Weekly Round Up: May 18 - 22, 2009

Clean Energy

Supporting Clean-Energy Legislation

The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act this week, and CAP has seven reasons to support the legislation through broader passage and enactment. The legislation contains language to implement a renewable energy standard. Dan Weiss explains the RES in a video, Tom Kenworthy noted that many states have already implemented a standard successfully, and Ben Furnas released a state-by-state map showing the savings for household electricity bills that would come from a renewable standard. A green bank, explained by John Podesta and Karen Kornbluh, will help finance the transition to a low-carbon economy.
 

HEALTH CARE

America Without Health Reform

The debate over health care reform will pick up speed in June as the Senate Finance Committee releases a bill. Without this reform, our broken health care system will continue to squeeze families, businesses, doctors, the federal budget, and the economy, wrote Ben Furnas this week. One key component of health reform is implementing health information technology to save costs and improve care delivery. A report from Todd Park and Peter Basch detailed how to take advantage of health IT, and CAP also submitted comments to the Department of Health and Human Services on the importance of strong technical standards in proposed data breach guidelines for health IT.
 

Education Reform

The Time Is Now for Education Reform

CAP hosted a conference on the future of education reform in light of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act this week that featured Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Several reports released at the conference provided detailed ideas for expanding learning time to create innovative distance education programs and close the literacy gap. Two more reports focused on performance pay for teachers and attracting and retaining effective teachers in high-poverty schools.
 

National Security

Back on Track to Close Guantánamo

President Barack Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney this week outlined two very different approaches to closing Guantánamo, and only one of them will put us on track to closing the detention center, wrote Ken Gude. Reuben Brigety and Sabina Dewan offered a national strategy for global development, while Samuel Charap presented a six-pronged strategy for U.S. Russia policy. Stephanie Miller examined the U.S. relationship with Colombia as that country's presidential elections approach in 2010.