to ensure the integrity of the credits being traded
in the marketplace is to create a framework that is robust enough to protect all of the parties involved. This would presumably
include the inability to voluntarily leave the program and would be most easily accomplished with some sort of central
emissions registry that aggregates and processes data from all participants. These components are almost certain to create a
compact under the Compacts Clause, which would then require congressional approval in order to be valid.
C. Even if they do get modeled internationally, the states will still be viewed as
unconstitutional, tanking federalism and turning CP solvency.
CALIFORNIA DA 2AC
A. The California economy is on the brink because of budget deficits – the plan would force shortfalls or
raising taxes, ensuring there’s no change a budget gets passed
Evan Halper, LA Times, 7-1-2008, “State will pay,” ln
Legislators are making little progress closing a $15.2-billion shortfall. Democrats demand new taxes. Republicans say that is
out of the question. Meanwhile, their inability to strike a deal threatens millions of Californians who rely on the government for
healthcare and other services. Budget delays are not unusual. But the consequences will be particularly harsh this year. Many
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of the healthcare clinics and other service providers that have used private loans to get by during past budget stalemates are
unlikely to have easy access to such cash this year, as a result of the ongoing credit crunch brought on by the mortgage crisis.
Independent service providers aren't the only ones that could soon be scraping to find money. Short-term bonds that finance
officials rely upon to replenish state coffers cannot be sold without a budget in place, and getting them to market takes at least a
month. The state may have to turn to a syndicate of investment banks for short-term financing, on terms that could prove
costly, said H.D. Palmer, deputy director of the state Department of Finance. The financing could cost $140 million more than
bond borrowing would have, he said. "In this budget environment," he said," I can think of a lot better uses for that money."
Despite the grim state of affairs at the Capitol, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers Monday played down their failure
to get a budget together and the dim prospects of reaching a deal soon. "I don't know at what stage they are in at this time,"
Schwarzenegger said at a news conference. "I know one thing, they are all working. . . . Everyone knows we are short on time.
I think everyone knows it is a complicated, difficult budget." Schwarzenegger, who has been playing only a minor role in
budget deliberations of late, turned the microphone over to Assembly Speaker Karen Bass. "We have been working," she said.
"We spent four hours yesterday working." Democrats in both houses have released budget plans that call for as much as $11 billion in new taxes. But so far
they have not identified which taxes they would like to raise. Bass demurred again Monday. "We will see what happens as the process moves forward this
week," she said. The governor later joked about his optimism that the state will not run out of cash by pulling out a personal money clip full of bills. "I still
have some left," he said. Not all Republicans were in such good spirits. "Until we get to a spot where Democrats realize that taxes are not
going to work, it will be tough to move the budget forward," said Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines of Clovis. Credit
agencies will be watching closely: California has the second-lowest credit rating among states in the country, and some
economists say a downgrade could be coming. The last time the state's creditworthiness was downgraded was during the budget crisis of 2003,
when its bond ratings fell to nearly junk status. The shortfall lawmakers faced then was roughly the size it is now.
B. California is key to the US economy
Nutting, 11-9-2007, MarketWatch, “Could California be in recession?” lexis, tk
The state of California isn't taking any chances. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered state agencies to plan for a 10%
cutback in their budgets for next year, figuring that tax receipts could fall significantly along with home prices. California
matters to the national economy, but trends in California do not necessarily presage what will happen nationally. About one in
every eight Americans live in California. Its state gross product was $1.6 trillion in 2005, representing about 13% of the
nation's economic output, slightly more than its 12% share of the population. In 2006, the median household income in
California was $54,385, compared with $48,023 nationally. Between 1997 and 2005, California household incomes grew 4.4%
annually, the fourth fastest growing state. Some of that growth came from the technology boom of the late 1990s, and some
came from the housing boom, which, in just five years, doubled average home prices in the state to about $500,000. Now, of
course, home prices are falling nationally, but especially in California. California's economy has a lot going for it. It's
incredibly diverse, from the highest of high tech and Hollywood to the basic old-economy industries of agriculture, retail and
manufacturing. California is by far the biggest farming state, with its annual output nearly three times its nearest competitor,
Texas. California's agricultural output - nearly 20% of the nation's total -- matches the output of all the Farm Belt states
combined. California accounts for about 11% of U.S. manufacturing output by value and 13% of construction. California
accounts for 19% of the country's information services - including media and software. And it contributes 12% of the national
output of financial services, trailing only New York in the financial sector.
