Tournament: UMKC  | Round: 2 | Opponent: ASU  | Judge: smr
T- Subsets
1NCQuid Pro Quo 

A. Incentives must be QPQ 

1. There must be a change in behavior
   De LaHunt, 6 - Assistant Director for Environmental Health & Safety Services in Colorado College's Facilities Services department (John, “Perverse and unintended” Journal of Chemical Health and Safety, July-August, Science direct)

Incentives work on a quid pro quo basis – this for that. If you change your behavior, I’ll give you a reward. One could say that coercion is an incentive program – do as I say and I’ll let you live. However, I define an incentive as getting something you didn’t have before in exchange for new behavior, so that pretty much puts coercion in its own box, one separate from incentives. But fundamental problems plague the incentive approach. Like coercion, incentives are poor motivators in the long run, for at least two reasons – unintended consequences and perverse incentives.
2. It’s a sequencing question—the change has to happen first
ENGLE & DOWLING 05
Allen, Univ of Eastern Kentucky,  Peter, Univ of Canberra¶  http://people.eku.edu/englea/GlobalrewardsWEBLJUB.pdf.

Incentives are defined as promises made in exchange for performance; ¶ rewarded after the performance occurs (Mahoney, 1979; 1989; Maxwell, 2000: 245-¶ 247). The sequence is as follows: promise – performance – rewards. Rewards are ¶ defined as the consequence of performance. Here the sequence is performance¶ followed by rewards.

B. Violations there are 2
i. Gives money and does not designate what they get in return
ii. The giving of the incentive happens BEFORE the
C. RTP
i. Solves effects—allows the plan in a vacuum test to determine if the incentive is direct and if there is a condition on the receipt of a reward  
ii. Limits: Their interpretation would explode the topic because it would allow any action that would spur investment to be topical.  This means that they could in theory remove an current incentive to on a non-topic sector and argue that they are an incentive.  In essence they could remove a subsidy for ethanol and argue Ethanol bad and that fewer subsidies for ethanol would spur oil production.  It would functionally make the topic bi-directional and would moot the importance of the topic sectors.  Err on the side of caution.
D. T is a voter for education and competitive equity
 

Observation 1 Text: 

The United States Congress should require the executive branch to condition the implementation of a twenty-percent investment tax credit for the deployment of domestic nuclear fuel recycling on all relevant parties entering into a binding process of negotiated rulemaking for no more than a year. 

Observation 2: Solvency and Net Benefit:
Lack of Certainty of the plan ensures a “space” of flexibility which ensures polices that create incentives are key to innovation and alternative energy
John A. Alic, Consultant, David C. Mowery, Prof @ Berkely and Edward S. Rubin, Prof@ CMU
 “U.S. technology and innovation policies: Lessons for Climate Change”, November 2003, http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/US%20Technology%20&%20Innovation%20Policies%20(pdf).pdf, BB
Technology policies alone cannot adequately respond to global climate change. They must be complemented by regulatory and/or energy pricing policies that create incentives for innovation and adoption of improved or alternative technologies. Such “non-technology policies” induce technological change, with powerful and pervasive effects. Environmental regulations and energy efficiency standards have fostered innovations that altered the design of many U.S. power plants and all passenger cars over the past several decades. The technological response to climate change will depend critically on environmental and energy policies as well as technology policies. Because climate change is an issue with time horizons of decades to centuries, learning-by-doing and learning-by-using have special salience. Both technology policies and regulatory policies should leave “space” for continuing technological improvements based on future learning. Climate change policy must accommodate uncertainties, not only regarding the course and impacts of climate change itself, but also in the outcomes of innovation.

Counterplan solves the affirmative, current attempts to increase energy production are doomed to failure because they don’t take into account industry and labor opposition—wich will spin the aff as an environmental policy and gut it
Teague and Navin in 7
Peter Teague and Jeff Navin, Director of the Environment Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation and former environmental advisor to Senator Barbara Boxer, Managing Director of American Environics Strategies and former Research Director for Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, June 26, 2007, “Global Warming in an Age of Energy Anxiety”, The American Prospect, http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=global_warming_in_an_age_of_energy_anxiety, BB
With a regulatory-only approach, we will end with a debate between environmentalists arguing about the cost of global warming, and industry economists telling Americans how much more they'll pay for everything from electricity to gasoline to consumer products. And they'll argue that these higher prices will result in job losses.  Policy makers are aware of this challenge and have added provisions to their regulatory bills that are aimed at easing voters' fears. There are proposals for tax rebates and offsets and even the creation of a "Climate Change Credit Corporation" to help voters with the anticipated increase in consumer energy costs. The trouble is that the bills either provide tiny amounts to authorize studies of the problem, or they remain silent about how much help voters can expect. It's important to remember that the proponents of Prop. 87 made a well-supported case that the initiative wouldn't raise energy costs at all. Its defeat demonstrates that it's going to take more than good intentions about global warming and vaguely-worded proposals to convince voters.   The Debate to Come  A recent NPR segment noted that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report on environmentalists' preferred regulatory approach that says "low-income Americans and coal miners might suffer the most if the government adopts a so called cap and trade program to reduce emissions of green house gasses." The NPR report said, "Consumers will bear the cost of this kind of program. They would face higher prices for electricity, gasoline and other products. Since low-income Americans spend a higher portion of their incomes on such costs, they'll be hit the hardest."  Keep in mind that this was NPR  not Fox News.  The "right-wing populist vs. liberal elite" frame is dropping into place with the help of those calling for the deepest cuts in carbon. The deep-cut mantra, repeated without any real understanding of what might be required to get to 60 or 80 percent reductions in emissions, ignores voters' anxieties. It also reflects the questionable view that these changes can be achieved with little more than trivial disruptions in our lives  a view easier to hold if you're in a financial position to buy carbon credits for your beachfront house.  Labor has indicated a willingness to support action on climate change, but it won't support deep cuts if working people are the most affected. This will leave environmentalists up against the well-financed business lobby. Good luck holding onto moderate Democrats, let alone Republicans  even those who are beginning to understand the need for action on global warming.  History teaches us that regulatory proposals that fail politically often lead to legislative paralysis. In 1993, the public was adamant that action be taken to address health care, and it seemed inevitable that some sort of reform would soon be signed into law. In 1994, the Clinton health care reform proposal failed before coming to a vote. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 to reject the United Nations Kyoto framework before it was even fully developed. Voters are still waiting for action on health care and global warming. 

Avoids political backlash
Harter 82
Philip, A.B. Kenyon College (1964); M.A. (Mathematics) Michigan (1966); J.D. Michigan (1969), 71 Geo. L.J. 1
The report of the consensus also should be furnished to Congress and to the White House to enable them to communicate any substantial concerns to the agency. Providing such notification to the political forces and permitting their concerns to be taken into account will help insulate the agency from political attack. In addition, this procedure would be a political prod to the agency because it would need a good reason to reject the consensus of competing forces. If the agency rejects the consensus without good reason it might appear that the agency is changing the results of the negotiations capriciously.
 
