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2. The logic of capitalism results in extinction through the creation of ecological catastrophe and violent imperialist wars that will turn nuclear

Foster 5 John Bellamy, Monthly Review, September, Vol. 57, Issue 4, “Naked Imperialism”, http:~/~/www.monthlyreview.org/0905jbf.htm

From the longer view offered by a historical-materialist critique of capitalism, the direction that would be taken by U.S. imperialism following the fall of the Soviet Union was never in doubt. Capitalism by its very logic is a globally expansive system. The contradiction between its transnational economic aspirations and the fact that politically it remains rooted in particular nation states is insurmountable for the system. Yet, ill-fated attempts by individual states to overcome this contradiction are just as much a part of its fundamental logic. In present world circumstances, when one capitalist state has a virtual monopoly of the means of destruction, the temptation for that state to attempt to seize full-spectrum dominance and to transform itself into the de facto global state governing the world economy is irresistible. As the noted Marxian philosopher István Mészáros observed in Socialism or Barbarism? (2001)—written, significantly, before George W. Bush became president: “What is at stake today is not the control of a particular part of the planet—no matter how large—putting at a disadvantage but still tolerating the independent actions of some rivals, but the control of its totality by one hegemonic economic and military superpower, with all means—even the most extreme authoritarian and, if needed, violent military ones—at its disposal.”  The unprecedented dangers of this new global disorder are revealed in the twin cataclysms to which the world is heading at present: nuclear proliferation and hence increased chances of the outbreak of nuclear war, and planetary ecological destruction. These are symbolized by the Bush administration’s refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to limit nuclear weapons development and by its failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol as a first step in controlling global warming. As former U.S. Secretary of Defense (in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations) Robert McNamara stated in an article entitled “Apocalypse Soon” in the May–June 2005 issue of Foreign Policy: “The United States has never endorsed the policy of ‘no first use,’ not during my seven years as secretary or since. We have been and remain prepared to initiate the use of nuclear weapons—by the decision of one person, the president—against either a nuclear or nonnuclear enemy whenever we believe it is in our interest to do so.” The nation with the greatest conventional military force and the willingness to use it unilaterally to enlarge its global power is also the nation with the greatest nuclear force and the readiness to use it whenever it sees fit—setting the whole world on edge. The nation that contributes more to carbon dioxide emissions leading to global warming than any other (representing approximately a quarter of the world’s total) has become the greatest obstacle to addressing global warming and the world’s growing environmental problems—raising the possibility of the collapse of civilization itself if present trends continue. The United States is seeking to exercise sovereign authority over the planet during a time of widening global crisis: economic stagnation, increasing polarization between the global rich and the global poor, weakening U.S. economic hegemony, growing nuclear threats, and deepening ecological decline. The result is a heightening of international instability. Other potential forces are emerging in the world, such as the European Community and China,that could eventually challenge U.S. power, regionally and even globally. Third world revolutions, far from ceasing, are beginning to gain momentum again, symbolized by Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution under Hugo Chávez. U.S. attempts to tighten its imperial grip on the Middle East and its oil have had to cope with a fierce, seemingly unstoppable, Iraqi resistance, generating conditions of imperial overstretch. With the United States brandishing its nuclear arsenal and refusing to support international agreements on the control of such weapons, nuclear proliferation is continuing. New nations, such as North Korea, are entering or can be expected soon to enter the “nuclear club.” Terrorist blowback from imperialist wars in the third world is now a well-recognized reality, generating rising fear of further terrorist attacks in New York, London, and elsewhere. Such vast and overlapping historical contradictions, rooted in the combined and uneven development of the global capitalist economy along with the U.S. drive for planetary domination, foreshadow what is potentially the most dangerous period in the history of imperialism.  The course on which U.S and world capitalism is now headed points to global barbarism—or worse. Yet it is important to remember that nothing in the development of human history is inevitable. There still remains an alternative path—the global struggle for a humane, egalitarian, democratic, and sustainable society. The classic name for such a society is “socialism.” Such a renewed struggle for a world of substantive human equality must begin by addressing the system’s weakest link and at the same time the world’s most pressing needs—by organizing a global resistance movement against the new naked imperialism.

3. Vote negative to adopt the historical material criticism of the 1NC - historical analysis of the material conditions of capital is the only way to break free from is contradictions and social inequalities it causes

Tumino 1 (Steven, teaches at the City University of New York, Spring, What is Orthodox Marxism and Why it Matters Now More Than Ever Before)

Any effective political theory will have to do at least two things: it will have to offer an integrated understanding of social practices and, based on such an interrelated knowledge, offer a guideline for praxis. My main argument here is that among all contesting social theories now, only Orthodox Marxism has been able to produce an integrated knowledge of the existing social totality and provide lines of praxis that will lead to building a society free from necessity. But first I must clarify what I mean by Orthodox Marxism. Like all other modes and forms of political theory, the very theoretical identity of Orthodox Marxism is itself contested—not just from non-and anti-Marxists who question the very "real" (by which they mean the "practical" as under free-market criteria) existence of any kind of Marxism now but, perhaps more tellingly, from within the Marxist tradition itself. I will, therefore, first say what I regard to be the distinguishing marks of Orthodox Marxism and then outline a short polemical map of contestation over Orthodox Marxism within the Marxist theories now. I will end by arguing for its effectivity in bringing about a new society based not on human rights but on freedom from necessity. I will argue that to know contemporary society—and to be able to act on such knowledge—one has to first of all know what makes the existing social totality. I will argue that the dominant social totality is based on inequality—not just inequality of power but inequality of economic access (which then determines access to health care, education, housing, diet, transportation, . . . ). This systematic inequality cannot be explained by gender, race, sexuality, disability, ethnicity, or nationality. These are all secondary contradictions and are all determined by the fundamental contradiction of capitalism which is inscribed in the relation of capital and labor. All modes of Marxism now explain social inequalities primarily on the basis of these secondary contradictions and in doing so—and this is my main argument—legitimate capitalism. Why? Because such arguments authorize capitalism without gender, race, discrimination and thus accept economic inequality as an integral part of human societies. They accept a sunny capitalism—a capitalism beyond capitalism. Such a society, based on cultural equality but economic inequality, has always been the not-so-hidden agenda of the bourgeois left—whether it has been called "new left," "postmarxism," or "radical democracy." This is, by the way, the main reason for its popularity in the culture industry—from the academy (Jameson, Harvey, Haraway, Butler,. . . ) to daily politics (Michael Harrington, Ralph Nader, Jesse Jackson,. . . ) to. . . . For all, capitalism is here to stay and the best that can be done is to make its cruelties more tolerable, more humane. This humanization (not eradication) of capitalism is the sole goal of ALL contemporary lefts (marxism, feminism, anti-racism, queeries, . . . ). Such an understanding of social inequality is based on the fundamental understanding that the source of wealth is human knowledge and not human labor. That is, wealth is produced by the human mind and is thus free from the actual objective conditions that shape the historical relations of labor and capital. Only Orthodox Marxism recognizes the historicity of labor and its primacy as the source of all human wealth. In this paper I argue that any emancipatory theory has to be founded on recognition of the priority of Marx's labor theory of value and not repeat the technological determinism of corporate theory ("knowledge work") that masquerades as social theory.

4. Class divisions are the root of all other oppressions

Kovel 2 (Alger Hiss Professor of Social Studies at Bard College, awarded Fellowship at the John Guggenheim Foundation, Joel, The Enemy of Nature, pages 123-124)

If, however, we ask the question of efficacy, that is, which split sets the others into motion, then priority would have to be given to class, for the plain reason that class relations entail the state as an instrument of enforce­ment and control, and it is the state that shapes and organizes the splits that appear in human ecosystems. Thus class is both logically and historically distinct from other forms of exclusion (hence we should not talk of 'classism' to go along with 'sexism' and 'racism,' and `species-ism'). This is, first of all, because class is an essentially man-made category, without root in even a mystified biology. We cannot imagine a human world without gender dis­tinctions – although we can imagine a world without domination by gender. But a world without class is eminently imaginable – indeed, such was the human world for the great majority of our species' time on earth, during all of which considerable fuss was made over gender. Historically, the difference arises because 'class' signifies one side of a larger figure that includes a state apparatus whose conquests and regulations create races and shape gender relations. Thus there will be no true resolution of racism so long as class society stands, inasmuch as a racially oppressed society implies the activities of a class-defending state.'° Nor can gender inequality be enacted away so long as class society, with its state, demands the super-exploitation of woman's labour. Class society continually generates gender, racial, ethnic oppressions and the like, which take on a life of their own, as well as profoundly affecting the concrete relations of class itself. It follows that class politics must be fought out in terms of all the active forms of social splitting. It is the management of these divisions that keeps state society functional. Thus though each person in a class society is reduced from what s/he can become, the varied reductions can be combined into the great stratified regimes of history — this one becoming a fierce warrior, that one a routine-loving clerk, another a submissive seamstress, and so on, until we reach today's personi­fications of capital and captains of industry. Yet no matter how functional a class society, the profundity of its ecological violence ensures a basic antagonism which drives history onward. History is the history of class society — because no matter how modified, so powerful a schism is bound to work itself through to the surface, provoke resistance (`class struggle'), and lead to the succession of powers. The relation of class can be mystified without end — only consider the extent to which religion exists for just this purpose, or watch a show glorifying the police on television — yet so long as we have any respect for human nature, we must recognize that so funda­mental an antagonism as would steal the vital force of one person for the enrichment of another cannot be conjured away.

5. Historical materialism must come first - it predetermines consciousness and the very possibilities of reflective thinking

Marx 1859 (Karl, a pretty important dude. “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy: Preface” http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm) JM

edited for gendered language

In the social production of their existence, people inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.  In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which people become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.

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A. Interpretation – The aff has to affect both resource extraction and conversion into energy

Australian Government, Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency 2011 “Energy Production and Consumption,” http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/initiatives/national-greenhouse-energy-reporting/publications/supplementary-guidelines/energy-production-consumption.aspx

Production of energy: in relation to a facility, means the:

a.        extraction or capture of energy from natural sources for final consumption by or from the operation of the facility or for use other than in the operation of the facility

b.        manufacture of energy by the conversion of energy from one form to another form for final consumption by or from the operation of the facility, or for use other than in the operation of the facility (regulation 2.23(3) NGER Regulations).

B. Violation – The plan funds research and development, not extraction or conversion.

C. Reasons to Prefer

1. Predictability –

Only our interpretation guarantees link arguments to both extraction and the burning of resources to produce energy. This is crucial link ground for pollution DAs and domestic/foreign energy tradeoff DAs.

2. Limits –

Requiring the aff to both extract and convert the energy is necessary to eliminate affs that only extract, like capture carbon or methane or stockpile oil as a strategic military reserve with heg advantages. Also key to prevent affs that only burn fuels like Bataille-style affs that encourage rapid consumption or RandD affs that incentivize new ways to burn the same resources.

D. Topicality is a voting issue for both Fairness and Educational reasons.

Tournament: Fullerton | Round: Finals | Opponent: Chico GJ | Judge: 

The 50 states and all relevant U.S. territories should fund research and development for Integral Fast Reactors including capital investment in a pilot plant.

State action gets modeled due to local innovation

Lash 7 (Jonathan, “Climate Policy in the State Laboratory: How States Influence Federal Regulation and the Implications for U.S. Policy,” World Resources Institute, September, http:~/~/www.wri.org/publication/org/publication/climate-policy-in-the-state-laboratory, TGA)

America has a long and inspiring tradition of policy innovation and activism that is incubated at the state level. The states often take to the front lines of cutting-edge policy development, creating fresh and inventive programs to address the concerns and needs of their constituents. From standards for organic agriculture, to removing asbestos from schools, to creating enterprise zones, and reducing acid rain pollution, the states have shown a path forward and provided both the problem-solving acumen as well as the pressure to induce the Federal government to act. Of all the environmental problems now confronting this nation and the rest of the world, none holds greater potential for irrevocable and destructive disruption to our lives than climate change. Yet, up to now, our national government has failed to respond with initiatives appropriate to what looms ahead. The most significant first steps designed to measure and control the emission of greenhouse gases have come from an impressive number of states in this country. Ten states in the Northeast, seven in the West, and several in the Midwest are in the process of implementing mandatory programs to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And not surprisingly, as well, is the fact that over 100 cities have gotten on board, to one degree or another, taking concrete steps to reduce their contribution to climate change or to add their political clout to efforts to spur the national commitment needed to help catalyze essential international compacts. This timely report documents state efforts now underway to address the problem of climate change and our contribution to it. It puts them into the historical context of previous initiatives by states to lead our country in making difficult but necessary national decisions. Just as there is no “silver-bullet” technology that will solve climate change, there is no “silver-bullet” policy either. The commitment to policy innovation by U.S. states may prove to be the wellspring from which we build the low-carbon economy of the future.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

1. Immigration reform has momentum and a compromise is likely.

Grant 12/28 (2012, David, Immigration reform: Is 'amnesty' a possibility now?, Christian Science Monitor, p. http:~/~/www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/1228/com/USA/Politics/2012/1228/Immigration-reform-Is-amnesty-a-possibility-now)

The momentum of President Obama's resounding victory in November's election – with a big push from Latinos and other minority groups – has catapulted immigration policy to the top of Washington's 2013 agenda, making reform not only possible but also likely. The shift in the political conversation has been so dramatic that even a pathway to citizenship for some of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States – long rejected out of hand by most Republicans and some Democrats – could be part of the deal. The task is momentous. It involves weighing the wishes of industries from agriculture to high-tech, as well as the sensitivities of opening the door to immigrant workers at a time when unemployment remains high. The past only reinforces the potential difficulties ahead. In 1986, Republicans felt betrayed when Democrats stripped the enforcement provisions from a bill that offered citizenship to some 3 million illegal immigrants. By 2005, the issue had become so politically toxic to conservatives that they blocked President George W. Bush's push for a new round of immigration reform. Yet with Election 2012 highlighting the electoral consequences of America's changing demographics, the next year appears to be ripe for compromise. How reforms might take shape could be a major point of contention between the parties, but lawmakers on both sides suddenly see an opportunity for what could be their most expansive achievement of 2013.