C. Mead 92
AT: LOPEZ CP
A. No solvency, The counterplan tanks federalism by over-delegating federal powers to the states
Stephen G. Calabresi, Law Prof @ NWU, March 2001, Annals of the American Academy of Political
And Social Science, v574, p. 33
I fully agree that the Court ought to approach enforcement of the commerce clause and Section 5 power with restraint and that
only in cases of egregious overreaching should acts of Congress be struck down. Congressional efforts to enforce the
commerce power or Section 5 deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt both because of Congress’s greater information
about the real world and because Congress is a coequal interpreter of the Constitution to the Supreme Court. But giving
Congress the benefit of the doubt does not mean rubber-stamping everything that Congress has tried to do, as happened from
1937 to 1995. Sometimes in extreme cases, it is valuable for the Court to remind Congress of the constitutional values of
federalism, and this is what I think happened in Lopez, City of Boerne, and Morrison. In each of these cases, Congress was
attempting novel federalism solutions to problems that a majority of the states seemed to be handling very well. It was
accordingly appropriate for the Court to slow Congress down by forcing it to take a second look at what it had in haste done in
each of these areas (Calabresi 1995).
B. Sudden court extension of Lopez triggers a social backlash that undermines federalism
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Steven G. Calabresi, Associate Professor, Northwestern University School of Law. “A Government of Limited and Enumerated
Powers,” Michigan Law Review December, 1995
First, I do not think the federal courts can ignore the powerful reliance interests that have grown up around the statutes enacted
during and after the New Deal in reliance on a broader understanding of the Commerce Clause. Congress itself can repeal
statutes for federalism reasons, as it is now doing, without worrying about considerations of precedent. The legislative process
is such that new laws can be phased in over a period of many years thus accommodating reliance interests quite readily. The
judicial process is much more rigid, however, and sudden mass overrulings would cause social disruption that the Court could
do little to soften. The likeliest social reaction, in my view, to a sudden judicial abrogation of the New Deal would be a
constitutional amendment formalizing the currently flawed case law understandings of the scope of congressional power. This
result wrongly would upset the public while setting back if not destroying the cause of federalism. I therefore think it would be
a grave mistake for the Court to overrule abruptly key New Deal precedents, many of which even may be defensible under the
functional theory of federalism set out in Part I.
ESA DA 2AC
A. Striking down congressional power to regulate energy would require overturning all of Congress’s
powers under the Commerce Clause
Peter Moyers, Princeton, Spring 1998, “Drug Legalization,” Princeton U.L.J., v. 11, iss. 2,
www.princeton.edu/~lawjourn/Spring 98/
Wickard v Filburn (1942) affirmed the decision in NLRB and granted additional power. The respondent in the case was found guilty of violating a law
prohibiting the production of more than 11.1 acres of wheat. Even though he did not sell his extra wheat, the Court found that the respondent along with others
could possibly substantially affect the wheat market were they all to violate the quota. Although Filburn’s acts did not themselves substantially affect interstate
commerce, many "Filburns" could do so. The risk of substantial effect was enough for congressional regulation. Therefore, Congress’ interest in stabilizing
prices on the wheat market required farmers not to exceed the quota, even if the surplus was not used for commercial purposes. This decision granted
Congress the power to regulate non-commercial, local activity if it presents the risk of "substantial economic effect on interstate
commerce." These cases bring us to the most recent decision of U.S. v Lopez (1995). In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Rehnquist notes that three
categories of activity may be regulated by Congress under the power of the Commerce Clause. First, the channels of interstate commerce are open to
congressional regulation. Second, Congress may regulate the persons or things, the instrumentalities, of interstate commerce. Third, an activity may be
regulated if it has a substantial relation to interstate commerce, or more specifically, substantially affect interstate commerce. In Lopez, the government argued
under the third category, attempting to show that the presence of firearms on school grounds has substantial relation to interstate commerce. The Court found