Politics
Obama will win – majority of polling techniques – but it’s close

American Political Science Association 9/19/12 [8 Of 13 Election Forecasts Predict Obama Wins 2012 Popular Vote;

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/  Several forecast models developed by prominent political scientists predict President Obama will win the popular vote in the 2012 US presidential election, with 8 of 13 polls giving Barack Obama the edge over Mitt Romney. Nevertheless, it will be extremely close with the average of all forecast models predicting Obama will receive 50.2% of the two-party popular vote. For comparison, in 2008, Obama received 53.7% of the two-party popular vote. Five of the 13 models predict a modest to close popular-vote plurality for Barack Obama, though three of these are on the cusp of predicting a tossup; five predict a modest to close popular vote victory for Mitt Romney; and three regard the election as a tossup. The forecasts range from predicting a 53.8% vote for Obama to a 53.1% vote for Romney.¶ All of the predictions appear in an election-themed symposium in the October issue of PS: Political Science and Politics, a journal of the American Political Science Association (APSA). The forecasts are based on different combinations of statistical and historical data and differ in their complexity and how far in advance their predictions were made. The earliest forecast was made 299 days in advance while the latest was made 57 days before the election. Together, these forecasts use a range of approaches and indicators that are critical to understanding national electoral processes and the dynamics at work in US presidential elections.

Most want to shift away from nuclear power – especially independents
Epstein 12 (Bob, 4/30, entrepreneur and PhD in engineering, Energy Policy and The Presidential Elections - and What It Might Mean For The Next Congress, http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Energy-Policy-and-The-Presidential-Elections.pdf)
According to the Civil Society Institute¶ , more than three out of four Americans (76 percent) - including 58 ¶ percent of Republicans, 83 percent of Independents, and ¶ 88 percent of Democrats  think that the United States ¶ should move to a sustainable energy future through "a ¶ reduction in our reliance on nuclear power, natural gas ¶ and coal, and instead, launch a national initiative to ¶ boost renewable energy and energy efficiency." These ¶ numbers come from a national survey¶ conducted on ¶ March 22-25.
Independent voters are empirically the key internal link
Killian 12 (Linda, a Washington journalist and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2/2, 4 Types of Independent Voters Who Could Swing the 2012 Elections, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/02/4-types-of-independent-voters-who-could-swing-the-2012-elections/252363/) 

Even as independent candidates continue to struggle, across the country the ranks of independent voters who think the parties care more about winning elections than about solving the nation's problems are swelling. Their number, along with their disaffection with the two-party political system, is growing exponentially. About 40 percent of all American voters now call themselves independents, a bigger group than those who say they are either Democrats or Republicans  and the largest number of independent voters in 70 years. In some states, independents now are a majority of the voters.¶ Every election since World War II has been determined by voters in the middle. They elected Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The margin by which Obama carried the independent vote in crucial swing states around the country was one of the significant factors in his victory and will undoubtedly be critical to whether or not he is reelected.¶ The Republican victories in the 2010 midterm election were also decided by these voters. Independents supported Democrats by 18 points in 2006. But driven by their concern about the nation's economy and strong opposition to Democratic spending and health-care initiatives, they supported Republican congressional candidates in 2010 by the overwhelming margin of 56 to 38 percent, a 36-point swing from 2006.¶ But despite their critical role in general election outcomes, the independent voters have little to say about whom the parties select to run for office. In half the states in the country the primary process is closed to them. An electoral system that all Americans pay for with their tax dollars is run solely by and for the two major political parties. Which means the American electoral system is not fully democratic.¶ After the primaries are over, politicians need the independent voters to win and woo them with attention in November. But once they have their victory or  to use the vernacular  get what they want, independent voters are forgotten as quickly as a one-night stand. Democratic and Republican office holders are beholden to their base supporters, the special interests who donate time and money to them and the parties that control both candidate selection and the agenda.

Obama win key to US-Russia relations – Romney’s agenda is belligerent and controversial.
Reichardt 7/9. (Adam is the Managing Editor of New Eastern Europe, “Considering Russia in the Voting Booth,” New Eastern Europe, 2012, http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/node/382)
Obama’s policy towards Russia is easier to gauge, since there has already been four years of his administration to judge. As Ross Wilson noted, “President Obama has a four-year record with Russia to defend – i.e., the reset policy and the benefits that the administration will argue have accrued from its more pragmatic and less confrontational approach to relations with Moscow.” President Obama’s policy of reset was indeed a glimmer of hope for US-Russian relations at the start of 2009, but that glimmer has all but faded. The case of Syria and Iran are clear examples of the real challenges America still faces when engaging with Russia on global issues and the Obama campaign will most likely avoid referring to the “reset” by name. “Though the Administration will not use the expression ‘reset’ too much, it can be expected to continue to emphasize pragmatism and to implement that line if the president is re-elected,” Wilson believes. Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney, has been less clear about his position on relations with Russia, but what is revealed in recent statements and on his website shows a more controversial approach. Most telling were the comments Romney made in June 2012. On Russia, Romney has stated: "The nation which consistently opposes our actions at the United Nations has been Russia. We're of course not enemies. We're not fighting each other. There's no Cold War, but Russia is a geopolitical foe in that regard." The Romney campaign’s web site reveals several areas of focus for Russia, none of them discuss active engagement, but rather focus on taking tougher stances with Russia, including renegotiating the New Start Treaty, decreasing Europe’s energy reliance on Russia, building stronger relations with Central Asia, as well as supporting Russia’s civil society. Surprisingly, the last one, engaging Russia’s civil society, could be the most controversial. The Romney campaign web site provides a strongly worded statement that “A Romney administration will be forthright in confronting the Russian government over its authoritarian practices.” Indeed, America needs a strong leader to stand up for its position in the world, however confronting Russia on internal issues may not only offend most Russians, even in the opposition – it could hurt the entire goal of this platform. Having the American government play an active role in the changes happening inside Russia could be detrimental to US-Russian relations. Many Russians believe that changes within their own country should be driven from the Russian society. Any outside interference would hurt the legitimacy of the Russian opposition and cause the Russian elite to become even more suspicious, and perhaps even hostile, to the intentions of American foreign policy.
U.S.-Russian war causes extinction – most probable
Bostrom ‘2 [Nick Bostrom, professor of philosophy - Oxford University, March, 2002, Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards, Journal of Evolution and Technology, p. http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html]
A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear war was a possibility with both a substantial probability and with consequences that might have been persistent enough to qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization.[4]  Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would not destroy or thwart humankind’s potential permanently. Such a war might however be a local terminal risk for the cities most likely to be targeted. Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are mere preludes to the existential risks that we will encounter in the 21st century.

