On November 9th, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments challenging the constitutionality of juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences. In preparation for oral arguments, JLWOP: Faces & Cases will be an on-going series on The Foundry that will tell real stories about juvenile offenders who are currently serving LWOP sentences.

Defendant: Martize M. Smolley (16)
Victims: Kelly Houser, Amy Allen
Crimes: Two counts, felony first degree murder & other charges
Crime date: June 14, 2004 in Peoria, Illinois

Summary
Martize Smolley shot and killed a mother and daughter who had stopped at an ATM on their way to an ice cream parlor.

Facts
On the evening of June 14, 2004, Martize Smolley announced to his friend Monterius Hinkle that he was going to “get some money.” He armed himself with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and headed out toward Jefferson Street.

At about the same time, Kelly Houser and her teenage daughter, Amy Allen, decided to get some ice cream and enjoy a summer evening together. On their way to the ice cream parlor, Kelly stopped at an ATM to get some cash.

From across Jefferson Street, Smolley saw Kelly park near the ATM. He approached the car from behind and stuck the handgun into the vehicle through the driver’s door window. He demanded money. Frightened and surprised, Kelly started to drive the car away.

Smolley fired the weapon. The bullet struck Kelly in the left cheek, exited through the back right side of her head, and then entered the left side of Amy’s head and lodged in her brain. Both victims died instantly.

Smolley fled to his apartment. He told Hinkle, “I just shot some lady down there.”

The gun used to kill Kelly and Amy was discovered under Smolley’s bed.

Cap-and-trade means a declining “cap” on total emissions, while allowing trading of pollution permits. Confidence in the certainty of declining caps is based on the mistaken assumption that cap-and trade was proven in the EPA’s acid rain program. In fact, addressing acid rain required relatively minor modifications to coal-fired power plants. Reductions were accomplished primarily by a fuel switch to readily available, affordable, low-sulfur coal, along with some additional scrubbing. In contrast, the issues presented by climate change cannot be solved by tweaks to facilities; it requires an energy revolution through investments in building clean-energy facilities.”

The authors explain, however, that these minor modifications and cheap alternatives aren’t available when it comes to America’s energy use:

The biggest obstacle to this revolution is that uncontrolled fossil fuel energy remains much cheaper than clean energy. Cap-and-trade alone will not create confidence that clean energy will become profitable within a known time frame and so will not ignite the huge shift in investment needed to begin the clean-energy revolution. In recent interviews, even the economists who thought up cap-and-trade have said they don’t believe it’s an appropriate tool for climate change.”

The brunt of the authors’ objection to a cap and trade system has to with the offset provision. If a coal plant believes it’s cheaper not to reduce its carbon footprint, it can pay someone else to do so. For instance, a company could pay a logger not to cut down trees, or they could pay someone to grow trees since trees absorb carbon. Or a developing country can build a cleaner coal plant saying they were going to build a dirtier one while cashing a check from a developed country for the alleged carbon offset. Williams and Zabel make the same case with the forest owner:

[I]f the landowner wasn’t planning to cut his forest, he just received a bonus for doing what he would have done anyway. Even if he was planning to cut his forest and doesn’t, demand for wood isn’t reduced. A different forest will be cut. Either way, there is no net reduction in production of greenhouse gases. The result of this carbon “offset” is not a decrease but an increase — coal burning above the cap at the power plant.”

And the offset program creates perverse incentives and unintended consequences:

[C]onsider the refrigerant HCFC-22, the manufacture of which creates an extremely powerful greenhouse gas as a byproduct. This byproduct is relatively easy and cheap to destroy, and governments could require refrigerant manufacturers to do just that. But offset investors have persuaded regulators to approve destruction of the byproduct as a carbon offset, making it twice as profitable to sell byproduct destruction as it was to sell the refrigerant.”

Designed to be a cost containment measure, experience with offsets have led to nothing but fraud with no reduction in carbon dioxide. The architects of cap and trade legislation claim that farmers and landowners with forestland to be the big winners from the offset program. But the economic pain they suffer, along with everyone else, will be much greater than any offset check they collect.

Rather than use a procedural gambit to trounce the rights of the minority, Senator Boxer announced the committee would receive a briefing from committee staff on the actual provisions of the latest version of the bill. That is certainly not objectionable, but common sense suggests a thorough understanding of the legislation would be a prerequisite for a markup.

In addition, just as Senators prepare to gain a better understanding about the legislation, Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) hinted, “some people are talking about not doing it [global warming] until after the 2010 election.” Senator Olympia Snow (R-ME) went as far to say, “Obviously, it’s not an issue we will be readily addressing this year.”

While some Members will inevitably allocate time to the 2010 elections, the focus will still be the economy. Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) stressed that “jobs should be our top priority and we shouldn’t do anything that detracts from that.” Representative Bob Etheridge (D-NC) echoed Senator Bayh’s remarks, saying, “Three things ought to be the top priority: jobs, jobs and jobs.”