the argument to lack force, asserting that the definition of substantial relation or effect the government was putting forth would transform Commerce Clause
power into "a general police power of the sort retained by the States." This decision does not categorically reject the federalization of police powers but rather
affirms the doctrine of substantial relation or effect. The Court was unwilling to build "inference upon inference" to see a substantial economic effect; the
presence of firearms on school grounds was found to be too far removed from interstate commerce to come under the third category. The Court would be
faced with a similar case in the congressional policy of outlawing the use, sale and possession of drugs. In order for the
congressional policy to prevail, it must show that the possession and use of drugs, sanctioned by the state policy, substantially
affect interstate commerce. However, in order to be consistent with Lopez and Wickard, whose doctrine of substantial risk of
effect has never been overturned, and in the absence of empirical evidence, the Court must recognize that even the risk of an
activity substantially affecting interstate commerce is sufficient for legitimate congressional regulation. I find the activities
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sanctioned by the state policy to be of sufficient risk of substantially affecting interstate commerce to find the congressional policy a constitutional regulation
denying the practice of the activities sanctioned by the initiative.
***Continues***
The state policy demonstrates the risks involved in allowing states, in the case of drug policy, to pursue different policies. As I argue above, the legalization of
drugs within one state almost certainly will substantially burden the effective pursuit of drug use and possession prevention in other states. A neighboring state
would have to create nearly impervious borders in order to remain faithful to its anti-drug policy; one wonders if the free flow of people to and from the state,
let alone commerce, would remain a possibility. By upholding the constitutionality of the congressional policy, the Court would recognize and condemn the
substantial burden a state pursuing an independent drug policy places on neighboring states. Admittedly, to the casual observer, the Court’s decision would
appear to be a significant usurpation of states’ police powers and a step toward a unitary system. I agree that the Court ought to be wary of assaults on
federalism. The decision should not be looked upon by future Courts as a precedent for allowing the nationalization of police powers, but rather as an
affirmation of Congress’ power to regulate any activities, including crimes, that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. In this case, the state policy
creates a risk of substantially affecting interstate commerce. To deny Congress’ power in this case would be to overturn nearly all
Commerce Clause precedents as well as Marigold. And to overturn Marigold would be to all but eliminate any non-enumerated
means Congress requires to pursue its powers and duties. Although to find for the federal government might blur the line of
federalism, to find for the state would strip Congress of its power, granted in Marigold, to act beyond its enumerated means to
pursue its enumerated duties. The latter I do not think our system can tolerate.
B. That would require striking down the ESA – it’s based on the commerce clause
Mollie Lee, 11-1-2006, Yale L. J., “Environmental economics,”
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6199333/Environmental-economics-a-market-failure.html
When Congress enacted the ESA, it did so with very little debate and with overwhelming public support. (11) The
environmental movement was at its peak, (12) and a nation of newfound environmentalists was eager to respond to well-
publicized stories about threats to the bald eagle, blue whale, polar bear, and other "charismatic fauna." (13) Endangered
species already received some protection from statutes enacted in the prior decade, (14) but these statutes were limited in
scope, and it soon became apparent that they were inadequate to prevent further extinctions. (15) Thus, in 1973 Congress
adopted the ESA as a comprehensive approach to protecting threatened and endangered species throughout the nation.
Congress relied chiefly on its Commerce Clause powers in passing the statute, (16) but the legislative history contains no
explicit discussion of this constitutional authority. However, congressional findings and testimony suggest that Congress
understood species extinctions as a problem with both commercial causes (17) and commercial consequences. (18) The causal
link between commercial activity and species extinction is particularly prominent in the legislative findings for the statute.