1NC-Solvency
Cooling system will fail
BAS, 1
Arjun Makhijani June 2001 (response to “The integral fast reactor could do it” by Stanford, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June, npc.sarov.ru/english/digest/32001/appendix8.html AC)

Despite five decades of development and more than $20 billion spent worldwide, sodium-cooled reactors have not been technically mastered, much less commercialized. The operating record of these reactors is very uneven, with major problems afflicting even the newest. France's Superphenix, the world's largest sodium-cooled reactor, was permanently closed in 1998 after 14 years of sporadic operation. Monju in Japan, the newest reactor, had a sodium fire only 20 months after it was commissioned in 1994. It remains closed.¶ As for IFRs, the 1996 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study cited by Stanford concluded that there were several safety issues that remain to be resolved and that using advanced sodium-cooled reactors for transmutation "would require substantial development, testing, and large-scale demonstration under Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety review and licensing before one could proceed with confidence."¶
Core would explode and spew radiation all over the globe
Smith, 6
Aileen Mioko Smith Spring 2006-( Life on earth is imperiled by human degradation of the biosphere. Earth Island Institute develops and supports projects that counteract threats to the biological and cultural diversity that sustain the environment. Through education and activism, these projects promote the conservation, preservation, and restoration of the Earth.)- “Nuculear Mayhem at Monju” Earth Island Journal Vol, 11 No. 2
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=395&journalID=59-nm
A sodium leak and fire on the night of December 8, 1995, at Japan's prototype fast-breeder reactor came as no surprise to Japanese citizens who had been campaigning to prevent the $5.9 billion Monju reactor from operating. Every prototype breeder reactor in the UK, Russia, France and Germany has been plagued one way or another with sodium leaks and/or fires. It was bound to happen at Monju.¶ Fast-breeder reactors generate both electricity and plutonium: using "fast neutrons," they actually produce (or "breed") more plutonium than they consume. While water is used to cool conventional uranium-fueled reactors, plutonium-fueled fast-breeders must be cooled with sodium.¶ Monju's primary and secondary cooling systems are designed to carry 220 tons of the reactor's total 1700 tons of sodium. Sodium reacts violently with air and water  the two most abundant substances on Earth  and is extremely corrosive. Fast breeders pump hundreds of tons of liquid sodium through pipes immersed in water shielding the reactor core. These pipes are less than four millimeters thick.¶ If an accident occurs in a uranium-fueled reactor, the nuclear core can suffer a melt-down; a plutonium-fueled reactor will explode. What activists fear most is that Monju will erupt, spewing tons of deadly plutonium into the environment. 

Nuclear reactor explosion causes extinction
Hyder 98 – Ph.D. in astrogeophysics
Hyder 98 (Human Extinction on this Chernobyl-Contaminated  Planet by  Charles L. Hyder http://members.fortunecity.com/osservatorio/charleshyderbook2.html Dr. Charles L. Hyder, author of Human Survival on a Plutonium-Contaminated Planet, Charles Hyder received B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from the University of New Mexico (1958,1960), and a Ph.D. in Astrogeo- physics from the University of Colorado (1964). He published more than twenty solar and comet papers. He worked for NASA, 

 Mammals and some of the most sensitive flowering plants (lily), insects, mollusks, top Bony Fish and top Reptiles. Only amphibian species would manifest increased mutations, cancers, morbidities, mortalities and extinctions beyond 10,000 km. downwind (North America, Western Europe and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere) during 1986-87. Overall, it is clear that unprecedented, enormous quantities of radioactivity were deposited throughout Europe, and the genetic effects will be harming the millions of contaminated people for the next 100 years.   It takes about two years for atmospheric radioactivity to cross the equatorial barrier into the southern hemisphere, so in 1988 the amphibian decimations due to Chernobyl's huge radioactive releases became truly global. It will be 100 years plus before the global Cs-137 and Sr-90 radioactive contaminations return to pre-Chernobyl levels, PROVIDED no more Chernobyls recontaminate the Earth in the meantime.   Chernobyl's Cs-137 and Kr-85 releases threaten Human Survival on a global scale; one or two more Chernobyls before 2015 AD would remove all doubt about Human Extinction on a global scale.

Nuclear power is decisively on the decline—Fukushima, economics, and delays
Brown 12 (Lester, president of Earth Policy Institute, 5/22/12, “Fukushima Meltdown Hastens Decline of Nuclear Power” Earth Policy Institute) http://www.treehugger.com/energy-disasters/fukushima-meltdown-hastens-decline-nuclear-power.html