2. Obama’s political capital is key.

Hesson 1/2 (Ted, Immigration Editor at ABC News, Analysis: 6 Things Obama Needs To Do for Immigration Reform, http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/things-president-obama-immigration-reform/story?id=18103115#.UOTq55JIAho)

On Sunday, President Barack Obama said that immigration reform is a "top priority" on his agenda and that he would introduce legislation in his first year.¶ To find out what he needs to do to make reform a reality, we talked to Lynn Tramonte, the deputy director at America's Voice, a group that lobbies for immigration reform, and Muzaffar Chishti, the director of the New York office of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank. Here's what we came up with.¶ 1. Be a Leader¶ During Obama's first term, bipartisan legislation never got off the ground. The president needs to do a better job leading the charge this time around, according to Chishti. "He has to make it clear that it's a high priority of his," he said. "He has to make it clear that he'll use his bully pulpit and his political muscle to make it happen, and he has to be open to using his veto power." His announcement this weekend is a step in that direction, but he needs to follow through.¶ 2. Clear Space on the Agenda¶ Political priorities aren't always dictated by the folks in D.C., as the tragic Connecticut school shooting shows us. While immigration had inertia after the election, the fiscal cliff and gun violence have been the most talked about issues around the Capitol in recent weeks. The cliff could recede from view now that Congress has passed a bill, but how quickly the president can resolve the other issues on his agenda could determine whether immigration reform is possible this year. "There's only limited oxygen in the room," Chishti said.

3. The public will fears nuclear power, even when scientists claim it’s safe

Allison 12 (Wade, Wade Allison is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Keble College. His fields of interest extend from experimental particle physics to medical physics, including radiation, nuclear physics and radiotherapy, April, Public Trust in Nuclear Energy, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/default.aspx?id=29532andterms=public%20trust)

A list of the pros and cons of nuclear energy is straightforward; we need it, it is safe, but people are frightened of it. The need to replace fossil fuels with another large base-load source is widely understood and the safety of the nuclear solution has been demonstrated many times; even in accidents in which reactors suffer irreparable damage, the impact on human health has been minimal. For example, at Fukushima there has been no death, or even extended hospitalisation, due to radiation, nor is this likely to be responsible for any cancer deaths in 50 years. The reasons for the fear of radiation are instinctive and historical. It is natural to shun what is powerful and unseen, and the legacy of the Cold War with its weapon of nuclear fear has added to that. Although the public accepts moderate to high doses of radiation when used benignly for their own health, non-medical international safety standards are set extremely low to appease popular concerns - these specify levels found in nature or as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA). Yet modern biology and medicine confirm that no harm comes from radiation levels up to 1000 times higher and realistic safety levels could be set as high as relatively safe (AHARS). Indeed the local damage to public health and the social economy caused by ALARA regulations imposed at Chernobyl and Fukushima has been extremely serious and without benefit.

4. A path to citizenship would boost the GDP by 1.5 billion dollars

Fitz 12 (Marshall Fitz is the Director of Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress, Time to Legalize Our 11 Million Undocumented Immigrants, November 14^th, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/report/2012/11/14/44885/time-to-legalize-our-11-million-undocumented-immigrants/)

The policy arguments in favor of common-sense immigration policies that chart a path to legal status for unauthorized immigrants are as numerous as they are compelling. Indeed, the only sensible approach from a fiscal, economic, social, and security perspective is to create a roadmap for these immigrants to earn citizenship.¶ More than two-thirds of the immigrants working without papers in the United States have contributed to our economy and culture for more than a decade. But our outdated and misguided immigration policies, along with our polarized immigration politics, block them from realizing their—and our nation’s—full potential and forces them to live in fear of being ripped from their families.¶ Let’s take a brief look at some of the benefits:¶ Bringing these hard-working immigrants off the economic sidelines would generate a $1.5 trillion boost to the nation’s cumulative GDP over 10 years and add close to $5 billion in additional tax revenue in just the next three years.¶ Registering these immigrants with background checks would ensure that we know who is here and will enable our authorities to focus enforcement resources on criminal elements and security threats instead of hard-working family members.¶ Bringing these immigrants out of the shadows would strike a blow to unscrupulous employers who mistreat their employees (immigrant and native-born alike) and help ensure worker safety for all.¶ Enabling immigrants to earn legal status and to openly participate in civic life will strengthen our communities and reduce marginalization and exploitation.

5. Economic crisis causes war

Royal 10 (Jedediah, director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal, and Political Perspectives, pg 213-215)

Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defense behavior of interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson’s (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin, 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fearon 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflicts as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner, 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, althou gh he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remains unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland’s (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggest that “future expectation of trade” is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behavior of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace item such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states. Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favor. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg and Hess, 2002, p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess and Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. “Diversionary theory” suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a “rally around the flag” effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995) and Blomberg, Hess and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states due to the fact the democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. De DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States and thus weak Presidential popularity are statically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels. This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in economic-security debate and deserves more attention. This observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. Those studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

The United States federal government should give back the land within the United States’ purported borders to the First People.

Movements that don’t focus on indigenous sovereignty continue the non-transgressive tradition of “hear no evil, see no evil”. Failure to commit to unflinching Native struggle reproduces the colonial order and Native destruction. We should commit to Native land rights and absolute sovereignty as a First Priority.

Churchill 96 Ward; Creek and enrolled Keetoowah Band Cherokee; Former professor of Ethnic Studies @ the University of Colorado; From a Native Son: Selected Essays on Indigenism, 1985-1995; pp. 519-521

Leaving aside questions concerning the validity of various treaties, the beginning point for any indigenist endeavor in the United States centers, logically enough, in efforts to restore direct Indian control over the huge portion of the continental United States that was plainly never ceded by native nations. On the bedrock of this foundation, a number of other problems integral to the present configuration of power and privilege in North American society can be resolved, not just for Indians, but for everyone else as well. It's probably impossible to solve, or even to begin meaningfully addressing, certain of these problems in any other way. But still, it is, as they say, "no easy sell" to convince anyone outside the more conscious sectors of the American Indian population itself of the truth of this very simple fact.¶ In part, uncomfortable as it may be to admit, this is because even the most progressive elements of the North American immigrant population share a perceived commonality of interest with the more reactionary segments. This takes the form of a mutual insistence on an imagined "right" to possess native property, merely because they are here, and because they desire it. The Great Fear within any settler state is that if indigenous land rights are ever openly acknowledged, and native people therefore begin to recover some significant portion of their land, the immigrants will correspondingly be dispossessed of that which they've come to consider "theirs"—most notably, individually held homes, small farms and ranches, and the like. Tellingly, every major Indian land recovery initiative in the United States during the second half of the 20th century—those in Maine, the Black Hills, the Oneida claims in New York State, and Western Shoshone are prime examples—has been met by a propaganda barrage from right-wing organizations ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to the John Birch Society to the Republican Party, warning individual non-Indian property holders of exactly this "peril."36¶ I'll debunk some of this nonsense in a moment, but first I want to take up the posture of self-proclaimed leftist radicals in the same connection. And I'll do so on the basis of principle, because justice is supposed to matter more to progressives than to right-wing hacks. Let me say that the pervasive and near-total silence of the Left in this connection has been quite illuminating. Non-Indian activists, with only a handful of exceptions, persistently plead that they can't really take a coherent position on the matter of Indian land rights because, "unfortunately," they're "not really conversant with the issues" (as if these were tremendously complex). Meanwhile, they do virtually nothing, generation after generation, to inform themselves on the topic of who actually owns the ground they're standing on. The record can be played only so many times before it wears out and becomes just another variation of "hear no evil, see no evil." At this point, it doesn't take Albert Einstein to figure out that the Left doesn't know much about such things because it's never wanted to know, or that this is so because it's always had its own plans for utilizing land it has no more right to than does the status quo it claims to oppose.¶ The usual technique for explaining this away has always been a sort of pro forma acknowledgment that Indian land rights are of course "really important stuff" (yawn), but that one "really doesn't have a lot of time" to get into it (I'll buy your book, though, and keep it on my shelf, even if I never read it). Reason? Well, one is just "overwhelmingly preoccupied" with working on "other important issues" (meaning, what they consider to be more important issues). Typically enumerated are sexism, racism, homophobia, class inequities, militarism, the environment, or some combination of these. It's a pretty good evasion, all in all. Certainly, there's no denying any of these issues their due; they are all important, obviously so. But more important than the question of land rights? There are some serious problems of primacy and priority imbedded in the orthodox script.¶ To frame things clearly in this regard, let's hypothesize for a moment that all of the various non-Indian movements concentrating on each of these issues were suddenly successful in accomplishing their objectives. Let's imagine that the United States as a whole were somehow transformed into an entity defined by the parity of its race, class, and gender relations, its embrace of unrestricted sexual preference, its rejection of militarism in all forms, and its abiding concern with environmental protection (I know, I know, this is ¶ a sheer impossibility, but that's my point). When all is said and done, the society resulting from this scenario is still, first and foremost, a colonialist society, an imperialist society in the most fundamental sense possible and with all that this implies. This is true because the scenario does nothing at all to address the fact that whatever is happening happens on someone else's land, not only without their consent, but through an adamant disregard for their rights to the land. Hence, all it means is that the immigrant or invading population has rearranged its affairs in such a way as to make itself more comfortable at the continuing expense of indigenous people. The colonial equation remains intact and may even be REINFORCED by a GREATER degree of participation and vested interest in maintenance of the colonial order among the settler population at large.37¶ The dynamic here is not very different from that evident in the American Revolution of the late 18th century, is it? And we all know very well where that led, don't we? Should we therefore begin to refer to socialist imperialism, feminist imperialism, gay and lesbian imperialism, environmentalist imperialism, African American, and la Raza imperialism? I would hope not.381 would hope this is all just a matter of confusion, of muddled priorities among people who really do mean well and who'd like to do better. If so, then all that is necessary to correct the situation is a basic rethinking of what must be done, and in what order. Here, I'd advance the straightforward premise that the land rights of "First Americans" should serve as a first priority for everyone seriously committed to accomplishing positive change in North America.

Tournament: Districts | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

Time is a block that makes suffering meaningless

Vonnegut 69 (Kurt, Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade, http:~/~/literature2.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/pdf, 1969)

 'The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

'When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "so it goes."'

The Alternative is to reject the Affirmative

Only by embracing the deterministic nature of events can we eliminate epistemic suffering

Vonnegut 69 (Kurt, Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade, http:~/~/literature2.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/pdf, 1969)

Billy expected the Tralfamadorians to be baffled and alarmed by all the wars and other forms of murder on Earth. He expected them to fear that the Earthling combination of ferocity and spectacular weaponry might eventually destroy part or maybe all of the innocent Universe. Science fiction had led him to expect that. ¶ But the subject of war never came up until Billy brought it up himself. Somebody in the zoo crowd asked him through the lecturer what the most valuable thing he had learned on Tralfamadore was so far, and Billy replied, 'How the inhabitants of a whole planet can live in peace I As you know, I am from a planet that has been engaged in senseless slaughter since the beginning of time. I myself have seen the bodies of schoolgirls who were boiled alive in a water tower by my own countrymen, who were proud of fighting pure evil at the time. 'This was true. Billy saw the boiled bodies in Dresden. 'And I have lit my way in a prison at night with candles from the fat of human beings who were butchered by the brothers and fathers of those school girls who were boiled. Earthlings must be the terrors of the Universe! If other planets aren't now in danger from Earth, they soon will be. So tell me the secret so I can take it back to Earth and save us all: How can a planet live at peace?' ¶ Billy felt that he had spoken soaringly. He was baffled when he saw the Tralfamadorians close their little hands on their eyes. He knew from past experience what this meant: He was being stupid. ¶ 'Would-would you mind telling me,' he said to the guide, much deflated, 'what was so stupid about that?'¶ 'We know how the Universe ends,' said the guide, 'and Earth has nothing to do with it, except that it gets wiped out, too.' ¶ 'How-how does the Universe end?' said Billy. ¶ 'We blow it up, experimenting with new fuels for our flying saucers. A Tralfamadorian test pilot presses a starter button, and the whole Universe disappears.' So it goes. ¶ "If you know this," said Billy, 'isn't there some way you can prevent it? Can't you keep the pilot from pressing the button?' ¶ 'He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way.' ¶ 'So,' said Billy gropingly, I suppose that the idea of, preventing war on Earth is stupid, too. ' ¶ 'Of course.' ¶ 'But you do have a peaceful planet here.' ¶ 'Today we do. On other days we have wars as horrible as any you've ever seen or read about. There isn't anything we can do about them, so we simply don't look at them. We ignore them. We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments-like today at the zoo. Isn't this a nice moment?' ¶ 'Yes.' ¶ 'That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.'

Tournament: Districts | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

Text: The United States Federal government should remove the federal government liability waiver for Tribal Energy Resource Agreements.