There, Congress noted that "various species offish, wildlife, and plants in the United States have been rendered extinct as a
consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation." (19) While this finding
suggests that Congress understood economic activity to be a primary cause of species extinction, Congress did not choose to
protect endangered species by directly regulating economic activity. Instead, the ESA prohibited any activity that would
jeopardize the continued survival of threatened and endangered species.
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D. That causes extinction
Paul Warner, American University, Dept of International Politics and Foreign Policy, August, Politics and Life Sciences, 1994, p
177
Massive extinction of species is dangerous, then, because one cannot predict which species are expendable to the system as a
whole. As Philip Hoose remarks, "Plants and animals cannot tell us what they mean to each other." One can never be sure
which species holds up fundamental biological relationships in the planetary ecosystem. And, because removing species is an
irreversible act, it may be too late to save the system after the extinction of key plants or animals. According to the U.S.
National Research Council, "The ramifications of an ecological change of this magnitude [vast extinction of species] are so far
reaching that no one on earth will escape them." Trifling with the "lives" of species is like playing Russian roulette, with our
collective future as the stakes.
ECONOMY DA 2AC
A. The CP would be send a massive signal of unpredictability and confusion from the court
Matthew Ford, Law Student at St John's University School of Law in New York. 9/15/05. “John
Roberts, Stare Decisis, and the Return of Lochner: An Impetus to Jump-Start the Labor Movement.”
Mr. Zine Magazine, A Project of the Monthly Review.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ford180905.html
Our common law system is based largely on the idea of "stare
decisis," the idea that the rulings of judges are generally binding. Such a system is designed to
create continuity so as to send
a signal to society about what sort of behavior society will or will not tolerate, to avoid confusion certain to
arise if laws are constantly changing, and to diminish the likelihood of agitating society as a whole or creating a backlash by
overturning laws that are widely valued. However, as Judge Roberts put it, "[S]tare decisis is not an inexorable command" ("Transcript: Day Two of the Roberts
Confirmation Hearings," 13 September 2004). The Supreme Court can overturn precedent when it sees fit, or, in the words of Roberts, "You have to consider whether
[precedent has] created settled expectations that should not be disrupted in the interest of regularity in the legal system" ("Transcript: Day Two of the Roberts
Confirmation Hearings," 13 September 2004). If Roberts sticks to his word, large, well-organized, militant groups such as the Women's Rights Movement should find
comfort in the fact that Roberts has implicitly acknowledged that the overturning of such a key precedent as Roe v. Wade would likely lead to
large-scale upheaval by the well-organized feminist movement that would shake society so forcefully that to even fathom
overturning the ruling is to start trouble.
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fire everything as fast as possible against their perceived enemies. The reason is simple: When the mass destruction weapons are unleashed at all, the only
chance a nation has to survive is to desperately try to destroy its perceived enemies before they destroy it. So there will erupt a spasmodic unleashing
of the long range missiles, nuclear arsenals, and biological warfare arsenals of the nations as they feel the economic collapse,
poverty, death, misery, etc. a bit earlier. The ensuing holocaust is certain to immediately draw in the major nations also, and
literally a hell on earth will result. In short, we will get the great Armageddon we have been fearing since the advent of the nuclear genie.
Right now, my personal estimate is that we have about a 99% chance of that scenario or some modified version of it, resulting.