On May 5, 2012, Japan shut down its Tomari 3 nuclear reactor on the northern island of Hokkaido for inspection, marking the first time in over 40 years that the country had not a single nuclear power plant generating electricity. The March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown shattered public confidence in atomic energy, thus far making it politically impossible to restart any of the reactors taken offline. And the disaster’s legacy has spread far beyond Japan. Some European countries have decided to phase out their nuclear programs entirely. In other countries, nuclear plans are proceeding with caution. But with the world’s fleet of reactors aging, and with new plants suffering construction delays and cost increases, it is possible that world nuclear electricity generation has peaked and begun a long-term decline. Prior to the Fukushima crisis, Japan had 54 reactors providing close to 30 percent of its electricity, with plans to increase this share to more than 50 percent by 2030. But nuclear power dropped to just 18 percent of Japan’s electricity over the course of 2011. When the quake and tsunami hit, 16 reactors had already been temporarily shut down for inspections or maintenance; another 13 underwent emergency shutoffs, including the four Fukushima Daiichi reactors now permanently shut down. Others were subsequently closed due to earthquake vulnerability or for regular inspection. Now that Tomari 3 is offline, all 44,200 megawatts of Japan’s nuclear capacity that are listed as “operational” by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are in fact idle with no set date for restart. Next to Japan, the most dramatic shift in nuclear energy policy following Fukushima occurred in Germany. Within days of the disaster, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany’s seven oldest reactors, all built before 1980, would shut down immediately. And in May 2011, the government declared that Germany would phase out nuclear entirely by 2022. Nuclear power generated 18 percent of the country’s electricity in 2011, down from 24 percent in recent years and well below the peak in 1997 of 31 percent. Just before Germany’s phaseout decision, Switzerland abandoned plans for three new reactors that were going through the approval process. The government also announced that all five of the country’s reactors—which for years had provided some 40 percent of its electricity—will close permanently as their operating licenses expire over the next 22 years. Italy, which had discontinued its nuclear program after the infamous 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, had in 2010 decided to restart it. But in a June 2011 referendum, more than 90 percent of Italian voters chose to ban nuclear power. Later in 2011, Belgium announced plans to phase out the seven reactors that provide more than half of the country’s electricity. Even in France, with a world-leading 77 percent of its electricity coming from nuclear power, newly elected President François Hollande has said he intends to reduce this share to roughly 50 percent by 2025. According to IAEA data, 13 reactors with a combined 11,400 megawatts were permanently shut down in Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 2011. Seven new reactors totaling 4,000 megawatts were connected to the grid—three in China and one each in India, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia—with less than 1,000 megawatts added through increasing, or “uprating,” existing nuclear plant capacities. As of May 2012, after two new reactor connections in South Korea and two permanent U.K. shutdowns, the world’s 435 operational nuclear reactors total 370,000 megawatts of capacity. Actual nuclear electricity generation in 2011 fell to 2,520 terawatt-hours, 5 percent below the 2006 peak. The growth in nuclear generating capacity had slowed to a crawl well before the Fukushima disaster. From 1970 to 1986, cumulative capacity grew at a brisk 19 percent annual rate. Even after Chernobyl, nuclear power capacity grew at 4 percent a year until 1990. But since then the annual growth rate has been just 0.7 percent. (See data.) In contrast to the backlash in places like Japan and Germany, a number of countries reaffirmed their commitment to nuclear power, while indicating that safety would be a priority. This includes the three countries building the most new reactors: China (with 26 reactors under construction), Russia (11), and India (7). Immediately after the Fukushima incident, China suspended its reactor approval process to review the safety of existing plants, but the government has since indicated that the 26,600 megawatts under construction will move forward. Russia still intends to double its nuclear generating capacity by 2020, and India plans to increase its capacity 14-fold to 63,000 megawatts by 2032. Of the 62 reactors the IAEA lists as under construction, only 15 have a projected date for connecting to the grid. (Not one of China’s 26 units under construction does.) Some of these reactors have been listed this way for more than 20 years. A prime example is the only U.S. reactor under construction, the Watts Bar 2 unit in Tennessee, which started construction in 1972. In April 2012, the startup date was moved from August 2012 to sometime in 2015, as the estimated cost rose 68 percent. The United States, home to roughly one quarter of the world’s nuclear generating capacity, gets 19 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. The last new U.S. reactor to connect to the grid was Watts Bar 1 in 1996. In early 2012, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved construction permits for four 1,100-megawatt reactors at two existing nuclear plants in the southeastern states of Georgia and South Carolina, the first permits for new plants since 1978. In that region, utilities are allowed to increase their customers’ rates to defray the cost of nuclear plants even before construction begins. Despite this advantage, the four permitted reactors may well see the kind of delays and cost escalation that have become typical for the industry. For example, in May 2012, Progress Energy announced that grid connection for the first unit of its planned two-reactor project in Florida would be pushed back three years to 2024. With this delay, the estimated total cost jumped from $17 billion to as high as $24 billion. Indeed, unlike other energy technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels, where increasing deployment generally leads to economies of scale and falling costs, nuclear power has seen the opposite trend. Even the most recently completed plant in France cost more than three times as much to build and took twice as long to finish as the first plant did. Nuclear costs would be even more prohibitive if the damages for which nuclear utilities were liable in case of a meltdown were in line with realistic estimates of potential harm. In the United States, nuclear plant operators pay into a $12-billion fund that would be used in case of an accident. But an estimate from Sandia National Laboratory indicates that a worst-case incident could cost more than $700 billion. The poor economic case for nuclear power helps explain why most new nuclear construction is happening in countries with government-controlled electricity markets: private investors are leery of the risks. New nuclear capacity additions over the long term are unlikely to make up for shutdowns as the world’s reactors, already averaging 27 years in operation, age further. Nearly 180 reactors have reached age 30 or higher. The 140 reactors already permanently shut down averaged 23 years of service at the time of closure. While some reactors have been granted lifetime extensions beyond the typical 40 years—many U.S. units have, for example—these may not be as readily approved after the demise of the four Fukushima reactors, which averaged 37 years old when disaster struck. Whether or not nuclear generation has truly peaked will depend on a number of factors, including how many Japanese reactors resume operation, how many licenses are extended for aging reactors worldwide, and the pace and magnitude of uprating existing units. But regardless of whether the peak has already come or will do so soon, poor economics and sluggish new construction indicate that nuclear power is on a decline path. Rather than replacing this energy source with fossil fuels, thus boosting carbon emissions and encouraging runaway climate change, the world can use this opportunity to pursue a much safer electricity sector powered largely by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. We know that the potential is there: leading carbon-emitting countries—including China, the United States, India, Russia, and Japan—could meet their electricity needs with wind alone.
Shortage of nuclear engineers prevents expansion
Reuters 10 (12/19/10, “Nuclear industry in midst of skills crisis” Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Lexis) 

There's a hole in the nuclear workforce, not just in Finland but across the Western world. For the moment, the operator of the Olkiluoto 3 plant, power utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO), is getting by with its most experienced staff. As those workers retire, though, the skills shortage could become a crisis. "The nuclear industry has been in the desert for years and years and the question is how to revamp it and how to revamp human resources," said Colette Lewiner from Cap Gemini, a consultancy firm which raised concerns about the aging nuclear workforce in a report in 2008 and has warned "there will be no nuclear power renaissance" without efforts to tackle the problem. "The industry needs to ramp up and it needs to do it quickly." 

Bottlenecks prevent industry expansion
Johnson 11 (Toni, reporter for the Congressional Quarterly, 3/18/11, “Nuclear Power Expansion Challenges” Council on Foreign Relations) http://www.cfr.org/united-states/nuclear-power-expansion-challenges/p16886#p2

Construction Bottlenecks. Another obstacle for getting new nuclear construction under way is the capacity to make ultra-large forging. Pressure vesselsat the core of a nuclear reactorcan be made in several pieces. However, most utilities now want vessels forged in a single piece. Welds can become brittle and leak radiation (older reactors slated for U.S. license extensions have their welds rigorously checked before approval). No welds can decrease the time a reactor is shut down for safety inspections, saving the reactor money. Only one company in the world, Japan Steel Works, currently can forge reactor vessels this way (Bloomberg). The company can only do about five a year, though it hopes to expand to twelve per year by 2012. The company's current order backlog is about three years. This requires utilities to place orders well in advance of construction, plunking down about $100 million just to get in the queue. Utilities are also considering using smaller forgings. Also on the table are more experimental reactors such as pebble-bed modular reactors, which do not require a pressure vessel. 