There’s one thing cap and trade will not do and that’s “save or create jobs.” It will destroy them. Our preliminary analysis of the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade legislation kicks 1.8 million people into the unemployment line as soon as 2012 and ultimately raises unemployment by over 2.7 million.

Even the EPA’s analysis under the most generous assumptions did not project a green economic stimulus. Out of the groups that came to The Heritage Foundation to explain the economic results of their respective cap and trade models (including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Budget Office), there was no disagreement on how cap and trade would affect employment. Higher energy prices will put a chokehold on the economy - causing fewer jobs and lower income.

Dan Holler co-authored this post.

It contains all the essential components of an EU super­state including a President, a Foreign Minister, a single legal personality, a diplomatic corps and a public prosecutor. Majority voting replaces unanimity voting in at least 40 new areas, including foreign policy, immigration, energy, humanitarian aid, sport and investment.

The Treaty states that henceforth, “Before undertaking any action on the international scene or entering into any commitment which could affect the Union’s interests, each Member State shall consult the others within the European Council or the Council.” Members will now subject their foreign policies to the judgment and wisdom of an EU body over which their peoples have no democratic controls. This is worse than liberal idealism; it is simply anti-democratic.

The EU has connived, bullied and finagled to bring the re-birthed European Constitution into force, despite being rejected in referenda by France, Holland and Ireland. If referenda were held across EU member states (as was favored by public opinion right across Europe), it would undoubtedly have been rejected several more times. Ireland’s EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy went as far as claiming that up to 95% of EU member states would have voted No to Lisbon if they’d been asked.

Under Lisbon, the EU will have a self-aggrandizing mechanism where it can accrue further powers without explicitly seeking national consent. Yesterday was a sad day for democracy and liberty and a sad day for Europe.

Yesterday the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment unanimously approved legislation to ban the importation of foreign radioactive waste for disposal in the U.S. Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN) introduced H.R. 515: Radioactive Import Deterrence Act in January of 2009 and the bill could soon be up for a vote in the House of Representatives. The full committee will vote on the bill tomorrow with a full House at some future point after that. When the subcommittee approved the legislation Barton said,

We’re the only nation in the world that buries the nuclear waste of other countries in our soil. We already have limited space in our country for the radioactive waste generated by American entities and it should be preserved for them – the medical facilities, university research labs and utility companies.”

While there are some legitimate concerns with low-level waste importation, there is also tremendous opportunity.

Before weighing the pros and cons, it’s relevant to know what low-level nuclear waste is. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) defines low-level radioactive waste as items that have become contaminated with radioactive material or have become radioactive through exposure to neutron radiation. This waste typically consists of contaminated protective shoe covers and clothing, wiping rags, mops, filters, reactor water treatment residues, equipments and tools, luminous dials, medical tubes, swabs, injection needles, syringes, and laboratory animal carcasses and tissues. There are three classes of low-level waste: A, B and C, and, “class A low-level radioactive waste contains the lowest concentration of radioactive materials, and most of those materials have half-lives of less than five years.”

One concern, as emphasized by Congressman Barton is space. Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions wants to import 20,000 tons of low-level waste from Italy, which after processing in Tennessee would be trimmed down to 1,600 tons to be stored in Utah’s desert. Testimony from Margaret M. Doane of the NRC would suggest otherwise. In her written testimony on October 16, she said, “There do not appear to be any such concerns about capacity for disposal of Class A material, which has been the classification for all waste import cases today.”

Another concern, as with all things nuclear, is safety – also known as the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) problem. But the truth is nuclear waste is routinely transported all over the country daily everyday. Since 1971, more than 20,000 shipments of spent fuel and high-level waste have been transported more than 18 million miles worldwide without incident. And that’s high-level waste. There’s much more when it comes to low level waste (both domestically and internationally) and the NRC has strict guidelines for regulatory requirements, licensing, and safety oversight.

That being said, there are also concerns as to what the bill would do from a competitiveness perspective. This is becoming increasingly important as U.S. nuclear companies begin to position themselves to participate in the global nuclear renaissance that is unfolding.

• This is a lost business opportunity for America’s commercial nuclear industry. If companies can find safe and profitable disposition methods, those companies should be allowed to pursue those opportunities. It is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s job to ensure that those activities are done safely. Using ones resources to provide cost effective services is how competitive companies succeed. Forcing companies to use more expensive means essentially undermines their competitiveness and will result in lost opportunities. Furthermore, if space is a concern, that’s something for the importing company to address, not the government. Specific companies should have the freedom to use their resources, such as space availability, as they deem appropriate. Interestingly, the bill does not prevent the government from importing low-level waste, only the private sector.

