A New Flood, Some Old Truths
The thousands of people forced to abandon their homes in recent weeks to floodwaters are victims not just of nature but of human error as well. Years of mismanagement of the vast Mississippi River ecosystem — the relentless and often inadvisable construction of levees and navigation channels, the paving over of wetlands, the commercial development of flood plains — have made the damage worse than it might otherwise have been.
The Obama administration is now completing an overhaul of the guidelines governing dams, levees and other water-related projects built with federal money. In 2007, Congress ordered the guidelines, unchanged since 1983, rewritten to require federal agencies to take environmental as well as economic concerns into account.
Historically, projects had been shaped by two main factors: the Army Corps of Engineers’ conviction that nature can be subdued by levees and dams, and its reflexive green-lighting of any flood control project that encouraged commercial or agricultural development. The new rules, Congress said, should require the Corps and other federal agencies to give equal weight to less easily measurable benefits like wildlife habitat and to “nonstructural” solutions to flood control like preserving wetlands, flood plains and other “natural systems.”
To give the Corps its due, it has performed nobly in the present emergency. Its main-stem levees have held. Its decision to blow holes in levees guarding the New Madrid floodway in Missouri clearly saved Cairo, Ill., and other places downstream; similar maneuvers in Louisiana helped protect New Orleans. These tactics had long been part of Corps emergency plans, and they worked.
The question the environmental community and many in Congress are asking is whether this would have been necessary if the river had been better managed. In populated areas, levees were a necessary response to the cataclysmic floods of the 1920s. But some were built solely to attract more development, while others closed off flood plains that could have acted as a natural safety valve.
Meanwhile, over the years, the upper Mississippi watershed has lost millions of acres of wetlands that could have served as a natural sponge for floodwaters. Some experts also believe that dikes, jetties and other structures designed to channel the river and speed navigation have also helped raise water levels to dangerous levels.
So-called 100-year floods seemed to be hitting the Mississippi with scary regularity — a $16 billion flood in 1993, a bad one in 2001, another in 2008, and now this one. Climate change, which some suspect of causing torrential downpours, may be part of the problem, though the connection is unclear. What is clear is that we should learn from our mistakes, let nature help out where it can, and not build or farm in places where it makes no sense to do so. As the saying goes: Nobody ever beats the river.
Albany Needs Ethics Reform — Now
The first item on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s post-inauguration to-do list was ethics reform. He’s been in office five months, and we’re still waiting for the bill.
While the governor has been negotiating behind closed doors with legislative leaders (shouldn’t transparency top the list of reforms?), others are acting.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli have announced plans to use their offices’ resources to investigate anything suspicious that involves the use of state funds. That includes no-show jobs, illegal expense reports, pension padding and bid rigging for government contracts.
The Schneiderman-DiNapoli idea is a good one, but not enough. Here’s what is needed, as Mr. Cuomo laid out in his campaign “Plan for Action”:
¶An independent ethics commission with powers to investigate and punish legal violations by lawmakers and members of the executive branch. No more self-policing.
¶End “pay to play,” with stiff contribution limits for contractors and lobbyists, immediate disclosure of contributions and real punishments for breaking the rules.
¶Full disclosure by lawmakers of outside earnings and clients — with no exceptions. Lawyers whose clients have business before the state must come clean. As Mr. Cuomo wrote, “Voters cannot have complete faith in their elected representatives if they cannot assess where else those representatives are earning money.”
¶A complete overhaul of campaign finance laws, including a move to public financing of elections, limiting contributions to party “housekeeping” accounts, closing other loopholes and giving the attorney general jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute violations.
Mr. Cuomo and the Legislature have about 10 more working days before they are scheduled to leave town for the year. It’s going to take a lot to clean up Albany’s sleaze. But without real ethics reform, it isn’t possible.
Another War in Sudan?
The world breathed a sigh of relief in January when southern Sudanese voted overwhelming to secede and the government in northern Sudan accepted the results. But with the July 9 independence date approaching, north and south Sudan are on the brink of war over the oil-rich border region of Abyei. The United States, the United Nations and the African Union will have to press hard to get the two sides to back down.
The January vote was part of a 2005 American-backed agreement that ended two decades of fighting between the Arab Muslim north and the largely Christian south that killed two million people. The fact that it went off reasonably peacefully was a testament to American and other international mediators who worked assiduously to persuade President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to forgo disruption and violence — at least then.
The question of who would control Abyei was left unresolved. It is quickly descending into chaos. On May 19 southern Sudan forces ambushed a convoy of northern army troops escorted by U.N. peacekeepers. President Bashir, author of the murderous war in Darfur, reacted excessively, sending more forces to bombard and occupy Abyei’s main town. Thousands have fled. Mr. Bashir also unilaterally disbanded a north-south civilian council that was jointly administering Abyei.
Abyei is one of many unresolved issues, including borders, citizenship protections for minorities and how oil earnings — the south has 70 percent of the reserves — will be shared.
The two sides need each other to succeed. Southern Sudan needs the North’s pipeline to get its oil to market. Northern Sudan needs oil money to help pay its bills. Both need foreign investment and the North in particular needs debt relief. They have a better chance of winning international support if they are at peace.
The Obama administration set out a road map for removing Sudan from the terrorism list and normalizing relations with Khartoum. That must be held up until Mr. Bashir negotiates a settlement for Abyei. To get maximum benefits, progress on a peace settlement in Darfur is also required.
International mediators must make clear to southern Sudan that international assistance will not be forthcoming if it continues to pick fights with Khartoum. The U.N. needs more competent troops.
Mr. Bashir and Salva Kiir, the president of southern Sudan, need to resume negotiations on all issues, starting with Abyei. We are encouraged by reports that the two sides will meet with mediators from the African Union on Saturday. Another war serves no one’s interest.
Dodd-Frank in Limbo
Congressional Republicans could not be clearer about their intent to undermine the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. They’re not helping consumers, so we have to assume that their goal is to protect the bankers.
Senate Republicans told President Obama that they would not confirm any nominee to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unless Democrats first agreed to gut the bureau’s power. House Republicans continued their attack on Elizabeth Warren, the consumer advocate and Harvard law professor who is setting up the bureau, charging last week that the bureau — and Ms. Warren — wield draconian powers.
She does not, nor will the bureau, which by law has significant constraints on its authority. When she rightly pushed back, they accused her of lying about her role. The Republicans will keep pushing. The only question is when Mr. Obama will start pushing back.
It has been nearly a year since Dodd-Frank became law, but the White House has yet to nominate leaders for several agencies that have to oversee the reforms. It says it is working on nominations. There is no time to waste.
At the consumer bureau, only a Senate-confirmed director can write the new rules envisioned in Dodd-Frank. No director has been nominated, though Ms. Warren is the obvious choice for the top job. A successful nomination fight would clearly demonstrate Mr. Obama’s support and could be his only option, since Republicans have blocked his ability to use a recess appointment over the Memorial Day break.
There is no nominee for bank supervisor on the Federal Reserve Board, a post created by Dodd-Frank. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees national banks, is being run by an acting director, John Walsh, who appears steeped in the pro-bank, anti-consumer ethos that pervaded the agency before the financial crisis. The White House also hasn’t nominated anyone to run the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation when Sheila Bair, a strong reformer, finishes in June.
If Mr. Obama is committed to Dodd-Frank, he will nominate qualified candidates and fight for them through filibusters if need be. Without strong leaders at these key agencies financial reform doesn’t have much of chance.
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