Expansion is slow—reactors take 10 years to build
Madsen et al 09 (Travis Madsen and Tony Dutzik, analysts for Frontier Group, Bernadette Del Chiaro and Rob Sargent Environment America Research & Policy Center, November 2009, “GENERATING FAILURE How Building Nuclear Power Plants Would Set America Back in the Race Against Global Warming” Frontier Group, Environment America) http://www.frontiergroup.org/sites/default/files/reports/Generating-Failure---Environment-America---Web.pdf

At Best, No New Reactors Could Be Completed Until 2016 No new reactors are now under construction in the United States. The nuclear industry will not complete the first new reactor until 2016, optimistically assuming construction will take four years after regulatory approval. From application development to operation, the nuclear industry expects that a new nuclear reactor would take 10 years to build. 71 ƒ Construction cannot begin on any new reactors until the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approves a reactor design and issues a license. This is not likely to happen before 2011 or 2012. ƒ To date, reactor manufacturers have submitted plans for three new types of nuclear reactor designs for certification. The NRC expects official hearings around the suitability of these designs to begin in 2010 or 2011, with decisions arriving later. 72 One type of reactor is already certified through 2012, but then must be re-certified. 73 ƒ Power companies have submitted applications to build and operate 26 new reactors, with as many as eight more expected. 74 As of October 2009, the NRC is actively reviewing applications for 22 of these reactors. 75 The nuclear industry expects this process to take up to four years for the first reactors, followed by public hearings and a rulemaking. 76 Later reactors may take two to three years. 77 The nuclear industry estimates that construction work on a new reactor could be completed in four years. 78 If the NRC begins to issue licenses in 2012, that would imply that as many as three new reactors could be online by 2016, with two more by 2018. 79 However, this schedule could very well be too optimistic. 

New court decision makes licensing impossible
Bell 12 (Larry, endowed professor at the University of Houston, founder and director of the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture, 6/17/12, “Radioactive Power Politics: New Court Decision Lays Waste To U.S. Nuclear Power Development” Forbes) http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/06/17/radioactive-power-politics-new-court-decision-lays-waste-to-u-s-nuclear-power-development/2/

On June 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, unanimously ruled that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) cannot license or re-license any nuclear plant until it examines environmental dangers and consequences of long-term on-site spent fuel waste storage. That decision will have profound impacts upon nuclear development throughout the nation. Petitioners that successfully sought the ruling include four states (Connecticut, New Jersey New York, and Vermont), an Indian community, and a number of environmental groups. The big story behind it involves a political battle between environmentalists who have succeeded in blocking completion of a permanent national repository for spent fuels, others that don’t want the wastes stored at sites near them, groups that are against nuclear development everywhere, and those who regard nuclear power development to be a major and essential part of our country’s power mix. Thus far, the first three groups are clearly winning, and the Obama administration-influenced NRC is working to tip the scale in their favor. Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Geoff Fettus responded to the ruling as a “game changer”, saying, “This forces the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to take a hard look at the environmental consequences of producing highly radioactive nuclear waste without a long-term disposal solution. The court found: ’The Commission apparently has no long-term plan other than hoping for a geologic repository,’” Unfortunately, he, and the court, are right. The Appeals Court, in fact, did conclude that, “We recognize that the Commission is in a difficult position given the political problems concerning the storage of spent nuclear fuel. Nonetheless, the Commission’s obligations under NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] require a more thorough analysis than provided in the WCD [Waste Confidence Decision] Update. We note that the Commission is currently conducting an EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] regarding the environmental impacts of SNF [spent nuclear fuel] storage beyond the sixty-year post-license period at issue in this case, and some or all of the problems here may be addressed in such rule-making. In any case, we grant the petitions for review, vacate the WCD Update and TSR [Temporary Storage Rule], and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.” It’s not that we don’t need those 104 nuclear power plants which provide about 20% of all U.S. electricity, don’t produce any dreaded CO2 emissions, and have never killed anyone. And since the president is determined to shut down as many of the coal-fired plants which provide about 45% of our electricity as possible, wouldn’t you imagine he might wish to encourage a few more to be built? After all, it has been three and one-half decades since this has occurred. There can be little doubt that a major reason for the dearth of new nuclear development has been the industry’s inability to compete in the energy marketplace without subsidies, including loan guarantees. And while I have repeatedly argued against subsidies for any and all energy sources, nuclear, which currently supplies a substantial portion of our nation’s power supply, should be allowed opportunities, like any industry, to compete in those markets without unwarranted and unreasonable interference. Yet as reported in an excellent Heritage Foundation paper authored by Cornelius Milmoe and Jack Spencer, this clearly isn’t the case. Under marching orders from the Obama White House and Senate leader Harry Reid’s central command battalion, the NRC is waging a devastating nuclear war against atomic power expansion. 

DA: Terrorism

Nuclear power plants are targets for terrorists
Caldicott 06 (Helen Caldicott, Founder and President of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute 2006 “Nuclear Power is not the Answer” Print)

In this day and age, nuclear power plants are also obvious targets for terrorists, inviting assault by plane, truck bombs, armed attack, or covert intrusion into the reactor's control room. The subsequent meltdown could induce the death of hundreds of thousands of people in heavily populated areas, and they would expire slowly and painfully, some over days and others over years from acute ra¬diation illness, cancer, leukemia, congenital deformities, or genetic disease. Such an attack at the Indian Point reactors, thirty-five miles from Manhattan, for instance, would effectively incapacitate the world's main financial center for the rest of time. An attack on one of the thirteen reactors surrounding Chicago would wreak similar catastrophic medical consequences. Amazingly, security at U.S. nuclear power plants remains at virtually the same lax levels as prior to the 9/11 attacks.

NRC standards don’t even have safeguards against airplanes for new designs
NYT 7 (New York Times, “U.S. Takes Step to Address Airliner Attacks on Reactors,” April 25, L/n, rday)

New nuclear reactors need not be designed to withstand suicide attacks by big airplanes, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided Tuesday. Instead, the commission proposed that designers be required to analyze how their reactors can be built to mitigate the effects of such an attack, ''to the extent practicable.'' The commission's staff characterized the vote, which was 4 to 1, as an additional step to improve plant security in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The chairman, Dale Klein, said in a statement, ''This proposal gives us the chance to assess and make practicable changes to new reactor designs early in the design process.'' In fact, however, the commission has already approved two designs, one by General Electric and one by Westinghouse, for which no such analysis was required. 