Reinstating liability avoids politics and solves energy development

Kronk, assistant professor of law – Texas Tech University, ‘12

Elizabeth Ann, 29 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 811

B. An Alternative Possibility for Reform: Reinstate Federal Liability under the TERA Provisions

As an alternative, a second recommendation for reforming the existing TERA provisions would call for reinstatement of federal liability so as to increase tribal participation in TERAs. This second proposal is also an improvement over the status quo in that it will (with any luck) alleviate tribal concerns related to the federal government's responsibility to tribes. Such a revision would arguably be consistent with the federal government's trust responsibility to tribes. As "the ability to hold the federal government liable for breach is at the heart of its trust obligation toward tribes," n163 the waiver of federal governmental liability *856 seems to be inconsistent with this federal trust obligation. Removing the waiver would also allay fears that "private entities such as energy companies will exploit tribal resources and take unfair advantage of tribes." n164 This is because the federal government would likely maintain a more active role in energy development under TERAs. Moreover, this proposal would likely be consistent with the federal viewpoint, such as the one expressed by Senator Bingaman, which envisions the federal government maintaining a significant role in Indian country.¶ Congress apparently intended the TERA provisions to be consistent with the federal government's trust responsibility to tribes. For example, one subsection of the TERA provisions refers specifically to the federal trust responsibility, affirming that the trust responsibility remains in effect. This provision mandates that the Secretary "act in accordance with the trust responsibility of the United States relating to mineral and other trust resources ... in good faith and in the best interests of the Indian tribes." It also notes that with the exception of the waiver of Secretarial approval allowed through the TERA framework, the Indian Energy Act does not "absolve the United States from any responsibility to Indians or Indian tribes, including ... those which derive from the trust relationship." n165¶ In addition to apparent consistency with the federal trust responsibility, federal liability under the TERA provisions is appropriate given that the federal government maintains a significant role in the development of energy within Indian country even under the TERA agreements. For example, under the TERA provisions, the federal government retains "inherently Federal functions." n166 Moreover, as discussed above, the federal government maintains a significant oversight role through the existing TERA provisions because it has a mandatory environmental review process which tribes must incorporate into TERAs. The failure to relinquish oversight to tribes ensures that the federal government will maintain a strong management role, even after a tribe enters into a TERA with the Secretary of the *857 Interior. Given that the federal government maintains a substantial oversight role under the TERA provisions (which it views as consistent with its federal trust responsibility), the federal government should remain liable for decisions made under TERAs. In addition to the strong administrative role that the federal government would still play under approved TERAs, it also maintains an important role as a tribal "reviewer." Under the TERA provisions, the federal government must review the tribe's performance under the TERA on a regular basis. n167 Although the existing TERA provisions certainly mark an increased opportunity for tribes to participate in decision-making related to energy development within Indian country, the federal government's role should remain significant. The proposal to reinstate federal liability under the TERA provisions, therefore, recognizes the significant role that the federal government still plays under the existing TERA provisions.¶ If Senator Bingaman's viewpoint is any indication, Congress may be unwilling to relinquish federal oversight over energy development within Indian country. As a result, the first proposal for reform discussed above may prove to be unacceptable to Congress. Assuming this is the case, this second proposal allows the federal government to maintain an oversight role in Indian county and reinstates the federal government's liability. Based on the legislative history detailed above, reinstatement of the federal government's liability would likely address many of the concerns raised by tribes regarding the existing TERA provisions. In this way, this second proposal would also constitute an improvement over the status quo.¶ VI. CONCLUSION¶ For a variety of reasons, America needs to increase energy production from domestic sources. Indian tribes may prove the perfect partners for the federal government to achieve its goal of increased domestic production of energy. These tribes have the available natural resources, and experience managing these resources, to make them excellent partners. Increased energy *858 production within Indian country would serve federal interests and tribal interests, as such endeavors would increase tribal sovereignty and self-determination while promoting economic diversification within Indian country. Congress recognized this potentially beneficial relationship with tribes when it passed the TERA provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The existing TERA provisions arguably "streamline" the process of energy production within Indian country. Under these provisions, tribes that enter into a TERA with the Secretary of Interior may be relieved of Secretarial oversight in certain regards. Despite the benefits of such "streamlining," at the time of this writing, no tribe has entered into a TERA agreement with the Secretary of Interior.¶ In an effort to understand the potential reasons for lack of tribal engagement with TERA, this article has explored the legislative history associated with the TERA provisions. A review of the legislative history has illustrated that concerns related to the then-pending TERA provisions generally fell into three categories: (1) concerns associated with the federal government's trust responsibility to tribes; (2) concerns associated with federally-mandated environmental review provisions; and (3) concerns associated with the general waiver of federal liability.¶ Based on the review of applicable legislative history and the concerns expressed therein, this article proposes reform of the TERA provisions. In particular, this article proposes two potential reforms. The first represents a tribal sovereignty perspective. Under the first proposal, the tribes should be liable (i.e., a waiver of federal government liability should be maintained) only if tribes are the true decision-makers. In this regard, the first proposal argues for the removal of federal mandates, such as the conditions of environmental review and administrative oversight. The reform would allow tribes to truly make decisions regarding energy development within their territories.¶ Because Congress may not accept this proposal, the article also proposes an option for reform that maintains the federal mandates and oversight role of the federal government, but reinstates the federal government's liability under the TERA provisions. Such a reinstitution of federal liability is consistent *859 with the federal government's trust responsibility to tribes. Although the two proposals are contradictory, both represent improvements over the status quo and, should either be adopted by Congress, would encourage tribes to enter into TERAs with the Secretary of Interior.

Weakened restrictions causes exploitation by companies interested in profiting from native renewable resources

Land Letter, 5

New federal law encourages tapping of Indian resources, 12/1, Lexis

¶ April Reese, Land Letter Southwest reporter A set of provisions in the new federal energy law aimed at making it easier to tap Indian Country's vast resources has received mixed reviews from native interests, with supporters convinced the measure will boost tribal economies and strengthen sovereignty and critics warning it will open tribes to exploitation by outside companies. The Indian Tribal Energy Development and Self-Determination Act, tucked into the 1,700-page Energy Policy Act of 2005 that was signed into law by President Bush in August, allows tribes to develop and regulate their energy resources under reduced supervision from the federal government. The first tribally owned, large-scale wind turbine in Indian Country was erected in 2003. Tribes can choose to forego the National Environmental Policy Act if the Interior Department approves a "tribal energy resource agreement," which would govern leases, rights-of-way and business arrangements. The new law also authorizes tribes to receive Energy Department grants formerly offered only to states for the development of energy projects and creates an Office of Indian Energy Policy within DOE. Supporters of the measure, which was proposed by members of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT), say it will help tribes meet growing demand for energy both on and off the reservation. "Indian lands represent tremendous potential for economic advancement for the tribes that want to use those resources and develop them, and they represent an important energy supply to the rest of the country," said David Lester, executive director of CERT, adding that tribes can provide "far more" energy than the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge holds. Tribal populations are growing twice as fast as the general U.S. population and tribal economies are growing three times as fast as the national economy, Lester said. With almost all of the 562 federally recognized Indian tribes harboring some kind of energy resource, from wind, solar and biomass to coal and natural gas, tribes that choose to take advantage of the incentives in the new law can provide electricity and heat to their members, with plenty left over to sell to their non-tribal neighbors, he said. While only about 2 percent of the lands within the United States are tribally owned, lands on or adjacent to reservations contain more than 30 percent of its fossil energy sources, Lester said. Supporters, which include the National Congress of American Indians, say giving Indian tribes more control over their resources is a good idea, especially since the federal government has not been a good steward of tribal lands in the past. Several tribes have wrangled in court with the Interior Department and energy companies over what they contend are paltry royalty payments for resources extracted from their lands. A major case involving the federal government's alleged mishandling of tribal energy revenues is still pending in federal court. The new law, Lester and others say, will help avoid such problems by giving tribes greater say over energy development on their lands. 'Culture at stake' But critics of the new law say not all tribes are ready for that kind of responsibility. They fear it will allow energy companies to take advantage of tribes that are energy-rich but lack the governing capacity to ensure they are getting a fair deal. Clayton Thomas-Muller, native energy organizer at the Indigenous Environmental Network, said some tribes also do not have the institutional and enforcement mechanisms needed to guarantee that their resources will be developed responsibly. The law essentially allows the federal government to abandon its trust responsibility to the tribes, which is intended to prevent unfair treatment of tribes by outside entities such as energy companies, he said. "Yes, there are tribes that have those resources -- the lawyers, the scientists, the capacity to do what they need to do -- but there are hundreds that don't and are being set up to fail," Thomas-Muller said. "This energy bill basically takes us back 100 years, allowing corporations to exploit tribes that are still reeling from the impacts of colonization and dealing with different socioeconomic situations." The law encourages development of conventional energy resources like coal, natural gas and oil, which could scar tribal lands and undermine native ways of life, while bringing very little benefit to the tribes, he added. "Our very culture is at stake here," Thomas-Muller said. "To further destroy our land, our air, and our water for short-term economic solutions is not economic development, and it sets up our unborn generations for a very hard life." Lester emphasized that the new incentives will encourage the development of renewables like wind and solar, which are even more abundant on Indian lands than conventional, fossil-based resources. And the measure is voluntary, he added, noting that tribes can choose not to develop their resources, and those that do can choose to continue using NEPA instead of crafting their own regulatory framework. "This law strengthens each tribe's hand to use energy resources the way they want to use them," he said. "If they have coal resources but don't want to develop them, there's nothing that says they have to." And the law also seeks to ensure that tribes are capable of regulating energy development themselves before handing over the reins to them. When considering whether to approve a tribal energy resource agreement, the secretary of Interior must determine that the tribe "has demonstrated that the Indian tribe has sufficient capacity to regulate the development of energy resources of the Indian tribe," according to the law. Obstacles Bob Gough, secretary of the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, which promotes renewable energy development on tribal lands, characterized the measure as "a good start" but said some of the timelines for implementing its provisions appear to be unrealistic. For instance, it will likely take tribes six months or more to set up a system to sell clean energy bonds and funds to support that effort are not likely to be available until fiscal year 2007. But the provision expires at the end of 2007, he said. "There are a whole lot of new procedures," Gough said. "It's not going to happen overnight. There aren't a lot of tribes who will take advantage of this quickly." Tribal leaders, Interior officials and energy industry representatives will meet Monday in Chicago to discuss what the new law means and how to implement it, Gough said. Lizana Pierce, with DOE's tribal energy program in Golden, Colo., said the law has the potential to help tribes develop their resources, but that it will mean little unless Congress provides the funding to implement it. "There's a whole cadre of deadlines," she said. "But at least on the DOE side, there's no funds." Lester said the CERT tribes plan to "work our tails off" to convince lawmakers to back the law with appropriate funding levels, most likely through the Interior and Energy appropriations bills for fiscal year 2007. "We have a lot of work ahead of us," Lester said. Southwest reporter April Reese is based in Santa Fe, N.M.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

The United States federal government should provide a diminishing financial incentive transferring financial incentives for fossil fuels to financial incentives for solar production and conversion of toxic and fossil fuel facilities in unincorporated communities and communities of color but the recipients must become cost competitive and must improve in price and performance in order to continually receive this incentive. The financial incentive will diminish to industry cost competitiveness within a negotiated timeframe.

Temporary, diminishing incentives are vital to inducing competition, technological innovation and ending subsidy dependence.

Jenkins, Director of Energy and Climate Policy at the Breakthrough Institute, ‘12

Jesse, Congressional Testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, 5/22, http://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=31b79a1a-83a0-4ae6-8c80-30fe754ad0ea

Recognizing that investment horizons, technology development cycles, and market conditions vary across advanced energy technology segments, precise policy mechanisms will likely differ from sector to sector. Yet whether through production or investment subsidies, consumer rebates, market-­‐creating regulations or standards, or other market incentives, we recommend that any advanced energy deployment subsidies meet the following policy design criteria. Reformed policies should: 1. ESTABLISH A COMPETITIVE MARKET. Deployment policies should create market opportunities for advanced clean energy technologies while fostering competition between technology firms. 2. DRIVE COST REDUCTIONS AND PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS. Deployment policies should create market incentives and structures that demand and reward continual improvement in technology performance and cost. 3. PROVIDE TARGETED AND TEMPORARY SUPPORT FOR MATURING TECHNOLOGIES. Deployment policies must not operate in perpetuity, but rather should be terminated if technology segments either fail to improve in price and performance or become competitive without subsidy. 4. REDUCE SUBSIDY LEVELS IN RESPONSE TO CHANGING TECHNOLOGY COSTS. Deployment incentives should decline as technologies improve in price and performance to both conserve limited taxpayer and consumer resources and provide clear incentives for continued technology improvement. 5. AVOID TECHNOLOGY LOCK-OUT AND PROMOTE A DIVERSE ENERGY PORTFOLIO. Deployment incentives should be structured to create market opportunities for energy technologies at different levels of maturity, including new market entrants, to ensure that each has a chance to mature while allowing technologies of similar maturity levels to compete amongst themselves. 6. PROVIDE SUFFICIENT BUSINESS CERTAINTY. While deployment incentives should be temporary, they must still provide sufficient certainty to support key business decisions by private firms and investors. 7. MAXIMIZE THE IMPACT OF TAXPAYER RESOURCES AND PROVIDE READY ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE PRIVATE CAPITAL. Deployment incentives should be designed to avoid creating unnecessarily high transaction costs while opening up clean tech investment to broader private capital markets.

Solves all of the aff better and avoids our DAs.