B. Non-Unique, Bush and the conservative court have abandoned federalism – laundry list
David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of Libertarianism: A Primer,
“No Federalism on the Right,” May 19, 2005, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,156260,00.html
Federalism has always been a key element of American conservatism. In his 1960 manifesto, The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater called for
the federal government to "withdraw promptly and totally from every jurisdiction which the Constitution reserves to the states." Ronald Reagan ran for
president promising to send 25 percent of federal taxes and spending back to the states. As Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, Newt Gingrich
stressed that "we are committed to getting power back to the states." Lately, though, conservatives -- at last in control of both the White House and both
houses of Congress -- have forgotten their longstanding commitment to reduce federal power and intrusiveness and return many
governmental functions to the states. Instead, they have taken to using their newfound power to impose their own ideas on the whole country. Conservatives
once opposed the creation of a federal Education Department. Congressional Republicans warned, "Decisions which are now made in the local school or
school district will slowly but surely be transferred to Washington…. The Department of Education will end up being the Nation's super schoolboard. That is
something we can all do without.'' But President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act establishes national education testing standards and
makes every local school district accountable to federal bureaucrats in Washington. President Bush and conservative Republicans have been
trying to restrain lawsuit abuse by allowing class-action suits to be moved from state to federal courts. The 2002 election law imposed national standards on the
states in such areas as registration and provisional balloting. A 2004 law established federal standards for state-issued driver's licenses and personal
identification cards. President Bush's "Project Safe Neighborhoods" transfers the prosecution of gun crimes from states to the federal
government. The administration is trying to persuade federal courts to block implementation of state initiatives on medical marijuana in California
and assisted suicide in Oregon. Perhaps most notoriously, President Bush and conservatives are pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban gay
marriage in all 50 states. They talk about runaway judges and democratic decision-making, but their amendment would forbid the people of New York,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, California or any other state from deciding to allow same-sex marriage. Marriage law has always been a matter for the states. We
should not impose one uniform marriage law on what conservatives used to call "the sovereign states." Most recently, we have the specter of the Republican
Congress seeking to override six Florida court decisions in the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, intruding the federal government into yet another place it doesn't
belong. Asked on Fox News about the oddity of conservatives seeking to over-ride states' rights, Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes responded: "Please!
States' rights? Look, this is a moral issue."
C. Non-Unique, despite high state action and activity, states are still in need of more power.
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John Dinan, Executive director of the National Governors Association, 6-22-2008, Publius, “The state
of American Federalism 2007-2008: resurgent state influence in the national policy process and
continued state policy innovation,” rks, lexis
States have long been the primary policy innovators in the US federal system, and as Dale Krane has noted, state policy
activism "appears to be increasing at an accelerating pace" during the Bush presidency (Krane 2007, 462). State officials
continued to take the lead on anumber of issues in 2007-2008, at times acting when federal policy was not forthcoming, at
times expressing disagreement with federal policy, and at times proceeding independently of federal policy-makers (Greenblatt
2007b; Tubbesing 2008). In fact, as John Kincaid and Richard Cole suggest in their article for this issue, public awareness
andsupport for continued state policy innovation may well account for the post-2005 uptick in public support for state
governments recorded in their annual opinion surveys. As Kincaid and Cole report, their 2007 survey saw a continued drop in
the percentage of individuals responding that state governments "gave them the least for their money" and a notable increase in
the percentage of survey respondents saying that state governments "need more power."
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Justice Breyer, 5-15-2000, “United States v. Morrison et al.,” Dissenting Opinion,
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=99-5
The majority, aware of these difficulties, is nonetheless concerned with what it sees as an important contrary consideration. To determine the
lawfulness of statutes simply by asking whether Congress could reasonably have found that aggregated local instances significantly affect interstate commerce
will allow Congress to regulate almost anything. Virtually all local activity, when instances are aggregated, can have "substantial effects on employment,
production, transit, or consumption." Hence Congress could "regulate any crime," and perhaps "marriage, divorce, and childrearing" as well,
obliterating the "Constitution's distinction between national and local authority." Ante, at 15; Lopez, 514 U. S., at 558; cf. A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v.