Extinction
Wasserman 02 (Harvey, senior advisor to the Nuclear Information & Resource Service “Nuclear Power and Terrorism,” Earth island Journal Spring 2002 Vol. 17, No.1)

The intense radioactive heat within today's operating reactors is the hottest anywhere on the planet. So are the hellish levels of radioactivity. Because Indian Point has operated so long, its accumulated radioactive burden far exceeds that of Chernobyl, which ran only four years before it exploded. Some believe the WTC jets could have collapsed or breached either of the Indian Point containment domes. But at very least the massive impact and intense jet fuel fire would destroy the human ability to control the plants' functions. Vital cooling systems, backup power generators and communications networks would crumble. Indeed, Indian Point Unit One was shut because activists warned that its lack of an emergency core cooling system made it an unacceptable risk. The government ultimately agreed. But today terrorist attacks could destroy those same critical cooling and control systems that are vital to not only the Unit Two and Three reactor cores, but to the spent fuel pools that sit on site. The assault would not require a large jet. The safety systems are extremely complex and virtually indefensible. One or more could be wiped out with a wide range of easily deployed small aircraft, ground-based weapons, truck bombs or even chemical/biological assaults aimed at the operating work force. Dozens of US reactors have repeatedly failed even modest security tests over the years. Even heightened wartime standards cannot guarantee protection of the vast, supremely sensitive controls required for reactor safety. Without continous monitoring and guaranteed water flow, the thousands of tons of radioactive rods in the cores and the thousands more stored in those fragile pools would rapidly melt into super-hot radioactive balls of lava that would burn into the ground and the water table and, ultimately, the Hudson. Indeed, a jetcrash like the one on 9/11 or other forms of terrorist assault at Indian Point could yield three infernal fireballs of molten radioactive lava burning through the earth and into the aquifer and the river. Striking water they would blast gigantic billows of horribly radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Prevailing winds from the north and west might initially drive these clouds of mass death downriver into New York City and east into Westchester and Long Island. But at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, winds ultimately shifted around the compass to irradiate all surrounding areas with the devastating poisons released by the on-going fiery torrent. At Indian Point, thousands of square miles would have been saturated with the most lethal clouds ever created or imagined, depositing relentless genetic poisons that would kill forever. In nearby communities like Buchanan, Nyack, Monsey and scores more, infants and small children would quickly die en masse. Virtually all pregnant women would spontaneously abort, or ultimately give birth to horribly deformed offspring. Ghastly sores, rashes, ulcerations and burns would afflict the skin of millions. Emphysema, heart attacks, stroke, multiple organ failure, hair loss, nausea, inability to eat or drink or swallow, diarrhea and incontinance, sterility and impotence, asthma, blindness, and more would kill thousands on the spot, and doom hundreds of thousands if not millions. A terrible metallic taste would afflict virtually everyone downwind in New York, New Jersey and New England, a ghoulish curse similar to that endured by the fliers who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaskai, by those living downwind from nuclear bomb tests in the south seas and Nevada, and by victims caught in the downdrafts from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Then comes the abominable wave of cancers, leukemias, lymphomas, tumors and hellish diseases for which new names will have to be invented, and new dimensions of agony will beg description. Indeed, those who survived the initial wave of radiation would envy those who did not. Evacuation would be impossible, but thousands would die trying. Bridges and highways would become killing fields for those attempting to escape to destinations that would soon enough become equally deadly as the winds shifted. Attempts to quench the fires would be futile. At Chernobyl, pilots flying helicopters that dropped boron on the fiery core died in droves. At Indian Point, such missions would be a sure ticket to death. Their utility would be doubtful as the molten cores rage uncontrolled for days, weeks and years, spewing ever more devastation into the ecosphere. More than 800,000 Soviet draftees were forced through Chernobyl's seething remains in a futile attempt to clean it up. They are dying in droves. Who would now volunteer for such an American task force? The radioactive cloud from Chernobyl blanketed the vast Ukraine and Belarus landscape, then carried over Europe and into the jetstream, surging through the west coast of the United States within ten days, carrying across our northern tier, circling the globe, then coming back again. The radioactive clouds from Indian Point would enshroud New York, New Jersey, New England, and carry deep into the Atlantic and up into Canada and across to Europe and around the globe again and again. The immediate damage would render thousands of the world's most populous and expensive square miles permanently uninhabitable. All five boroughs of New York City would be an apocalyptic wasteland. The World Trade Center would be rendered as unusable and even more lethal by a jet crash at Indian Point than it was by the direct hits of 9/11. All real estate and economic value would be poisonously radioactive throughout the entire region. Irreplaceable trillions in human capital would be forever lost. As at Three Mile Island, where thousands of farm and wild animals died in heaps, and as at Chernobyl, where soil, water and plant life have been hopelessly irradiated, natural eco-systems on which human and all other life depends would be permanently and irrevocably destroyed, Spiritually, psychologically, financially, ecologically, our nation would never recover. This is what we missed by a mere forty miles near New York City on September 11. Now that we are at war, this is what could be happening as you read this. There are 103 of these potential Bombs of the Apocalypse now operating in the United States. They generate just 18% of America's electricity, just 8% of our total energy. As with reactors elsewhere, the two at Indian Point have both been off-line for long periods of time with no appreciable impact on life in New York. Already an extremely expensive source of electricity, the cost of attempting to defend these reactors will put nuclear energy even further off the competitive scale. Since its deregulation crisis, California-already the nation's second-most efficient state-cut further into its electric consumption by some 15%. Within a year the US could cheaply replace virtually with increased efficiency all the reactors now so much more expensive to operate and protect. Yet, as the bombs fall and the terror escalates, Congress is fast-tracking a form of legal immunity to protect the operators of reactors like Indian Point from liability in case of a meltdown or terrorist attack. Why is our nation handing its proclaimed enemies the weapons of our own mass destruction, and then shielding from liability the companies that insist on continuing to operate them? Do we take this war seriously? Are we committed to the survival of our nation? If so, the ticking reactor bombs that could obliterate the very core of our life and of all future generations must be shut down. 

DA: Prolif

Nuclear power expansion causes nuclear war
Diesendorf 11 (Mark, Australian academic and environmentalist, teaches Environmental Studies at the University of South Wales, “Demystification of Nuclear Energy” D!ssent No.36, Spring 2011, 13-18) http://www.ies.unsw.edu.au/docs/DemystificationNuclearEnergyMD.pdf

Nuclear power station disasters can be caused by natural phenomena, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, operator errors (Chernobyl), equipment failures, or terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, the resulting thousands of deaths could be much fewer than those from a nuclear war resulting from the proliferation of nuclear weapons driven in part by so-called ‘peaceful’ nuclear power. Even a regional nuclear war, such as between India and Pakistan, could bring on a ‘nuclear winter’ resulting in global agricultural collapse and mass starvation (Robock and Toon 2009), this in addition to the regional devastation from the blast, firestorms and irradiation.D!ssent No.36, Spring 2011, 13-18 4 The governments of the following countries used nuclear power programs to help produce their first nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa (subsequently dismantled); while the governments of the UK and probably France used nuclear power programs to expand their armouries of nuclear weapons produced originally in military programs. The governments of the following countries attempted unsuccessfully to use nuclear power to produce nuclear weapons: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Iran, South Korea and Taiwan. All except Iran discontinued their programs for various reasons before completion. Australia’s attempt under the Gorton government in the 1960s was fortunately aborted by a change of Prime Minister (Broinowski 2003). One of the advantages of using nuclear power, rather than a purely military program, is that it allows a government to come very close to producing nuclear weapons without actually being identified as a nuclear weapons state. For example, Japan has the scientific and engineering capabilities and large quantities of plutonium, so arms control experts believe that Japan could assemble nuclear bombs within a few days or weeks if it decided that the geopolitical situation demanded it. Clearly, the more nuclear countries that have nuclear power, the greater the probability of nuclear war. 