Hayward et al, ‘10

Steven (Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute); Mark Muro (Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution); Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger (Cofounders, Breakthrough Institute), “POST-PARTISAN POWER”, October 2010, http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Post-Partisan%20Power.pdf

The government has a long history of successfully driving innovation and price declines in emerging technologies by acting directly as a demanding customer to spur the early commercialization and large- scale deployment of cutting-edge technologies. From radios and microchips to lasers and camera lenses, the federal government, in particular the DOD, has helped catalyze the improvement of countless innovative technologies and supported the emergence of vibrant American industries in the process. 67 Yet today’s mess of open-ended energy subsidies reward production of more of the same product, not innovation. The federal government showers subsidies across many energy options, from oil and coal to ethanol and wind power. None of these efforts, however, are designed or optimized to drive and reward innovation and ensure the prices of these technologies fall over time, making the subsidies effectively permanent. This must change. Competitive Deployment Incentives The current energy subsidy and deployment framework should be turned on its head. Government investments succeed not when they are blanket subsidies but rather when they are narrowly targeted to specific outcomes, such as developing computers to allow for rocket systems, building a communications network to survive a nuclear attack, or creating increasingly efficient and powerful jet engines. These public investments paid off handsomely in personal computers, the Internet, and gas turbines used in both commercial air travel as well as modern natural gas power plants. 68 In an era of expanding federal debt, across-the-board energy subsidy reform should be pursued. Incentives for energy technology deployment should be targeted and disciplined. Technologies should receive competitive deployment incentives only to the extent that they are becoming cheaper in unsubsidized terms over time. The strategy that we propose would be aimed at low-carbon technologies that, at a minimum, satisfy the following criteria:  The technology has been demonstrated and has proven technical feasibility at commercial scale;  Is currently priced above normal market rates and is locked out of markets by more mature, entrenched technology competitors;  Has potential for significant and sustained cost and performance improvements during deployment and scale-up; #Has strong prospects for significant market penetration once the technology reaches competitive Prices Targeted and competitive deployment incentives could be created for various classes of energy technologies to ensure that each has a chance to mature. Incentive levels should fall at regular intervals, terminating if the technology class either fails to improve in price or reaches cost parity in the absence of any further incentives. Structured in this manner, reformed national energy deployment incentives will not select winners and losers, nor will it create permanently subsidized industries. These public investments will instead provide opportunity for all emerging low-carbon energy technologies to demonstrate progress toward competitive costs while increasing the rate at which early-stage clean and affordable energy technologies are commercialized.

Only the CP can solve the future market crash – the impact is econ collapse

Sweezy, Project Director for the Breakthrough Institute, ‘11

Devon, “Clean Tech Sector Heading for a Major Crash”, July 11, 2011, http://blacklistednews.com/?news_id=14600andprint=1

The global clean energy industry is set for a major crash. The reason is simple. Clean energy is still much more expensive and less reliable than coal or gas, and in an era of heightened budget austerity the subsidies required to make clean energy artificially cheaper are becoming unsustainable. Clean tech crashes are nothing new. The U.S. wind energy industry has collapsed three times before, first in the mid 1990s and most recently in 2002 and 2004 when Congress failed to extend the tax credit that made it profitable. But the impact and magnitude of the coming clean tech crash will far outstrip those of past years. As part of its effort to combat the economic recession, the federal government pumped nearly $80 billion in direct investment and tax credits into the clean energy sector, catalyzing an unprecedented industry expansion. Solar energy, for example, grew 67% in the United States in 2010. The U.S. wind energy industry also experienced unprecedented growth as a result of the generous Section 1603 clean energy stimulus program. The industry grew by 40% and added 10 GW of new turbines in 2009. Yet many of the federal subsidies that have driven such rapid growth are set to expire in the next few years, and clean energy remains unable to compete without them. The crash won’t be limited to the United States. In many European countries, clean energy subsidies have become budget casualties as governments attempt to curb mounting deficits. Spain, Germany, France, Italy and the Czech Republic have all announced cuts to clean energy subsidies. Such cuts are not universal, however. China, flush with cash, is bucking the trend, committing $760 billion over 10 years for clean energy projects. China is continuing to invest in low-carbon energy as a way of meeting its voracious energy demand, diversifying its electricity supply, and alleviating some of the negative health consequences of its reliance on fossil energy. If U.S. and European clean energy markets collapse while investment continues to ramp up in China, the short-term consequences will likely be a migration of much of the industry to Asia. As we wrote in our 2009 report, “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” this would have significant economic consequences for the United States, as the jobs, revenues and other benefits of clean tech growth accrue overseas. In the long-term, however, clean energy must become much cheaper and more reliable if it is to widely displace fossil fuels on the scale of national economies and become a commercially viable industry. Breaking the Boom-Bust Cycle Why is the United States still locked in this self-perpetuating boom-bust cycle in clean energy? The problem, according to a new essay by energy experts David Victor and Kassia Yanosek in this week's Foreign Affairs, is that our system of clean energy subsidization is jury-rigged to support the deployment of only the least-risky and most mature clean energy technologies, while lacking clear incentives for continual innovation that could make clean energy competitive on cost with conventional energy sources. Rather, we should "invest in more innovative technologies that stand a better chance of competing with conventional energy sources over the long haul." According to Victor and Yanosek, nearly seven-eighths of global clean energy investment goes toward deploying existing technologies that aren't competitive without subsidy, while only a small share goes to encouraging innovation in existing technologies or developing new ones. This must change. Rather than simply subsidize production of current technologies, we need a comprehensive energy innovation strategy to develop, manufacture, and deploy riskier but more promising clean energy technologies that may eventually compete with fossil energy at scale. Instead of rewarding companies for building the same product, we should reward companies who continuously improve designs and cut costs over time. Such a federal strategy will require major federal investments, but of a different kind than the subsidies that have driven the clean tech industry in years past. For starters, we must dramatically ramp up funding for early-stage clean energy research and development. A growing bipartisan group of think tanks and business leaders have pushed an investment of at least $15 billion annually in energy RandD, up from its current $4 billion level. Targeted funding is needed to solve technology challenges and ensure that innovative technologies can develop and improve. One key program that helps fulfill this need is ARPA-E, which funds a portfolio of innovative technology companies and helps connect them with private investors. But ARPA-E's budget has continually been under assault in budget negotiations, hampering its ability to catalyze innovation in the energy sector and limiting its impact. We also need to invest in cutting-edge advanced manufacturing capabilities and shared technology infrastructure that would help U.S. companies cut costs and improve manufacturing processes. As the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology wrote in a report released last week, manufacturing is vital to innovation, "because of the synergies created by locating production processes and design processes near to each other." Furthermore, bringing down manufacturing costs, such as by supporting shared infrastructure for small firms, or offering financing for the adoption of innovative technologies in manufacturing, will be a key component of reducing the costs of new clean energy innovations. Lastly, the nation's hodgepodge of energy deployment subsidies is in dire need of reform. As Breakthrough and colleagues wrote in "Post-Partisan Power," we need an energy deployment regime that demands and rewards innovation, rather than just supporting more of the same. Brookings' Mark Muro (a co-author or PPP) expands, "targeted and competitive deployment incentives could be created for various classes of energy technologies that would ensure that each has a chance to mature even as each is challenged to innovate and locate price declines." Rather than create permanently subsidized industries, such investments would "provide the opportunity for opportunity for all emerging low-carbon energy technologies to demonstrate progress toward competitive costs," while speeding commercialization. It is clear that the current budgetary environment in the United States presents challenges to the viability of the fast-growing clean energy industry. But it also presents an opportunity. By repurposing existing clean energy policies and investing in clean energy innovation, the United States can be the first country to make clean energy cheap and reliable, a distinction that is sure to bring major economic benefits in a multi-trillion dollar energy market.

Econ collapse results in nuclear war.

Royal 10 (Jeddiah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, “Economic Integration, Economic Signalling And The Problem Of Economic Crises”, in Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215)

Second, on a dyadic level. Copeland's (1996. 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession lends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-rein force each other. (Blombcrj! and Hess. 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg. Hess. and Weerapana, 2004). which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. "Diversionary theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995), and Blombcrg. Mess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999). and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics arr greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

A.  INTERPRETATION.  A restriction must actually prevent production, not just indirectly make it more difficult.  Legal interpretations in the context of a similar kind of regulation support.

New York Court of Appeals Chief Justice Pound in 33

Roscoe, Nebbia v. New York, 262 N.Y 259, 264, lexis

The fixing of minimum prices is one of the main features of the act. The question is whether the act, so far as it provides for fixing minimum prices for milk, is unconstitutional under New York Constitution, article 1, section 6, and United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment, in that it interferes with the right of the milk dealer to carry on his business in such manner as suits his convenience, without State interference as to the price at which he shall sell his milk.

He continues New York Court of Appeals Chief Justice Pound in 33

Roscoe, Nebbia v. New York, 262 N.Y 259, 271, lexis

The New York law creates no monopoly; does not restrict production; was adopted to meet an emergency; milk is a greater family necessity than ice.

US Supreme Court Justice Roberts in 34

(Owen, Majority opinion in Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502, 531, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=usandvol=291andinvol=502

Notwithstanding the admitted power to correct existing economic ills by appropriate regulation of business, even though an indirect result may be a restriction of the freedom of contract or a modification of charges for services or the price of commodities, the appellant urges that direct fixation of prices is a type of regulation absolutely forbidden. His position is that the Fourteenth Amendment requires us to hold the challenged statute void for this reason alone. The argument runs that the public control of rates or prices is per se unreasonable and unconstitutional, save as applied to businesses affected with a public interest; that a business so affected is one in which property is devoted to an enterprise of a sort which the public itself might appropriately undertake, or one whose owner relies on a public grant or franchise for the right to conduct the business, or in which he is bound to serve all who apply; in short, such as is commonly called a public utility; or a business in its nature a monopoly. The milk industry, it is said, possesses none of these characteristics, and, therefore, not being affected with a public interest, its charges may not be controlled by the state. Upon the soundness of this contention the appellant's case against the statute depends.  We may as well say at once that the dairy industry is not, in the accepted sense of the phrase, a public utility. We think the appellant is also right in asserting that there is in this case no suggestion of any monopoly or monopolistic practice. It goes without saying that those engaged in the business are in no way dependent upon public grants or franchises for the privilege of conducting their activities. But if, as must be conceded, the industry is subject to regulation in the public interest, what constitutional principle bars the state from correcting existing 291 U.S. 502, 532 maladjustments by legislation touching prices? We think there is no such principle.

A.     And incentives can only be positive motivators attached to specific outcomes

Russel Thomas, 2007 Principal at Meritology, a consultancy that models business value and risk forinformation technology, Incentive-based Cyber Trust – A Call to Action,http://meritology.com/resources/Incentive based%20Cyber%20Trust%20Initiative%20v3.5.pdf

“Incentive” – Our definition differs somewhat from the usual economic definition: “In economics, an incentive is any factor (financial or non-financial) that provides a motive for a particular course of action, or counts as a reason for preferring one choice to the alternatives. Since human beings are purposeful creatures, the study of incentive structures is central to the study of all economic activity (both in terms of individual decision-making and in terms of co-operation and competition within a larger institutional structure).” 13 Generally, the incentives we consider are tied to desired outcomes, so that they are a form of gain sharing or shared equity. For purposes of this paper and the proposed Initiative, “incentive ” is further qualified to include only positive incentives such as remunerative, moral, and personal incentives. We exclude negative or coercive incentives from this definition because we want to draw on and stimulate “market forces”, broadly defined. Market systems normally motivate agents through positive incentives. In contrast, coercive incentives (penalties, etc. for failures to act) are usually administered through non-market processes such as legal , regulatory, or authority institutions .

B.     VIOLATION: The tariff the affirmative removes isn’t a direct restriction on actual production nor is it a positive incentive for production, it’s a removal of a negative incentive

C.  REASONS TO PREFER.

1.  Limits.

Their interpretation opens aff case choice to changing anything that might discourage energy production.  They could improve the European economy, or stop a war with Iran.  Unlimited case possibilities make negative preparation too difficult. 

2.  Ground

The aff interpretation allows them to claim too many advantages unrelated to increasing energy production, such as protection of trade secrets.  Fair ground division on this topic should be centered around increasing or decreasing energy production.  Our interpretation guarantees this.

3.  Bright line

Their interpretation requires that you look at the intent or effects of regulations rather than on the words.  Our interpretation sets a bright line -- if the words of the law mandate a limit on energy production, then it is topical to remove it.  Avoiding subjective judging decisions is good for the exercise of jurisdiction.  Also, any advantages based on removing restrictions would be extratopical, not reasons to vote aff.

D.  TOPICALITY AND EXTRATOPICALITY ARE VOTERS.

For reasons of education, fairness and jurisdiction.

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Text: The United States federal government should initiate trade negotiations with China. In these negotiations, the United States federal government should offer to lower duties on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from the People’s Republic of China in exchange for reciprocal Chinese liberalization of energy policy.

Only the CP approach resolves the trade dispute—key to a durable US-China trade relationship.