• It could add a potential barrier to an emerging industry. Congressman Fred Upton (D-MI) remarked, “The U.S. is on the cusp of a nuclear renaissance … we risk never realizing our full potential on nuclear power.” The Congressman is right to be concerned. The legislation essentially precludes American companies from fully participating in a critical sector of the global nuclear industry. Denying a U.S. company from efficiently using its assets—in this case, a waste disposal facility—disadvantages U.S. companies that are competing with international firms.

• It could hamper the global nuclear energy market. At the end of September 2009, the Department of Energy announced, “U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Italian Minister for Economic Development Claudio Scajola today signed two important nuclear energy agreements that may lead to construction of new nuclear power plants and improved cooperation on advanced nuclear energy systems and fuel cycle technologies in both countries.” (More on these important agreements can be found here.) Banning imports on low-level waste would be a step backward after such an important step forward to building an international market for nuclear technologies.

Congress should seek real solutions towards nuclear waste management reform and implement polices that keep U.S. markets open and encourage lower trade barriers around the world. While concerns over safety and space may be legitimate, this policy could have significant long-term implications for the future of nuclear power in America.

The President promised a more thorough review America’s trade policy over the first half of 2009 and a new road map for U.S. trade relations this summer – a promise that remains unfulfilled as his first year as president comes to a close. Lacking the Administration’s willingness to detail a comprehensive and transparent trade agenda, the nation’s trade regime is instead being shaped and undermined by a slow and steady creep of protectionism in Congressional legislation and in ad hoc measures designed to cater to special interests.

High new tariffs on inexpensive tires from China; Buy American provisions in stimulus and other legislation that restricts import competition; government handouts, cheap loans, and other interventions in the auto industry, financial sector, and other sensitive industries that gives them an artificial competitive advantage over firms not receiving handouts; and, export subsidies to bolster international sales of U.S. dairy products are examples of the measures taken this year that threaten to whittle away at the progress made over the last 6 decades toward dismantling obstacles to the international flow of goods and services – the very engine of growth that has eased poverty and brought prosperity to so many.

The U.S. and others are putting world trade at risk today by implementing a growing number of new protectionist policies. Moreover, world trade is put at risk in the future as the specter of a global trade war looms larger with each new tit-for-tat trade restriction that countries impose on each other.

Because America leads on trade policy by example, U.S. actions need to be clear and consistent with the open market principles America has long promoted, and, indeed, demands from other nations. The long-awaited release of America’s new trade agenda and the dismantling of U.S. trade barriers enacted over the last year would go far to mend the damage done to both America’s economic future and image abroad. The Obama Administration needs to embrace trade policy as a tool for restoring America as a credible global partner for economic growth – a necessary and critical step towards reasserting the rules-based spirit of the international trade system and restoring worldwide prosperity.

A Lewin Group study commissioned by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, finds that although the Baucus health care bill (the legislation that recently passed the Senate Finance Committee) is often touted as the most fiscally responsible of all of Congress’s reform plans, it “relies on certain cost containment approaches that have not worked in the past” and therefore “does not bend the total health care cost curve downward.”

Rather than fundamentally realigning incentives in the health sector to lower the overall cost of care, the Baucus bill imposes top down cuts in payments to medical providers which will only serve to shift costs around the current system. Here are some of the other key findings from the Lewin study on the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 (S.1796):

• Adds to the Deficit. The bill would add to the federal deficit in the first ten years and beyond if it included a permanent “doc fix” to prevent cuts in Medicare payments to physicians under the Sustainable Growth Rate instead of only a one year temporary fix. Every year, Congress defers these reductions in pay to doctors but the bill creates false savings by pretending that Congress would suddenly let these cuts occur. More than $404 billion in savings over the first ten years are attributable to these savings– and reductions in uncompensated care funds for hospitals that treat the uninsured (DSH payments)– that are unlikely to fully materialize.
• Increases Total Health Spending. Under the bill, total spending in health care would rise from 17 percent of GDP in 2010 to 25 percent in 2029. Spending by the federal government would rise by $400 billion over the next ten years and $1.6 trillion over the next twenty years.
• Covers less than half the uninsured. Although the Baucus bill includes a an individual mandate, a personal requirement, to purchase insurance it would fall far short of universal coverage, only reducing the number of people who lack health insurance by 49 percent.
• Adds Costs and Delivers Little Savings to Consumers. In the first ten years, the bill would increase consumer spending in the aggregate by 3 percent, or $254 million. After twenty years, consumer spending would increase by 6.4 percent, or roughly $1 trillion. Despite President Obama’s promise that the typical family would see $2,500 in savings under health reform, the Baucus bill would provide the vast majority of Americans who already have insurance an average of $8 in savings.
• Increases Employer Spending. After 2016, employer spending on health care would increase steadily compared to current law due to the various fees and excise taxes included in the bill. As a result of rising costs and expansions in public coverage, 16 million people could lose their current employer-sponsored insurance as workers are dumped onto Medicaid or into an exchange to receive a public subsidy at the expense of federal taxpayers.