United States, 295 U. S. 495, 548 (1935) (need for distinction between "direct" and "indirect" effects lest there "be virtually no limit to the federal power");
Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251, 276 (1918) (similar observation). This consideration, however, while serious, does not reflect a
jurisprudential defect, so much as it reflects a practical reality. We live in a Nation knit together by two centuries of scientific, technological,
commercial, and environmental change. Those changes, taken together, mean that virtually every kind of activity, no matter how local, genuinely can affect
commerce, or its conditions, outside the State--at least when considered in the aggregate. Heart of Atlanta Motel, 379 U. S., at 251. And that fact makes it close
to impossible for courts to develop meaningful subject-matter categories that would exclude some kinds of local activities from ordinary Commerce Clause
"aggregation" rules without, at the same time, depriving Congress of the power to regulate activities that have a genuine and important effect upon interstate
commerce. Since judges cannot change the world, the "defect" means that, within the bounds of the rational, Congress, not the courts, must
remain primarily responsible for striking the appropriate state/federal balance. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469
U. S. 528, 552 (1985); ante, at 19-24 (Souter, J., dissenting); Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U. S. , (2000) (slip op., at 2) (Stevens, J., dissenting)
(Framers designed important structural safeguards to ensure that, when Congress legislates, "the normal operation of the legislative process itself would
adequately defend state interests from undue infringement"); see also Kramer, Putting the Politics Back into the Political Safeguards of Federalism, 100
Colum. L. Rev. 215 (2000) (focusing on role of political process and political parties in protecting state interests). Congress is institutionally
motivated to do so. Its Members represent state and local district interests. They consider the views of state and local officials
when they legislate, and they have even developed formal procedures to ensure that such consideration takes place. See, e.g.,
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995, Pub. L. 104-4, 109 Stat. 48 (codified in scattered sections of 2 U. S. C.). Moreover,
Congress often can better reflect state concerns for autonomy in the details of sophisticated statutory schemes than can the
judiciary, which cannot easily gather the relevant facts and which must apply more general legal rules and categories. See, e.g., 42 U. S. C. §7543(b) (Clean
Air Act); 33 U. S. C. §1251 et seq. (Clean Water Act); see also New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 167-168 (1992) (collecting other examples of
"cooperative federalism"). Not surprisingly, the bulk of American law is still state law, and overwhelmingly so.
B. The feds can regulate greenhouse emissions because of the commerce clause – the plan doesn’t hurt
federalism
Robert K. Huffman, lawyer, and Jonathan M. Weisgall, VP at MidAmerican Holdings,Winter 2008,
“Climate Change and the States,” Sustainable Development Journal,
http://www.wcl.american.edu/org/sustainabledevelopment/2008/winter08.pdf?rd=1
The United States’ system of federalism allows the federal and state governments to share power in certain areas, while each
maintains exclusive areas where the other may not regulate. The power of the federal government is constrained by the Constitution and does
not include general police powers, which are reserved to the states.46 State governments, however, may not regulate certain aspects of interstate and foreign
commerce, foreign affairs, and other areas of reserved federal power. When states take actions to regulate greenhouse gases, it raises
questions about the extent of state authority to regulate the economy and the environment. Linking emissions trading programs or
enacting auto emissions regulations brings states to the far end of their regulatory authority, given the transborder nature of emission trading and carbon
dioxide emissions generally. This section explores the constitutional issues that can potentially arise from state actions to reduce GHG emissions. Commerce
Clause The Commerce Clause, Article I, § 8, cl. 3, gives the federal government the power “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign
Nations, and among the several States[.]”47 The Supreme Court has long considered the Commerce Clause to be “an implicit restraint on state authority, even
in the absence of a conflicting federal statute.”48 This concept is known as the Dormant Commerce Clause—wherein the Constitution acts as a prohibition on
certain types of state actions that affect interstate commerce, invalidating the state law by negative implication.49 Although the Dormant Commerce Clause
doctrine has gained widespread acceptance, at least two current Supreme Court justices (Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas) reject it altogether. Regardless of
these two justices, it is highly unlikely that a majority of the Court would reject the Dormant Commerce Clause doctrine. Were the
doctrine to be rejected by the Court, state actions would never be invalidated for conflicting with unexercised congressional power under the Commerce
Clause, but would be subject to invalidation only for express or implied preemption by federal law.