Hart and Gordon, ‘12

Melanie (Policy Analyst on China Energy and Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress) and Kate (Vice President for Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress), “ 5 Myths and Realities About U.S.-China Solar Trade Competition”, www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/05/china_solar.html

If U.S. companies drop trade petitions in response to China’s real or implied threats then capitulation wins out over negotiation—and capitulation is a losing game The Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy, or CASE, the group of companies who strongly oppose levying tariffs on Chinese solar panels, has repeatedly called on SolarWorld to drop these trade petitions. CASE would prefer to take dispute resolution away from the Commerce Department, and instead have the Obama administration step in to negotiate a mutually agreeable settlement with China. They make a strong case that the Obama administration would be more likely to take the general public interest in getting solar installations to scale, and the potential negative impact of tariffs on those installations, into account and would balance those interests against the impact of Chinese subsidies on the U.S. solar manufacturing sector. As a result of this proposed balancing exercise, CASE expects that a bilateral negotiation would result in much lower tariffs (compared to what the U.S. Department Commerce might impose) or a price floor, possibly in exchange for Chinese promises to reduce or eliminate the contested subsidies. But such a balanced outcome is highly unlikely, either in the case of the solar industry or in the many other cases in which U.S. companies face unfair Chinese trade competition. There is certainly nothing wrong with negotiation, of course. In general, the more the United States and China engage on trade issues and share their concerns, the better. What CASE is calling for, however, is capitulation, not negotiation. One of the biggest barriers to a balanced U.S.-China trade relationship is that so many U.S. companies avoid filing trade petitions due to fears that China will retaliate against them. Many U.S. companies strongly suspect—based on their conversations in China—Chinese officials and enterprises would respond to formal filings with punitive market-access reductions. That risk is too great for companies depending on the China market to keep their businesses afloat, so many U.S. companies keep quiet and put up with short-term problems to protect their longer-term relationship with Beijing. The end result is that the United States winds up tacitly accommodating a wide range of trade violations, eroding our economic competitiveness. U.S. companies already face enough political pressure from Beijing to avoid and drop these trade complaints. We do not want them to face the same pressures here at home. Just as we should protect the rights of individual citizens to use the judicial system to file legal complaints, we should also protect and support the rights of individual companies to use our trade institutions to file trade complaints, even if other sectors of the industry find those complaints inconvenient. It is also important to note that in private conversations with this column’s authors, at least some of the companies lobbying for a negotiated settlement in the SolarWorld case claim that Chinese officials and their Chinese customers are leaning heavily on them to do so by, for instance, threatening to reduce market access for companies who are not visibly and loudly opposing the SolarWorld trade petitions in Washington. Based on those conversations it appears the Chinese government is using U.S. companies as levers to influence Washington’s willingness to take enforcement action, and that is a disturbing trend. The best way to avoid that problem is to keep these decisions where they are now—in the hands of independent investigators at the Department of Commerce, where trade investigations are largely isolated from political pressure and less susceptible to Chinese interference. The bottom line is that a true negotiated agreement with China, if China is indeed violating its trade obligations, would result in the United States extracting some array of promises or concessions from China—ideally promises to remove the policies that caused the trade frictions in the first place. If that is our end goal, then we should let the Commerce Department process play out first. If that process results in very low tariffs, then we can assume that China’s behavior does not warrant high-level political negotiations. But if the tariffs are significant, then we have a clear signal that there is something to negotiate about—and we will subsequently be at a good starting point for negotiations, because the Chinese government will be keen to find a solution less onerous than the high-tariff status quo. The Chinese government will certainly do everything in its power to strengthen its negotiating leverage in bilateral trade disputes. We should do the same.

Aff concession will be pocketed.

Wenk and Westerman, ‘9

Christopher (Senior Director for International Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) and Stefanie (Associate Director for International Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), April 2009, “The Nexus of Climate Change and Trade: Don’t Break the Rules”, www.aaccla.org/files/2010/12/ClimageChangeandTrade.pdf

A consensus is emerging that no one nation can address the challenges posed by climate change on its own. This is reflected in the ongoing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations and the related December 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The UNFCCC agreement aims to bring developed and developing countries under global rules in an effort to effectively address climate change. In contrast with unilateral measures, a global agreement on climate change has at least the potential to maintain a level playing field without undermining the rules-based trading system. The administration’s chief trade negotiator has indicated that an international multilateral framework is the ideal way to reduce worldwide carbon emissions. In an April 14 letter sent to House Energy and Commerce Committee and Science and Technology Committee Republicans, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk wrote that the Administration believes that the best approach to addressing global climate change is through a new international agreement at the UNFCCC that incorporates all major emitters.9 Carbon tariffs were considered in the European Union when officials crafted the emissions trading system known as the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). However, the EU refrained from employing such measures, partly to placate U.S. concerns. The United States should show the same consideration. 10 Any new domestic climate change policy should be conditional on a multilateral agreement that has full international cooperation. It is not reasonable to accept on faith that if the United States goes first, other major economies will fall in line.

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Kerry can forge climate agreements, but diplomatic capital is key

Geman 12-22 (Ben, Senior EU official, lawmakers hope Kerry elevates climate at State, The Hill, E2 Wire, 22 December 2012, http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/274429-senior-eu-official-lawmakers-hope-kerry-elevates-climate-at-state-dept, da 12-27-12)

Now, advocates see several ways that Kerry can make progress on climate from Foggy Bottom.¶ They include work on bilateral green energy and climate partnerships that State has already reached with a number of countries.¶ The U.S., through the State Department, is a founding member of a multi-nation coalition launched in early 2012 to address so-called short-lived climate pollutants like methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons.¶ Perhaps Kerry’s biggest challenge, however, will be the difficult path ahead for United Nations talks that are aimed at creating a global climate pact in 2015. That agreement would go into effect in 2020. ¶ It is proving hugely difficult to forge a deal that, unlike the Kyoto accords (which the U.S. never joined), creates binding emissions commitments for fast-developing, major emitters including China and India, as well as developed countries.¶ “Sen. Kerry will bring vital expertise and knowledge on the issue of climate change as we endeavor to work toward a meaningful, balanced international agreement in 2015,” said Eileen Claussen, the president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.¶ She was a top State Department environmental official in President Clinton’s administration.

Plan costs Kerry diplomatic capital – causes negotiations to fail

Hart, Policy Analyst on China Energy and Climate Policy, and Gordon, Vice President for Energy Policy 12 (Melanie and Kate, 5 Myths and Realities About U.S.-China Solar Trade Competition, American Progress, 16 May 2012,  http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2012/05/16/11592/5-myths-and-realities-about-u-s-china-solar-trade-competition/, da 1-11-13)

It is also important to note that in private conversations with this column’s authors, at least some of the companies lobbying for a negotiated settlement in the SolarWorld case claim that Chinese officials and their Chinese customers are leaning heavily on them to do so by, for instance, threatening to reduce market access for companies who are not visibly and loudly opposing the SolarWorld trade petitions in Washington. Based on those conversations it appears the Chinese government is using U.S. companies as levers to influence Washington’s willingness to take enforcement action, and that is a disturbing trend. The best way to avoid that problem is to keep these decisions where they are now—in the hands of independent investigators at the Department of Commerce, where trade investigations are largely isolated from political pressure and less susceptible to Chinese interference.¶ The bottom line is that a true negotiated agreement with China, if China is indeed violating its trade obligations, would result in the United States extracting some array of promises or concessions from China—ideally promises to remove the policies that caused the trade frictions in the first place. If that is our end goal, then we should let the Commerce Department process play out first. If that process results in very low tariffs, then we can assume that China’s behavior does not warrant high-level political negotiations. But if the tariffs are significant, then we have a clear signal that there is something to negotiate about—and we will subsequently be at a good starting point for negotiations, because the Chinese government will be keen to find a solution less onerous than the high-tariff status quo.¶ The Chinese government will certainly do everything in its power to strengthen its negotiating leverage in bilateral trade disputes. We should do the same.

U.S. pressure for a UN climate agreement is the only way to solve warming – quick international action is key to avoid the tipping point.

Jacobs 12-10 (Michael, The Doha climate talks were a start, but 2015 will be the moment of truth, The Guardian, 10 December 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/10/doha-climate-talks-global-warming, da 1-6-13)

Doha reaffirms that such an agreement must aim to achieve the UN goal of limiting global warming to 2C. And it sets in train a process to review countries' emissions targets, with the aim of closing the "emissions gap" between current pledges and the reductions needed to meet that goal. The deal creates a new mechanism to compensate the countries worst hit by climate change for the loss and damage it causes. A single negotiations platform has been established to achieve the new agreement, with a deadline for completion of 2015.¶ This is a much bigger deal than most commentators, and most governments, have realised. The last time there was a negotiating deadline was 2009, in Copenhagen. There too the stage was set for a comprehensive legally binding agreement to be signed. A huge international campaign was created to put public pressure on governments. The UN talks were turned into a full-blown leaders' summit, with presidents and prime ministers arriving to seal the deal themselves. Yet Copenhagen turned out to be a massive let-down. It failed to achieve the binding agreement it promised. And in doing so it caused a collapse in business confidence in the low carbon economy which set back progress by several years. Is that what will happen again in 2015?¶ Many people working in the climate field fear so. Preoccupied by economic crisis, the world's governments show no willingness to make major new emissions reduction commitments. The global public is worried about jobs and living standards: there is no sign of the mass anxiety about global warming that drove the build-up to Copenhagen. Most of all, environmental NGOs fear that, if they raise expectations again for 2015 as they did in 2009, they risk another huge failure which will only damage the task of building low carbon economies at national level.¶ The problem with this argument, however, is that it is self-prophesying. It is true that political leaders today are not thinking about climate change: but they will only do so if compelled by a big international event that requires their attention, as Copenhagen did. The global public are not now mobilised around global warming – but that is almost certain to change after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change begins publishing its latest assessment of the scientific evidence next year, when public alarm is bound to increase. Of course, if 2015 is built up to be a big moment and it fails, people will be let down. But if it is not built up, it will fail anyway.¶ The fact is, the current situation is already a failure: global emissions are rising, and on present trends 2C will be out of reach in less than a decade. The only hope of reversing this is if countries are forced into doing more by the pressure of an international "moment".¶ This is actually what happened at Copenhagen. Though the conference failed to reach agreement, in the runup to it every significant country in the world – including the US and China – set targets to cut their emissions, compelled by the approaching summit. Climate change decisions require fundamental political and economic choices that only heads of government can make, which is why it was right to demand their involvement.

Warming leads to extinction.

Sify ‘10 (Sify, Sydney newspaper citing Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, professor at University of Queensland and Director of the Global Change Institute, and John Bruno, associate professor of Marine Science at UNC (Sify News, “Could unbridled climate changes lead to human extinction?”, http:~/~/www.sify.com/news/html)

The findings of the comprehensive report: 'The impact of climate change on the world's marine ecosystems' emerged from a synthesis of recent research on the world's oceans, carried out by two of the world's leading marine scientists. One of the authors of the report is Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, professor at The University of Queensland and the director of its Global Change Institute (GCI). 'We may see sudden, unexpected changes that have serious ramifications for the overall well-being of humans, including the capacity of the planet to support people. This is further evidence that we are well on the way to the next great extinction event,' says Hoegh-Guldberg. 'The findings have enormous implications for mankind, particularly if the trend continues. The earth's ocean, which produces half of the oxygen we breathe and absorbs 30 per cent of human-generated carbon dioxide, is equivalent to its heart and lungs. This study shows worrying signs of ill-health. It's as if the earth has been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day!,' he added. 'We are entering a period in which the ocean services upon which humanity depends are undergoing massive change and in some cases beginning to fail', he added. The 'fundamental and comprehensive' changes to marine life identified in the report include rapidly warming and acidifying oceans, changes in water circulation and expansion of dead zones within the ocean depths. These are driving major changes in marine ecosystems: less abundant coral reefs, sea grasses and mangroves (important fish nurseries); fewer, smaller fish; a breakdown in food chains; changes in the distribution of marine life; and more frequent diseases and pests among marine organisms. Study co-author John F Bruno, associate professor in marine science at The University of North Carolina, says greenhouse gas emissions are modifying many physical and geochemical aspects of the planet's oceans, in ways 'unprecedented in nearly a million years'. 'This is causing fundamental and comprehensive changes to the way marine ecosystems function,' Bruno warned, according to a GCI release. These findings were published in Science.

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Text: The Department of Defense should procure small modular reactors for military bases in the United States.

DOD is key – solves commercialization, overcomes restrictions and doesn’t link to politics.

Madia, Chairman of the Board of Overseers and Vice President for the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University, ‘12

William, Spring, "Small Modular Reactors: A Potential Game-changing Technology", energyclub.stanford.edu/index.php/Journal/Small_Modular_Reactors_by_William_Madia

To determine if SMRs hold the potential for changing the game in carbon-free power generation, it is imperative that we test the design, engineering, licensing, and economic assumptions with some sort of public-private development and demonstration program. Instead of having government simply invest in research and development to “buy down” the risks associated with SMRs, I propose a more novel approach. Since the federal government is a major power consumer, it should commit to being the “first mover” of SMRs. This means purchasing the first few hundred MWs of SMR generation capacity and dedicating it to federal use. The advantages of this approach are straightforward. The government would both reduce licensing and economic risks to the point where utilities might invest in subsequent units, thus jumpstarting the SMR industry. It would then also be the recipient of additional carbon-free energy generation capacity. This seems like a very sensible role for government to play without getting into the heavy politics of nuclear waste, corporate welfare, or carbon taxes.¶ If we want to deploy power generation technologies that can realize near-term impact on carbon emissions safely, reliably, economically, at scale, and at total costs that are manageable on the balance sheets of most utilities, we must consider SMRs as a key component of our national energy strategy.

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A. Interpretation - ‘Restrictions’ must be direct and immediate limitations on freedom – otherwise it is simply a regulation.