Click here to read the full Lewin report.

Co-authored by Kathryn Nix.

It has been one year since the 2008 national election. During this period, the cause of missile defense has suffered serious setbacks. The overall budget for missile defense for this fiscal year will be $1.6 billion less than the amount allocated in fiscal year 2009. The number of fielded long-range defense interceptors in Alaska and California will be 30, as opposed to 44. The Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) program for countering decoys and countermeasures designed to overwhelm or confuse the defense has been terminated. The Airborne Laser (ABL) program has been curtailed. The boost-phased interceptor program, called the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) has been terminated. Finally, the program to field ground-based interceptors for countering long-range missile in Europe has been canceled.

As bad as the past year has been for missile defense, the future appears even bleaker. The Obama Administration is prepared to subordinate missile defense to its arms control agenda, most particularly President Obama’s desire to achieve global nuclear disarmament. It is also pitting one missile defense program against another, which is likely represents a serial approach to killing most of these programs.

Finally, the Obama Administration is on the cusp of reducing the overall defense budget in fiscal year 2011 in ways that will hit the research and development and procurement accounts particularly hard. These are the accounts that fund the bulk of the missile defense program. Thus, additional funding and programmatic cuts to missile defense are quite likely. Finally, the Obama Administration is likely to justify these reductions in a missile defense policy review that is a part of the broader Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The result is that the American people and forces in the field, as well as America’s allies, will be left vulnerable to missile attack. This is a vulnerability the American people should demand that the government close. After all, the first duty of the federal government is to defend the American people.

U.S. support for the negotiations reversed the policy of the Bush Administration, but the U.S. agreed to participate only if the negotiations were conducted on the basis of consensus, which the Obama administration claims will “ensure that all countries can be held to standards that will actually improve the global situation.”

The vote is not, in practice, as immediately significant as its supporters claim. The Open-Ended Working Group on the treaty that was already meeting in New York – and in which the U.S. was already participating – has been transformed into a Preparatory Committee for the crowing U.N. conference on the treaty. But that conference was always supposed to be held in 2012: the latest resolution simply confirms that goal and date.

In one way, the latest resolution is an improvement over past versions. Unlike the 2008 resolution, it acknowledges “national constitutional protections on private ownership,” and it omits expansive language requiring signatories to have the “highest possible standards” in order to keep guns away from all “criminal activity.”

As we pointed out in August, if the treaty contained language of this sort it could conflict with the Second Amendment. This is a point that the Senate will have to watch carefully as the negotiations proceed: it seems clear that these changes were made only to bring the U.S. on board, and the Obama administration’s demand for consensus will serve as a way for other countries to put pressure on the U.S. to abandon this new language.

But in conception, the latest resolution is no better than the rest. It reiterates the national ‘right to buy,’ which promises to make it easier for dictatorships to acquire arms and to transfer them to terrorist groups. It contains a series of vague standards for the arms trade that will in practice be used to discriminate against the U.S. and Israel. And it fails to come to grips with the fact that the U.N. Security Council already has the power to impose arms embargoes, which are widely violated in practice. A new treaty will only give the violators a shield to hide behind.

A story that broke yesterday illustrates some of these problems. The Eurasia Daily Monitor reports that France is “moving fast to sell at least one Mistral-class helicopter carrier to Russia, possibly for deployment in the Black Sea.” The Russian Navy wants this vessel because “In the conflict in August last year [against Georgia], a ship like that would have allowed [Russia’s] Black Sea Fleet to accomplish its mission in 40 minutes, not 26 hours.” Russian possession of a French carrier would facilitate any future adventures it wished to carry out in the Black Sea. And France wants to sell, because it would “provide an economic stimulus for the crisis-hit STX France shipyard.”

And yet France supports the arms trade treaty, stating that “the treaty should restrict the supply of arms and ammunition in unstable areas; respect human rights and preserve peace, security and regional stability.” What they do not state is how these aims will be advanced by selling a helicopter carrier to Russia. This is the kind of blatant hypocrisy that dominates among the advocates of the treaty: support in words, but carry on as before in deeds. It appears that many states support the treaty not because it will limit arms sales, but because, by creating the ‘right to buy,’ it will actually facilitate them.

The U.S. has put itself in a bad position. Its demand for consensus will be used to encourage the U.S. itself to lower its standards for the sake of concluding an agreement. Any standards that are agreed will bind the U.S. but not the world’s irresponsible sellers, who do not even live up to their existing obligations. And the more the U.S. presses for enforcement of these standards, the more it will create multilateral institutions that will focus obsessively on criticizing it, instead of the world’s wrong-doers. The latest U.N. vote is another step down an unreal road.