DA: Accidents

Accidents are inevitable with nuclear power
Ramana 11 (MV, with the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University and is on the Coordinating Committee of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, “No escape from accidents”) http://www.nirs.org/international/reachingcriticalwillreport.pdf 

In the aftermath of Fukushima and, twenty five years earlier, Chernobyl, it should be obvious that nuclear power is capable of catastrophic accidents whose effects could reach across space and time. Yet, many proponents of nuclear energy keep arguing that reactors can be operated safely without accidents. However, the key question is not whether it can be safe, but whether it will be safe—across countries, across many facilities operated by a variety of organizations with multiple priorities, including cost-cutting and profit-making, and using multiple technologies, each with its own vulnerabilities. There are two ways of approaching this question. First, there is a history of small and large accidents at nuclear reactors. This history shows us that accidents occur in most, if not all, countries, involving various reactor designs, initiated by internal and external events, and with different patterns of progressions. Many of these accidents did not escalate purely by chance, often involving the intervention of human operators rather than any technical safety feature. Such interventions cannot be taken for granted and so it seems all but inevitable that nuclear reactors will experience accidents. Second, at a deeper level, all nuclear power plants share some common structural features, though to different extents. The most influential work that explored these features was Charles Perrow’s conceptualization of what happened at Three Mile Island in 1979 as a “normal accident” whose origins lay in the structural characteristics of the system. 1 Normal Accident Theory (NAT) identifies two characteristics, interactive complexity and tight coupling, that make nuclear reactors and similar technologies prone to catastrophic accidents. Interactive complexity pertains to the potential for hidden and unexpected interactions between different parts of the system, and tight coupling refers to the time dependency of the system and the presence of strictly prescribed steps and invariant sequences in operation that cannot be changed. According to Perrow, these are inherent features of nuclear reactors, and there is a limit to how far they can be reduced through engineering efforts. 

Meltdowns cause extinction
Lendman 11 (Stephen, Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization, 03/ 13, “Nuclear Meltdown in Japan,”, The People’s Voice http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/03/13/nuclear-meltdown-in-japan, accessed 8-2-12, RSR)

Reuters said the 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage, up to then the most costly ever natural disaster. This time, from quake and tsunami damage alone, that figure will be dwarfed. Moreover, under a worst case core meltdown, all bets are off as the entire region and beyond will be threatened with permanent contamination, making the most affected areas unsafe to live in. On March 12, Stratfor Global Intelligence issued a "Red Alert: Nuclear Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant," saying: Fukushima Daiichi "nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown." Stratfor downplayed its seriousness, adding that such an event "does not necessarily mean a nuclear disaster," that already may have happened - the ultimate nightmare short of nuclear winter. According to Stratfor, "(A)s long as the reactor core, which is specifically designed to contain high levels of heat, pressure and radiation, remains intact, the melted fuel can be dealt with. If the (core's) breached but the containment facility built around (it) remains intact, the melted fuel can be....entombed within specialized concrete" as at Chernobyl in 1986. In fact, that disaster killed nearly one million people worldwide from nuclear radiation exposure. In their book titled, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko said: "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." "No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the globe. Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern Hemisphere." Stratfor explained that if Fukushima's floor cracked, "it is highly likely that the melting fuel will burn through (its) containment system and enter the ground. This has never happened before," at least not reported. If now occurring, "containment goes from being merely dangerous, time consuming and expensive to nearly impossible," making the quake, aftershocks, and tsunamis seem mild by comparison. Potentially, millions of lives will be jeopardized. Japanese officials said Fukushima's reactor container wasn't breached. Stratfor and others said it was, making the potential calamity far worse than reported. Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said the explosion at Fukushima's Saiichi No. 1 facility could only have been caused by a core meltdown. In fact, 3 or more reactors are affected or at risk. Events are fluid and developing, but remain very serious. The possibility of an extreme catastrophe can't be discounted. Moreover, independent nuclear safety analyst John Large told Al Jazeera that by venting radioactive steam from the inner reactor to the outer dome, a reaction may have occurred, causing the explosion. "When I look at the size of the explosion," he said, "it is my opinion that there could be a very large leak (because) fuel continues to generate heat." Already, Fukushima way exceeds Three Mile Island that experienced a partial core meltdown in Unit 2. Finally it was brought under control, but coverup and denial concealed full details until much later. According to anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman, Japan's quake fallout may cause nuclear disaster, saying: "This is a very serious situation. If the cooling system fails (apparently it has at two or more plants), the super-heated radioactive fuel rods will melt, and (if so) you could conceivably have an explosion," that, in fact, occurred. As a result, massive radiation releases may follow, impacting the entire region. "It could be, literally, an apocalyptic event.

Tournament: Kentucky | Round: 2  | Opponent: Cornell | Judge:
1NC shell
A.  INTERPRETATION.  Restrictions prohibit, requirements govern how energy production occurs
Hayden ’05 (J.D., Penn State Dickinson School of Law, 2005)
Tim 13 Penn St. Envtl. L. Rev. 217

B. Telecommunications Act of 1996
¶ In 1996, a major piece of legislation dealing with most aspects of our nation's telecommunications industry was passed. n113 The portion of that legislation dealing with mobile services creates substantive restrictions and procedural requirements dealing with the use of state and local powers by limiting, but not completely preempting, those powers. n114¶ 1. Substantive Restrictions¶ The TCA of 1996 prevents state and local governments from either prohibiting or taking actions which prohibit erecting cellular towers. n115 It was essential that this law be passed because state and local governments could effectively limit the building of cellular towers by passing laws or using strict zoning procedures. n116 In addition to the statutory framework, the circuit courts have further developed case law clarifying what constitutes unreasonable discrimination between functionally equivalent [*232] services, as well as what amounts to a prohibition. n117 The Third Circuit developed a two-prong test requiring that a significant gap in wireless service exist, and that the manner in which the cellular provider proposes to fill that gap must be the least intrusive in terms of the values the community is trying to preserve. n118 While this test has been modified by other circuits, it is the most widely used. n119¶ 2. Preemption¶ The TCA did not fully preempt the laws of state and local governments. n120 Federal legislation could have completely preempted the laws of the state and local governments which dealt with cellular towers but chose not to, instead allowing those entities to express their values within certain federally created constraints. n121¶ 3. Procedural Requirements¶ Finally, the TCA created procedural requirements that must be met by those seeking to keep a cellular tower from being built. n122 First, the decision making body must act upon the request for authorization within a reasonable period of time. n123 Second, any denial shall be in writing. n124 And lastly, such a denial must be supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record. n125 These procedural requirements ensure that when a ruling is challenged, the courts will have the information relied upon in the decision of the municipality, providing them with a record on which to decide the case. n126¶ In summary, the TCA of 1996 created substantive restrictions on the abuse of the possibly prohibitive powers wielded by state and local governments. It did so without leaving those entities completely bereft of their powers, and at the same time created procedural requirements allowing for meaningful judicial review of decisions. All of this was done with the policy of promoting national wireless service provision in [*233] mind.