Veeraswami, Former Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, India, ‘66

CJ, “T.M. Kannappa Mudaliar And Ors. vs The State Of Madras” Majority opinion,

http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/838831/

The collection of a toll or a tax for the use of a road or for the use of a bridge or for the use of an aerodrome is no barrier or burden or deterrent to traders, who, in their absence, may have to take a longer or less convenient or more expensive route. Such compensatory taxes are no hindrance to anybody's freedom so long as they remain reasonable; but they could of course, be converted into a hindrance to the freedom of trade. If the authorities concerned really wanted to hamper anybody's trade they could easily raise the amount of tax or toll to an amount which would be prohibitive or deterrent or create other impediments which instead of facilitating trade and commerce would hamper them. It is here that the contrast, between 'freedom' (Article 301) and 'restrictions' (Articles 302 and 304) clearly appears; that which in reality facilitates trade and commerce is not a restriction, and that which in reality hampers or burdens trade and commerce is a restriction. It is the reality or substance of the matter that has to be determined. It is not possible apriori to draw a dividing line between that which would really be a charge for a facility provided and that which would really be a deterrent to a trade, but the distinction, if it has to be drawn is real and clear. For the tax to become a prohibited tax it has to be a direct tax the effect of which is to hinder the movement part of trade. So long as a tax remains compensatory or regulatory it cannot operate as a hindrance. 12. Subba Rao, J. as he then was, concurring with Das, J. took substantially the same view and observed (at page 1430);: The word ' freedom ' is not capable of precise definition, but it can be stated what would infringe or detract from the said freedom. Before a particular law can be said to infringe the said freedom, it must be ascertained whether the impugned provision operates as a restriction impeding the free movement of trade or only as a regulation facilitating the same. Restrictions obstruct the freedom, whereas regulations promote it. Police regulations, though they may superficially appear to restrict the freedom of movement, in fact provide the necessary conditions for the free movement. Regulations such as provision for lighting, speed, good condition of vehicles, timings, rule of the road and similar others, really facilitate the freedom of movement rather than retard it. So too, licensing system with compensatory fees would not be restrictions but regulatory provisions;, for without it, the necessary lines of communication such as roads, waterways and airways, cannot effectively be maintained and the freedom declared may in practice turn out to be an empty one....It is for the Court in a given case to decide whether a provision purporting to regulate trade is in fact a restriction on freedom. The further observations as to what was meant by Restrictions in Article 302 are (at page 1433): But the more difficult question is, what does the word " restrictions " mean in Article 302? The dictionary meaning of the word " restrict" is "to confine, bound, limit." Therefore any limitations placed upon the freedom is a restriction on that freedom. But the limitation must be real, direct and immediate, but not fanciful, indirect or remote....Of all the doctrines evolved in my view, the doctrine of ' direct and immediate effect' on the freedom would be a reasonable solvent to the difficult situation that might arise under our Constitution. If a law, whatever may have been its source, directly and immediately affects the free movement of trade, it would be restriction on the said freedom. But a law which may have only indirect and remote repercussions on the said freedom cannot be considered to be a restriction on it. 13. Subba Rao, J., as he then was summed up his views in the following words (at page 1436): The foregoing discussions may be summarised in the following propositions : (1) Article 301 declares a right of free movement of trade without any obstructions by way of barriers, inter-State or intra-State or other impediments operating as such barriers. (2) The said freedom is not impeded, but on the other hand, promoted by regulations creating conditions for the free movement of trade, such as, police regulations, provision for services, maintenance of roads, provision for aerodromes, wharfs, etc. with or without compensation. (3) Parliament may by law impose restrictions on such freedom in the public interest and the said law can be made by virtue of any entry with respect whereof Parliament has power to make a law. (4) The State also, in exercise of its legislative power, may impose similar restrictions, subject to the two conditions laid down in Article 304 (b) and subject to the Proviso mentioned therein. (5) Neither Parliament nor the State Legislature can make a law giving preference to one State over another or making discrimination between one State and another, by virtue of any entry in the Lists, infringing the said freedom. (6) This ban is lifted in the case of Parliament for the purpose of dealing with situations arising out of scarcity of goods in any part of the territory of India and also in the case of a State under Article 304 (h), subject to the conditions mentioned therein. And (7) the State can impose a non-discriminatory tax on goods imported from other States or the Union territory to which similar goods manufactured or produced in the State are subject. 14. It is thus well established that regulatory provisions which do not directly or immediately impede or burden the free movement of trade, commerce and intercourse but provide or intend to provide facilities for trade, commerce and intercourse are not restrictions within the meaning of Part XIII and are compatible with the freedom of trade declared by Article 301. Atiabari Tea Co., Ltd. v. State of Assam , and Automobile Transport Ltd. v. State of Rajasthan , are both cases of imposition of tax. The first was concerned with the Assam Taxation (on Goods carried by Roads or Inland Waterways) Act, 1954,, which was successfully attacked on the ground that it violated Article 301 and was not saved by Article 304 (b). The Act imposed a tax on specified goods transported by road or inland waterways in the State of Assam. The majority in that case held that the Act put a direct restriction on the freedom of trade and, since in doing so, had not complied with the provisions of Article 304 (b), it must be declared to be void. In the second case the Rajasthan Motor Vehicles Taxation Act, 1951, was impugned as violating Article 301. But the majority did not accept the contention on the view that the Act was merely a regulatory measure imposing compensatory taxes for the use of trading facilities. The scope of Article 301 was again in the light of the earlier decisions referred to in Khyerbari Tea Co. v. State of Assam , where the Assam Taxation (On goods carried by Roads or Inland Waterways) Act as amended after Atiabari Tea Co. Ltd. v. State of Assam , was attacked on various grounds but without success. 15. As already seen, the distinction between a restriction and a regulation is fine but real, though the dividing line is not capable in the nature of things of a comprehensive and satisfactory definition. The test, broadly speaking, is whether the impugned provisions lay a direct and immediate burden on the movement of trade, commerce and intercourse or are intrinsically beneficial to and provide, in the ultimate analysis, facilities for better conduct of trade, commerce and intercourse. Observed Das, J., in Automobile Transport Ltd. v. State of Rajasthan

B. Violation – The advocacy is merely to rethink our relationship with the grid--it does not advocate any legal action to decrease direct limitations on freedom.

C. Reasons to Prefer

1. Limits

Their interpretation opens aff case choice to changing anything that might discourage energy production. This makes the topic a limits disaster.

Doub 76

Energy Regulation: A Quagmire for Energy Policy Annual Review of Energy Vol. 1: 715-725 (Volume publication date November 1976) DOI: 10.1146/annurev.eg.01.110176.003435LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby and MacRae, 1757 N Street NW, Washington, DC 20036 http://0-www.annualreviews.org.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.eg.01.110176.003435 Mr. Doub is a principal in the law firm of Doub and Muntzing, which he formed in 1977. Previously he was a partner in the law firm of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby and MacRae. He was a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1971 - 1974. He served as a member of the Executive Advisory Committee to the Federal Power Commission in 1968 - 1971 and was appointed by the President of the United States to the President's Air Quality Advisory Board in 1970. He is a member of the American Bar Association, Maryland State Bar Association, and Federal Bar Association. He is immediate past Chairman of the U.S. National Committee of the World Energy Conference and a member of the Atomic Industrial Forum. He currently serves as a member of the nuclear export policy committees of both the Atomic Industrial Forum and the American Nuclear Energy Council. Mr. Doub graduated from Washington and Jefferson College (B.A., 1953) and the University of Maryland School of Law in 1956. He is married, has two children, and resides in Potomac, Md. He was born September 3, 1931, in Cumberland, Md.

FERS began with the recognition that federal energy policy must result from concerted efforts in all areas dealing with energy, not the least of which was the manner in which energy is regulated by the federal government. Energy selfsufficiency is improbable, if not impossible, without sensible regulatory processes, and effective regulation is necessary for public confidence. Thus, the President directed that "a comprehensive study be undertaken, in full consultation with Congress, to determine the best way to organize all energy-related regulatory activities of the government." An interagency task force was formed to study this question. With 19 different federal departments and agencies contributing, the task force spent seven months deciphering the present organizational makeup of the federal energy regulatory system, studying the need for organizational improvement, and evaluating alternatives. More than 40 agencies were found to be involved with making regulatory decisions on energy. Although only a few deal exclusively with energy, most of the 40 could significantly affect the availability and/or cost of energy. For example, in the field of gas transmission, there are five federal agencies that must act on siting and land-use issues, seven on emission and effluent issues, five on public safety issues, and one on worker health and safety issues-all before an onshore gas pipeline can be built. The complexity of energy regulation is also illustrated by the case of Standard Oil Company (Indiana), which reportedly must file about 1000 reports a year with 35 different federal agencies. Unfortunately, this example is the rule rather than the exception.

2. Precision

Only direct prohibition is a restriction – key to predictability.

Sinha 6

http:~/~/www.indiankanoon.org/doc/437310/http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/437310/  Supreme Court of India Union Of India and Ors vs M/S. Asian Food Industries on 7 November, 2006 Author: S.B. Sinha Bench: S Sinha, Mark, E Katju  CASE NO.:  Writ Petition (civil) 4695 of 2006  PETITIONER:  Union of India and Ors.  RESPONDENT:  M/s. Asian Food Industries  DATE OF JUDGMENT: 07/11/2006  BENCH:  S.B. Sinha and Markandey Katju  JUDGMENT:  J U D G M E N T  Arising out of S.L.P. (Civil) No. 17008 of 2006 WITH  CIVIL APPEAL NO. 4696 OF 2006 Arising out of S.L.P. (Civil) No. 17558 of 2006  S.B. SINHA, J : 

 We may, however, notice that this Court in State of U.P. and Others v. M/s. Hindustan Aluminium Corpn. and others AIR 1979 SC 1459 stated the law thus: "It appears that a distinction between regulation and restriction or prohibition has always been drawn, ever since Municipal Corporation of the City of Toronto v. Virgo. Regulation promotes the freedom or the facility which is required to be regulated in the interest of all concerned, whereas prohibition obstructs or shuts off, or denies it to those to whom it is applied. The Oxford English Dictionary does not define regulate to include prohibition so that if it had been the intention to prohibit the supply, distribution, consumption or use of energy, the legislature would not have contented itself with the use of the word regulating without using the word prohibiting or some such word, to bring out that effect."

3. Ground

The aff interpretation allows them to claim too many advantages unrelated to increasing energy production, such as protection of trade secrets.  Fair ground division on this topic should be centered around increasing or decreasing energy production.  Our interpretation guarantees this.

Voter for fairness and education

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Russia has a dominant share of the EU gas market now - only the introduction of a new supplier can displace their position.

Koven, Colonel in the US Air Force, ‘12

Alexander, 1-3-12, “UNDER THE YOKE: EUROPE'S NATURAL GAS DEPENDENCY ON RUSSIA”, www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA561551

One of the European Union's (EU) greatest challenges is energy security. Due to a lack of organic resources, the EU depends on a number of external suppliers to meet its energy needs. Russia has been a major supplier of energy to Europe since before the fall of the Soviet Union. Of its energy exports, natural gas provides Russia with the most leverage since gas is not an easily traded natural resource. Unlike with oil, nations are bound to gas suppliers by long-term contracts. Over the last twenty years, Russia has used this restrictive market environment to both coerce and punish its customers in Europe. Due to a number of reasons, including environmental restrictions against CO2 emissions and a declining acceptance of nuclear power, the EU's need for gas is increasing while its limited organic gas sources, such as the North Sea, are depleting. There are ways the EU can reduce its dependence on Russian gas. First, the EU can diversify its energy supplies by using more coal, nuclear and renewable energy. Second, Europe can increase its organic gas supplies by using the extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing or "fracking". North America's use of this technique is already increasing availability and reducing the cost for gas world-wide. Finally, Europe can secure the importation of gas from non-Russian sources. The current political environment make the first two options unlikely due to environmental fears and the desire to reduce emissions. That leaves the EU with the need to secure new nonRussian supplies of gas. The Russians, fighting to maintain their leverage, are countering the EU's attempts to diversify its supplies and are using a divide-andconquer strategy by creating bilateral gas importation agreements with EU nations. As it stands at the beginning of 2012, it is unlikely that the EU will remove the yoke of Russian gas from their shoulders.

US exports trade off with Russia – global price.

Hulbert, Contributor, ‘12

Matthew, Forbes, 5-26-12, “Why American Natural Gas Will Change the World”,

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewhulbert/2012/05/26/why-american-natural-gas-will-change-the-world/