C. American federalism isn’t modeled – multinational states prove
Alfred Stepan, Professor of Government at Oxford and Columbia, 1999, Journal of Democracy 10.4,
19-34, “Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the U.S. Model,” muse
In seeking to understand why some countries are reluctant to adopt federal systems, it is helpful to examine what political science has had [End Page 20] to say
about federalism. Unfortunately, some of the most influential works in political science today offer incomplete or insufficiently broad
definitions of federalism and thereby suggest that the range of choices facing newly democratizing states is narrower than it
actually is. In large part, this stems from their focusing too exclusively on the model offered by the United States, the oldest and
certainly one of the most successful federal democracies. One of the most influential political scientists to write about federalism in the last half-century, the
late William H. Riker, stresses three factors present in the U.S. form of federalism that he claims to be true for federalism in general. 1 First, Riker assumes that
every longstanding federation, democratic or not, is the result of a bargain whereby previously sovereign polities agree to give up part of their sovereignty in
order to pool their resources to increase their collective security and to achieve other goals, including economic ones. I call this type of federalism coming-
together federalism. For Riker, it is the only type of federalism in the world. Second, Riker and many other U.S. scholars assume that one of the goals of
federalism is to protect individual rights against encroachments on the part of the central government (or even against the "tyranny of the majority") by a
number of institutional devices, such as a bicameral legislature in which one house is elected on the basis of population, while in the other house the subunits
are represented equally. In addition, many competences are permanently granted to the subunits instead of to the center. If we can call all of the citizens in the
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polity taken as a whole the demos, we may say that these devices, although democratic, are "demosconstraining." Third, as a result of the federal
bargain that created the United States, each of the states was accorded the same constitutional competences. U.S. federalism is
thus considered to be constitutionally symmetrical. By contrast, asymmetrical arrangements that grant different competencies
and group-specific rights to some states, which are not now part of the U.S. model of federalism, are seen as incompatible with the
principled equality of the states and with equality of citizens' rights in the post-segregation era. Yet although these three points are a reasonably accurate
depiction of the political structures and normative values associated with U.S. federalism, most democratic countries that have adopted federal
systems have chosen not to follow the U.S. model. Indeed, American-style federalism embodies some values that would
be very inappropriate for [End Page 21] many democratizing countries, especially multinational polities. To explain what I
mean by this, let me review each of these three points in turn.
1. Risk
World Policy Journal March 22, 1999
"The defining mode of conflict in the era ahead," Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan declared in 1993, "is ethnic conflict. It
promises to be savage. Get ready for 50 new countries in the world in the next 50 years. Most of them will be born in
bloodshed."Moynihan's apocalyptic vision is not untypical of the prevailing wisdom. History, it seems to many, has exacted its
own revenge on what Francis Fukuyama so rashly suggested was the posthistorical world, in the form of conflicts sparked and
sustained by ancient and incomprehensible hatreds and bloodlusts. To many analysts, class conflict is passe; the "proxy wars"
of the Cold War era can, by definition, no longer occur; and even realpolitik, with rational states pursuing their clearly defined
interests, seems dated. Ethnicity, it seems, is the new, dominant causality.
2. Magnitude
Los Angeles Times, February 26, 1993
It is federalism and confederation that we should be pushing -- not ethnic independence. We should be tentatively exploring
whether some type of Yugoslav confederation is a solution that would make it easier for different ethnic groups to live together
in the new states. The problems we see in Bosnia are nothing compared to the bloodshed -- and the danger of fascists coming
into control of nuclear weapons -- that would occur if huge multiethnic countries like India, Pakistan and Indonesia start
disintegrating.
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of exclusive federal jurisdiction also include control over federal property, the federal budget, federal
taxes, transport, communications, power generation, currency, the treasury, financial institutions,
postal service, armed forces, defense and security, foreign policy, and foreign economic relations.
C. Russia won’t model American federalism, if they’re federalist at all it’ll be Russian style.
Evgueni Vladimirovich Pershin, second director of the Analytical Department of the Federation
Council Apparatus. Kazan Federalist, 2003. Number 4 (8). “Issues in the improvement of Russian
federalism.” http://www.kazanfed.ru/en/publications/kazanfederalist/n8/4/
The current state of federal relations in Russia requires practical steps aimed at its fundamental modernization. However, we
should not forget that Russian federalism is a national product. It will not and should not look like the American or German
models. Understanding of the foreign experience is important only to produce an essentially new model of federal relations at
the next stage of self-development, which the researchers will later call “the Russian model of federalism.”
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