Unfortunately for the US energy independence faithful, this is exactly what oil majors are eying for America – and it was Royal Dutch Shell that just let the cat out of the bag. Shell made things quite clear; if it was staying in the US, it means wets, it means looking at gas to liquids, but most of all, means LNG. Wheels have already been put in motion further north in Canada, where Shell, PetroChina, Kogas and Mitsubishi are lining up 12mt/y exports from British Colombia for Asian markets. That follows export licenses already agreed for British outfit, BG Group, and Apache through Kitimat LNG as well as the Alaskan North Slope plumping for LNG to monetise its 35tcf of proven reserves. Canada has no doubt that selling stranded to Asia is the only option it has on the table; it literally couldn’t give its gas away to the US if it tried. The same penny is dropping in America. BG Group led the way with Sabine Pass off-take; Execlerate have tabled separate plans to build floating LNG plants off the Gulf Coast, while FERC has around 125bcm/y of LNG applications awaiting approval. ‘National flags’ don’t come into the equation, especially when you consider that Exxon Mobil already sells two-thirds of its products overseas; Conocco has been leading the charge to ship 10 million tons a year out of Freeport LNG. Assuming market consolidation is on the cards, US shale provides the perfect prize for cash-rich IOCs to capture: sign up low cost US supplies and sell then into very high value Asian markets, and do so off their own balance sheets. Sit on the acreage; aggressively lobby for LNG exports; pocket the difference. By way of lucrative footnote, domestic acreage is also coming in useful for international swap agreements overseas – call it Exxon-Rosneft 101. The spanner in the works is political risk of course; how much gas will Washington allow to leave its shores? A couple of years ago you’d have said not much, but the fact the EIA has just downgraded recoverable shale reserves from 827tcf in 2011 to 482tcf in 2012 tells you all need to know. If the US wants to maintain its shale revolution, it badly needs prices to firm to make fields economically viable. LNG exports are a good way of doing that, at least to around $4-7Mmbtu. With some careful positioning, Washington could claim a political victory in the process; maintain the health of US shale (and American jobs) by making a virtue out of LNG export necessity. As far as US Energy Inc. is concerned, LNG isn’t a case of ‘if’, but when, how much and what pricing methods to use. 40 to 50 million tons a year by 2020 should be more than doable. That would make America the third largest LNG player in the world behind Qatar and Australia. Europe will watch the debate with considerable interest – not just because the likes of BG Group have a 34% stake in total US LNG export capacity being developed, but because European hub prices currently sit mid-way between the US and Asia. European spot market liquidity has held up reasonably well thanks to Qatari supplies, but Doha is increasingly looking East, a dynamic that could leave Europe with its more traditional Russian, North Sea and North African pipeline mix. If American LNG doesn’t come good, North West European liquidity will dry up quicker than most think – with potentially serious price and dependency implications. Europe will inevitably fail to develop its shale reserves, not unless the states in question happen to be perched on the Russian border. Little wonder serious forecasts already think Europe will end up importing more US LNG by 2020 than it manages to frack in its own backyard. This 2020 ‘lead time’ is important for Europe, not just because it’s going to take some time for US LNG trains to gather speed, but because the first wave of exports will predominantly go to Asia. Japan has been in the headlines post-Fukushima boosting short term demand, but the real prize remains China. Gas demand has been going up 5% year on year, while LNG shot up 31% once China’s fifth import terminal went online. That’s closely followed by India where LNG remains a strategic priority given the impossibility of getting pipelines into Delhi via Pakistan or Afghanistan. Although India and China are actively developing domestic shale reserves, (Beijing has earmarked no less than 30bcm capacity), America should have little problem taking Asian market share, particularly if it provides greater flexibility on take or pay contracts to hedge long term price risk. Indeed, the mere prospect of US LNG is Asia is already creating major problems for Middle East and Russian players trying to sell gas (LNG or pipeline) on an oil indexed basis. Australia is in no better shape; despite headline figures of 80mt/y of LNG by 2018 (i.e. the world leader), cost inflation is rife and coal bed plays are looking more costly to develop than originally thought. International players are still investing in Australia (ironically as a double hedge against US LNG flopping), but given that Australian LNG docks into Asian ports for around $17-$18MM/Btu, any softening of prices could leave current (and prospective) LNG projects in the red.

Russia’s gas dominance of Europe is the lifeblood of its economy - oil can’t compensate.

Wright, Contributor to the Pipeline and Gas Journal, ‘9

Lindsay, Pipeline and Gas Journal, August 2009, “PIPELINE POLITICS: RUSSIA’S NATURAL GAS DIPLOMACY”, Vol. 236 No. 8

Natural resources are the lifeblood of the Russian economy and Siberia’s riches excite envy and awe from onlooking countries. Revenues from exports of oil and gas made possible one of the greatest economic comeback stories in recent memory. From the wreckage of the fall of communism and the subsequent currency collapse of 1998, an economic and political powerhouse has emerged. Russia is emboldened by renewed wealth and has no qualms about using its considerable clout in the energy industry to twist the arms of its neighbors. Some 157,000 km of natural gas pipelines serving more than 30 export markets are both an engine of economic growth and a powerful political sword. In the privatization frenzy of post-Soviet reconstruction, many of Russia’s energy resources were sold off to individuals and corporations, often at cut-rate prices. However, under President Putin, energy assets were systematically and strategically brought back under state control. Deeply embedded in the Russian psyche is a belief that politics is a zero-sum game, and advancing “national interests” is the chief driver behind political decisions. Casualties are not only tolerated, they are expected. In the energy business, this mentality effectively gives Gazprom, the majority state-owned natural gas producer and distributer, liberty to take politically significant actions under the mantle of a legitimate business activity. The Kremlin and Gazprom have intertwining purposes and interests. The company produces more than 90% of Russia’s natural gas and provides the state with roughly one quarter of its total tax revenue, in addition to owning and operating the massive pipeline infrastructure. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is former chairman of Gazprom. This cozy relationship allows the Kremlin to influence international commodity markets for political gain. Natural gas is less of a fungible good than oil and this distinction is reflected in the inconsistent prices for the resource. Pipelines are the only effective means of transporting natural gas at today’s prices and with today’s technology. The price of a unit of Russian gas varies by the terms of contracts set between Russia and its individual customers. Pipelines, by their fixed nature and high capital cost, force a long-term relationship between buyer and seller. Unlike the situation for oil suppliers, a gas producer cannot quickly divert his or her product to another willing buyer should the initial customer be unable, or unwilling, to pay. Buyers do not have much flexibility either. In the short term, they have little choice but to purchase gas from the supplier at the other end of the pipeline. The relative rigidity of the natural gas industry inextricably links European gas consumers to Russia’s foreign policy objectives. These goals - broadly increased wealth, influence and security - are realized through the web of Gazprom’s pipelines crisscrossing the continent.

Russian economic decline causes nuclear war

Filger 9 (Sheldon, author and blogger for the Huffington Post, “Russian Economy Faces Disastrous Free Fall Contraction” http://www.globaleconomiccrisis.com/blog/archives/356)

In Russia historically, economic health and political stability are intertwined to a degree that is rarely encountered in other major industrialized economies. It was the economic stagnation of the former Soviet Union that led to its political downfall. Similarly, Medvedev and Putin, both intimately acquainted with their nation’s history, are unquestionably alarmed at the prospect that Russia’s economic crisis will endanger the nation’s political stability, achieved at great cost after years of chaos following the demise of the Soviet Union. Already, strikes and protests are occurring among rank and file workers facing unemployment or non-payment of their salaries. Recent polling demonstrates that the once supreme popularity ratings of Putin and Medvedev are eroding rapidly. Beyond the political elites are the financial oligarchs, who have been forced to deleverage, even unloading their yachts and executive jets in a desperate attempt to raise cash. Should the Russian economy deteriorate to the point where economic collapse is not out of the question, the impact will go far beyond the obvious accelerant such an outcome would be for the Global Economic Crisis. There is a geopolitical dimension that is even more relevant then the economic context. Despite its economic vulnerabilities and perceived decline from superpower status, Russia remains one of only two nations on earth with a nuclear arsenal of sufficient scope and capability to destroy the world as we know it. For that reason, it is not only President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin who will be lying awake at nights over the prospect that a national economic crisis can transform itself into a virulent and destabilizing social and political upheaval. It just may be possible that U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security team has already briefed him about the consequences of a major economic meltdown in Russia for the peace of the world. After all, the most recent national intelligence estimates put out by the U.S. intelligence community have already concluded that the Global Economic Crisis represents the greatest national security threat to the United States, due to its facilitating political instability in the world. During the years Boris Yeltsin ruled Russia, security forces responsible for guarding the nation’s nuclear arsenal went without pay for months at a time, leading to fears that desperate personnel would illicitly sell nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations. If the current economic crisis in Russia were to deteriorate much further, how secure would the Russian nuclear arsenal remain? It may be that the financial impact of the Global Economic Crisis is its least dangerous consequence.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

Framework

A. Our interpretation is that the affirmative should have to instrumentally defend the institutional implementation of a topical plan.

B. Violation – the aff doesn’t defend a plan.

C. Best for fairness.

1. Plan focus is the only predictable way of affirming the resolution.  Philosophical and theoretical concerns certainly play into the ways that policies are made, but the resolution only calls for us to defend and/or question political-institutional implementations of these kinds of concerns.

2. Plan focus is the only way to ensure a fair division of ground.  The affirmative has the advantage of trying to solve the most heinous problems of the status quo—without plan focus, debates devolve into whether or not things like racism, sexism, classism, or homophobia are good or bad.  While problems are often less contestable, solutions to these problems are—we can debate about whether or not a particular proposal will fix or worsen these problems and proffer our own solutions.

D. Best for education:

1. Their infatuation to theoretical purity makes political and institutional engagement impossible.  Political engagement is always cast against the theoretical purity of abstract philosophizing.  This also turns their argument because, despite their radical aspirations, critique smuggles metaphysical distinctions between thinking and acting, purity and impurity, and truth and falsity into the judge’s decisionmaking calculus.

Yar 2k (Majid, Ph.D in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University, “Arendt's Heideggerianism: Contours of a `Postmetaphysical' Political Theory?,” Cultural Values, Volume 4, Issue 1, January, Academic Search Complete)

Similarly, we must consider the consequences that this 'ontological substitution' for the essence of the political has for politics, in terms of what is practically excluded by this rethinking. If the presently available menu of political engagements and projects (be they market or social liberalism, social democracy, communitarianism, Marxism, etc.) are only so many moments of the techno-social completion of an underlying metaphysics, then the fear of 'metaphysical contamination' inhibits any return to recognisable political practices and sincere engagement with the political exigencies of the day. This is what Nancy Fraser has called the problem of 'dirty hands', the suspension of engagement with the existing content of political agendas because of their identification as being in thrall to the violence of metaphysics. Unable to engage in politics as it is, one either a sublimates the desire for politics by retreating to an interrogation of the political with respect to its essence (Fraser, 1984, p. 144), or b on this basis, seeks 'to breach the inscription of a wholly other politics'. The former suspends politics indefinitely, while the latter implies a new politics, which, on the basis of its reconceived understanding of the political, apparently excludes much of what recognizably belongs to politics today. This latter difficulty is well known from Arendt's case, whose barring of issues of social and economic justice and welfare from the political domain are well known. To offer two examples: 1 in her commentary on the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1950s, she argued that the politically salient factor which needed challenging was only racial legislation and the formal exclusion of African-Americans from the political sphere, not discrimination, social deprivation and disadvantage, etc.(Arendt, 1959, pp. 45-56); 2 Arendt's pronounceraent at a conference in 1972 (put under question by Albrecht Wellmer regarding her distinction of the 'political' and the 'social'), that housing and homelessness were not political issues, that they were external to the political as the sphere of the actualisation of freedom as disclosure; the political is about human self-disclosure in speech and deed, not about the distribution of goods, which belongs to the social realm as an extension of the oikos.20 The point here is not that Arendt and others are in any sense unconcerned or indifferent about such sufferings, deprivations and inequalities. Rather, it is that such disputes and agendas are identified as belonging to the socio-technical sphere of administration, calculation, instrumentality, the logic of means and ends, subject-object manipulation by a will which turns the world to its purposes, the conceptual rendering of beings in terms of abstract and levelling categories and classes, and so on; they are thereby part and parcel of the metaphysical-technological understanding of Being, which effaces the unique and singular appearance and disclosure of beings, and thereby illegitimate candidates for consideration under the renewed, ontological-existential formulation of the political. To reconceive the political in terms of a departure from its former incarnation as metaphysical politics, means that the revised terms of a properly political discourse cannot accommodate the prosaic yet urgent questions we might typically identify under the rubric of 'policy'. Questions of social and economic justice are made homeless, exiled from the political sphere of disputation and demand in which they were formerly voiced. Indeed, it might be observed that the postmetaphysical formulation of the political is devoid of any content other than the freedom which defines it; it is freedom to appear, to disclose, but not the freedom to do something in particular, in that utilising freedom for achieving some end or other implies a collapse back into will, instrumentality, teleocracy, poeisis, etc. By defining freedom qua disclosedness as the essence of freedom and the sole end of the political, this position skirts dangerously close to advocating politique pour la politique, divesting politics of any other practical and normative ends in the process.21

2. The political is value to life—it is how originally solipsistic lives become incarnate and real to themselves.

Arendt 1958 Hannah, The Human Condition, pp. 196-199

The original, prephilosophic Greek remedy for this frailty had been the foundation of the polis. The polis, as it grew out of and remained rooted in the Greek pre-polis experience and estimate of what makes it worthwhile for men to live together (syzen), namely, the "sharing of words and deeds,"26 had a twofold function. First, it was intended to enable men to do permanently, albeit under certain restrictions, what otherwise had been possible only as an extraordinary and infrequent enterprise for which they had to leave their households. The polis was supposed to multiply the occasions to win "immortal fame," that is, to multiply the chances for everybody to distinguish himself, to show in deed and word who he was in his unique distinctness. One, if not the chief, reason for the incredible development of gift and genius in Athens, as well as for the hardly less surprising swift decline of the city-state, was precisely that from beginning to end its foremost aim was to make the extraordinary an ordinary occurrence of everyday life. The second function of the polls, again closely connected with the hazards of action as experienced before its coming into being, was to offer a remedy for the futility of action and speech; for the chances that a deed deserving fame would not be forgotten, that it actually would become "immortal," were not very good. Homer was not only a shining example of the poet's political function, and therefore the "educator of all Hellas"; the very fact that so great an enterprise as the Trojan War could have been forgotten without a poet to immortalize it several hundred years later offered only too good an example of what could happen to human greatness if it had nothing but poets to rely on for its permanence. We are not concerned here with the historical causes for the rise of the Greek city-state; what the Greeks themselves thought of it and its ralson d'etre, they have made unmistakably clear. The polis-—if we trust the famous words of Pericles in the Funeral Oration—gives a guaranty that those who forced every sea and land to become the scene of their daring will not remain without witness and will need neither Homer nor anyone else who knows how to turn words to praise them; without assistance from others, those who acted will be able to establish together the everlasting remembrance of their good and bad deeds, to inspire admiration in the present and in future ages.27 In other words, men's life together in the form of the polis seemed to assure that the most futile of human activities, action and speech, and the least tangible and most ephemeral of man-made "products," the deeds and stories which are their outcome, would become imperishable. The organization of the polis, physically secured by the wall around the city and physiognomically guaranteed by its laws—lest the succeeding generations change its identity beyond recognition is a kind of organized remembrance. It assures the mortal actor that his passing existence and fleeting greatness will never lack the reality that comes from being seen, being heard, and, generally, appearing before an audience of fellow men, who outside the polis could attend only the short duration of the performance and therefore needed Homer and "others of his craft" in order to be presented to those who were not there. According to this self-interpretation, the political realm rises directly out of acting together, the "sharing of words and deeds." Thus action not only has the most intimate relationship to the public part of the world common to us all, but is the one activity which constitutes it. It is as though the wall of the polis and the boundaries of the law were drawn around an already existing public space which, however, without such stabilizing protection could not endure, could not survive the moment of action and speech itself. Not historically, of course, but speaking metaphorically and theoretically, it is as though the men who returned from the Trojan War had wished to make permanent the space of action which had arisen from their deeds and sufferings, to prevent its perishing with their dispersal and return to their isolated homesteads. The polis, properly speaking, is not the city-state in its physical location; it is the organization of the people as it arises out of acting and speaking together, and its true space lies between people living together for this purpose, no matter where they happen to be. "Wherever you go, you will be a polis": these famous words became not merely the watchword of Greek colonization, they expressed the conviction that action and speech create a space between the participants which can find its proper location almost any time and anywhere. It is the space of appearance in the widest sense of the word, namely, the space where I appear to others as others appear to me, where men exist not merely like other living or inanimate things but make their appearance explicitly. This space does not always exist, and although all men are capable of deed and word, most of them—like the slave, the foreigner, and the barbarian in antiquity, like the laborer or craftsman prior to the modern age, the jobholder or businessman in our world—do not live in it. No man, moreover, can live in it all the time. To be deprived of it means to be deprived of reality, which, humanly and politically speaking, is the same as appearance. To men the reality of the world is guaranteed by the presence of others, by its appearing to all; "for what appears to all, this we call Being,"28 and whatever lacks this appearance comes and passes away like a dream, intimately and exclusively our own but without reality.29

3. No solvency for their critique without institutional focus.  We must try to change policy in order to change the world—the concentration of power in the hands of political elites is inevitable, so we must work within that system to check oppression and violence.

Themba-Nixon 2k Makani, Executive Director of the Praxis Project, Colorlines 3.2, pg. 12

The flourish and passion with which she made the distinction said everything. Policy is for wonks, sell-out politicians, and ivory-tower eggheads. Organizing is what real, grassroots people do. Common as it may be, this distinction doesn't bear out in the real world. Policy is more than law. It is any written agreement (formal or informal) that specifies how an institution, governing body, or community will address shared problems or attain shared goals. It spells out the terms and the consequences of these agreements and is the codification of the body's values-as represented by those present in the policymaking process. Given who's usually present, most policies reflect the political agenda of powerful elites. Yet, policy can be a force for change-especially when we bring our base and community organizing into the process. In essence, policies are the codification of power relationships and resource allocation. Policies are the rules of the world we live in. Changing the world means changing the rules. So, if organizing is about changing the rules and building power, how can organizing be separated from policies? Can we really speak truth to power, fight the right, stop corporate abuses, or win racial justice without contesting the rules and the rulers, the policies and the policymakers? The answer is no-and double no for people of color. Today, racism subtly dominates nearly every aspect of policymaking. From ballot propositions to city funding priorities, policy is increasingly about the control, de-funding, and disfranchisement of communities of color. What Do We Stand For? Take the public conversation about welfare reform, for example. Most of us know it isn't really about putting people to work. The right's message was framed around racial stereotypes of lazy, cheating "welfare queens" whose poverty was "cultural." But the new welfare policy was about moving billions of dollars in individual cash payments and direct services from welfare recipients to other, more powerful, social actors. Many of us were too busy to tune into the welfare policy drama in Washington, only to find it washed up right on our doorsteps. Our members are suffering from workfare policies, new regulations, and cutoffs. Families who were barely getting by under the old rules are being pushed over the edge by the new policies. Policy doesn't get more relevant than this. And so we got involved in policy-as defense. Yet we have to do more than block their punches. We have to start the fight with initiatives of our own. Those who do are finding offense a bit more fun than defense alone. Living wage ordinances, youth development initiatives, even gun control and alcohol and tobacco policies are finding their way onto the public agenda, thanks to focused community organizing that leverages power for community-driven initiatives. - Over 600 local policies have been passed to regulate the tobacco industry. Local coalitions have taken the lead by writing ordinances that address local problems and organizing broad support for them. - Nearly 100 gun control and violence prevention policies have been enacted since 1991. - Milwaukee, Boston, and Oakland are among the cities that have passed living wage ordinances: local laws that guarantee higher than minimum wages for workers, usually set as the minimum needed to keep a family of four above poverty. These are just a few of the examples that demonstrate how organizing for local policy advocacy has made inroads in areas where positive national policy had been stalled by conservatives. Increasingly, the local policy arena is where the action is and where activists are finding success. Of course, corporate interests-which are usually the target of these policies-are gearing up in defense. Tactics include front groups, economic pressure, stand for takes place in the shaping of demands. By getting into the policy arena in a proactive manner, we can take our demands to the next level. Our demands can become law, with real consequences if the agreement is broken. After all the organizing, press work, and effort, a group should leave a decisionmaker with more than a handshake and his or her word. Of course, this work requires a certain amount of interaction with "the suits," as well as struggles with the bureaucracy, the technical language, and the all-too-common resistance by decisionmakers. Still, if it's worth demanding, it's worth having in writing-whether as law, regulation, or internal policy. From ballot initiatives on rent control to laws requiring worker protections, organizers are leveraging their power into written policies that are making a real difference in their communities. Of course, policy work is just one tool in our organizing arsenal, but it is a tool we simply can't afford to ignore. Making policy work an integral part of organizing will require a certain amount of retrofitting. We will need to develop the capacity to translate our information, data, and experience into stories that are designed to affect the public conversation. Perhaps most important, we will need to move beyond fighting problems and on to framing solutions that bring us closer to our vision of how things should be. And then we must be committed to making it so.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

The aff only describes one facet of race but claims that it is a universal approach – this renders anyone outside of Black/White invisible

Perea 97 Professor of Law, University of Florida College of Law, Juan, RACE, ETHNICITY and NATIONHOOD: ARTICLE: The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race: The "Normal Science" of American Racial Thought, California Law Review, October, 1997, 85 Calif. L. Rev. 1213, p. 1254

My objection to the state of most current scholarship on race is simply that most of this scholarship claims universality of treatment while actually describing only part of its subject, the relationship between Blacks and Whites. Race in the United States means more than just Black and White. It also refers to Latino/a, Asian, Native American, and other racialized groups. Accordingly, books titled "Race in America" or "White Racism" that only discuss Blackness and Whiteness claim a universality of scope that they do not deliver. These books offer a paradigmatic rendering of their subject that excludes important portions of civil rights history. Authors of such books need to be aware that they promulgate a binary paradigm of race that operates to silence and render invisible Latinos/as, Asian Americans and Native Americans. Accordingly, they reproduce a serious harm.

Turns the aff – we can never solve white racism

Perea 10 Cone, Wagner, Nugent, Johnson, Hazouri and Roth Professor of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law, Juan, AN ESSAY ON THE ICONIC STATUS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND ITS UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES, Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law, Vol. 18:1, Fall, p. 57-58, http://scs.student.virginia.edu/vjspl/18.2/Perea.pdf

Lastly, recognizing a fuller scope of civil rights struggles is important in helping us understand the full measure of unremedied past injustice. If we take no account of denials of civil rights to Mexican Americans, American Indians, and Native Hawaiians, among other groups, then we underestimate dramatically the scope of white racism. Every struggle against racism and oppression deserves recognition. The iconic status of the African-American Civil Rights Movement is a testament to the power of righteous struggle. While it certainly deserves its hallowed place in our history and our hearts, we should be careful that its long shadow not obscure the importance of other righteous struggles. If we care about justice, we should always be attuned to struggles for greater justice, whether or not they resemble the African-American struggle for civil rights. As inspiring as the African-American struggle has been, we may find additional inspiration, and more possibilities for justice, if we cast our gaze beyond the African-American Civil Rights Movement, gazing further back, further forward, and to the side.

Thus the alternative: reject the aff’s Black/White binary of race.

This is crucial to build democratic alliances that challenge all oppression.

West 93 ultimate badass, Cornel, Race Matters, p. 103-104

If we are to build on the best of Malcolm X, we must preserve and expand his notion of psychic conversion that cements networks and groups in which black community, humanity, love, care, and concern can take root and grow (the work of bell hooks is the best example). These spaces -- beyond the best of black music and black religion -- reject Manichean ideologies and authoritarian arrangements in the name of moral visions, subtle analyses of wealth and power, and concrete strategies of principled coalitions and democratic alliances. These visions, analyses, and strategies never lose sight of black rage, yet they focus this rage where it belongs: on any form of racism, sexism, homophobia, or economic injustice that impedes the opportunities of "everyday people" (to use the memorable phrase of Sly and the Family Stone and Arrested Development) to live lives of dignity and decency. For example, poverty can be as much a target of rage as degraded identity. Furthermore, the cultural hybrid character of black life leads us to highlight a metaphor alien to Malcolm X's perspective -- yet consonant with his performances to audiences -- namely, the metaphor of jazz. I use the term "jazz" here not so much as a term for a musical art form, as for a mode of being in the world, an improvisational mode of protean, fluid, and flexible dispositions toward reality suspicious of "either/or" viewpoints, dogmatic pronouncements, or supremacist ideologies. To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world-weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group -- a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project. This kind of critical and democratic sensibility flies in the face of any policing of borders and boundaries of "blackness," "maleness," "femaleness," or "whiteness." Black people's rage ought to target white supremacy, but also ought to realize that blackness per se can encompass feminists like Frederick Douglass or W. E. B. Du Bois. Black people's rage should not overlook homophobia, yet also should acknowledge that heterosexuality per se can be associated with so-called "straight" anti-homophobes -- just as the struggle against black poverty can be supported by progressive elements of any race, gender, or sexual orientation. Malcolm X was the first great black spokesperson who looked ferocious white racism in the eye, didn't blink, and lived long enough to tell America the truth about this glaring hypocrisy in a bold and defiant manner. Unlike Elijah Muhammad and Martin Luther King, Jr., he did not live long enough to forge his own distinctive ideas and ways of channeling black rage in constructive channels to change American society. Only if we are as willing as Malcolm X to grow and confront the new challenges posed by the black rage of our day will we take the black freedom struggle to a new and higher level. The future of this country may well depend on it.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

Wind turbines cause sickness

WindWise Fairhaven 2012 blog about wind power, “Fairhaven Planning: A Contradiction in Terms”, December 26 2012

There is a ... adverse health effects.

There are no studies denying adverse health effects from wind turbines

WindWise Fairhaven 2012 blog about wind power, “Dr Sarah Laurie Responds to Professor Simon Chapman”, December 29 2012

Your recent wind turbine opinion ... there are no such studies.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

Wind power increases emissions – volatility reduces efficiency of conventional plants

Hawkins 10 (Kent, holds electrical engineering degrees from Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University, “Subsidizing CO2 Emissions via Windpower: The Ultimate Irony”, http:~/~/www.masterresource.org/2010/06/subsidizing-co2-emissions/http://www.masterresource.org/2010/06/subsidizing-co2-emissions/, Acc: 8/1/12, og)

 The two studies ... were ¶ not impacted.

Back up plants are worse – wind investment trades off with building cleaner fossil fuel plants

Page 8 (Lewis, National Wind Watch, July 3, http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/07/03/research-wind-power-pricier-emits-more-co2-than-thought/)

 Oswald is an expert ... appear to be mentioned

Wind energy increases warming – turbine motions

Gray 12 (Louise Gray, April 29, 2012, “Wind farms can cause climate change, finds new study,” The Guardian, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9234715/Wind-farms-can-cause-climate-change-finds-new-study.html)

 Usually at night the air ... of operational wind turbines with time,” said Prof Zhou.

Too late to solve - CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.

Hillman, Senior Fellow at the Policy Studies Institute, ‘7

Mayer, The Suicidal Planet: How To Prevent Global Climate Catastrophe, p. 25-6

The effects of climate change ... warming will occur.

3 periods of rapid warming show no extinctions- models are flawed guesswork

NIPCC 11 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “2011 Interim Report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change,” http://nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html)

 The first period they examined ... more than guesswork (see also Chapman, 2010).

Wind power fails – unreliable in providing electricity to the grid in peak hours, which means coal, natural gas and nuclear plants can’t be replaced

Institute for Energy Research 12 (August 13^th, a not-for-profit organization that conducts intensive research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets, California’s Flex Alert: A Case Study in Intermittent Energy, http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/48788)

 California has long been a leader ... be built to meet peak electricity demand.

Wind can’t solve – unreliability

Morriss et al 9 (ANDREW P. MORRISS, H. Ross and Helen Workman Professor of Law and Professor of Business, University of Illinois; WILLIAM T. BOGART, Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Economics, York College of Pennsylvania; ANDREW DORCHAK, Head of Reference and Foreign/International Law Specialist, Case Western Reserve University School of Law; ROGER E. MEINERS, John and Judy Goolsby Distinguished Professor of Economics and Law, University of Texas-Arlington; UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW AND ECONOMICS RESEARCH PAPER SERIES NO. LE09-001, “GREEN JOBS MYTHS”, March 12^th, www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/morriss-green-jobs-myths.pdf)

 Wind’s contribution to energy ... round-the-clock availability.

Wind power is hopeless – zero real-time capacity values and depends on conventional fuels

Boone 10 (Jon, PhD, Environmentalist, and Formal Intervenor in Wind Installation Hearings, “OVERBLOWN: Windpower on the Firing Line (Part I)”, http:~/~/www.masterresource.org/2010/09/org/2010/09/windpower-overblown-part-1, Acc: 8/1/12, og)

 Unreliable wind volatility is the ... a conventional generator.