And the restriction must be ON production
Dictionary.com No Date
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/on?s=t
“ON”:16. (used to indicate a source or a person or thing that serves as a source or agent): a duty on imported goods; She depends on her friends for encouragement.
B. The aff reduces a condition that makes production harder—that’s NOT A RESTRICTION
Priebe ’99 (Director of Agricultural Economic Law, European Commission)
Rhinehard, Production Rights in European Agriculture p.200
The milk quota system, to quote the prime example, is a levy imposed on production in¶ excess of reference quantities, or 'quotas' . The Community does not prohibit surplus production,¶ but it does make it subject to a very dissuasive tax. An 'overproduction tax' as high as¶ that under the milk quota system is tantamount, in economic terms at least, to a prohibition on¶ large-volume production above the limits laid down. The beet quota system, on the other¶ hand, is of a different legal nature. This is based on production limits that are governed in¶ practice by delivery contracts between growers and sugar companies.¶ In other industries, limits exist as conditions for the granting of direct aid. In such cases,¶ this is not a direct restriction on production, in a strictly legal sense. The farmer is free not to¶ comply with these conditions if he chooses not to accept the aid offered. Economically, s/he¶ often has no choice. Accordingly, in order to obtain Community aid, he has to comply with¶ the conditions that apply. For instance, under the support scheme for arable crop growers, aid¶ applications cannot be submitted in respect of land which was used for permanent pasture,¶ permanent crops, forest or non-agricultural uses4 as at 31 December 1991. Such a provision,¶ designed to avoid speculation in arable crops triggered purely by the introduction of the direct¶ aid system in 1992, divides agricultural land into two: land which is eligible for arable land¶ support and ineligible land. This is a permanent division. The set-aside obligation, signifYing¶ each producer's individual contribution to the disciplining of production under the same¶ system, is another example of this form of restriction. This ev. gender paraphrased
C.  REASONS TO PREFER.

1.  Fair Ground.  Our interp allows afs to remove any restriction that actually prohibits production—siting restrictions, ownership requirements, seasonal drilling restrictions. Their interp allows any aff that makes energy production less profitable—those are regulations or fees—not restrictions.  
   2.  Limits. Their interp justifies any aff that increases the size or profitability of the energy industry, exploding the size of an already large topic.
   3.  Bright line. Our interp establishes a clear brightline—does the restriction prohibit energy production? If it does, it T, if it don’t, it aint.
   D. Topicality is a voter for fairness and education.
    
   1nc
   Observation 1 Text: 

The United States Congress should require the executive branch to condition the implementation of the removal of all restrictions to the development of wind and solar energy projects on indigenous lands in the United State on all relevant parties entering into a binding process of negotiated rulemaking for no more than a year. 

By indigenous lands, we mean the land set aside by the United States federal government for people it refers to as Native Americans or American Indians.

Observation 2: Solvency and Net Benefit:
Lack of Certainty of the plan ensures a “space” of flexibility which ensures polices that create incentives are key to innovation and alternative energy
John A. Alic, Consultant, David C. Mowery, Prof @ Berkely and Edward S. Rubin, Prof@ CMU
 “U.S. technology and innovation policies: Lessons for Climate Change”, November 2003, http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/US%20Technology%20&%20Innovation%20Policies%20(pdf).pdf, BB
Technology policies alone cannot adequately respond to global climate change. They must be complemented by regulatory and/or energy pricing policies that create incentives for innovation and adoption of improved or alternative technologies. Such “non-technology policies” induce technological change, with powerful and pervasive effects. Environmental regulations and energy efficiency standards have fostered innovations that altered the design of many U.S. power plants and all passenger cars over the past several decades. The technological response to climate change will depend critically on environmental and energy policies as well as technology policies. Because climate change is an issue with time horizons of decades to centuries, learning-by-doing and learning-by-using have special salience. Both technology policies and regulatory policies should leave “space” for continuing technological improvements based on future learning. Climate change policy must accommodate uncertainties, not only regarding the course and impacts of climate change itself, but also in the outcomes of innovation.

Counterplan solves the affirmative, current attempts to increase energy production are doomed to failure because they don’t take into account industry and labor opposition—wich will spin the aff as an environmental policy and gut it
Teague and Navin in 7
Peter Teague and Jeff Navin, Director of the Environment Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation and former environmental advisor to Senator Barbara Boxer, Managing Director of American Environics Strategies and former Research Director for Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, June 26, 2007, “Global Warming in an Age of Energy Anxiety”, The American Prospect, http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=global_warming_in_an_age_of_energy_anxiety, BB
With a regulatory-only approach, we will end with a debate between environmentalists arguing about the cost of global warming, and industry economists telling Americans how much more they'll pay for everything from electricity to gasoline to consumer products. And they'll argue that these higher prices will result in job losses.  Policy makers are aware of this challenge and have added provisions to their regulatory bills that are aimed at easing voters' fears. There are proposals for tax rebates and offsets and even the creation of a "Climate Change Credit Corporation" to help voters with the anticipated increase in consumer energy costs. The trouble is that the bills either provide tiny amounts to authorize studies of the problem, or they remain silent about how much help voters can expect. It's important to remember that the proponents of Prop. 87 made a well-supported case that the initiative wouldn't raise energy costs at all. Its defeat demonstrates that it's going to take more than good intentions about global warming and vaguely-worded proposals to convince voters.   The Debate to Come  A recent NPR segment noted that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report on environmentalists' preferred regulatory approach that says "low-income Americans and coal miners might suffer the most if the government adopts a so called cap and trade program to reduce emissions of green house gasses." The NPR report said, "Consumers will bear the cost of this kind of program. They would face higher prices for electricity, gasoline and other products. Since low-income Americans spend a higher portion of their incomes on such costs, they'll be hit the hardest."  Keep in mind that this was NPR  not Fox News.  The "right-wing populist vs. liberal elite" frame is dropping into place with the help of those calling for the deepest cuts in carbon. The deep-cut mantra, repeated without any real understanding of what might be required to get to 60 or 80 percent reductions in emissions, ignores voters' anxieties. It also reflects the questionable view that these changes can be achieved with little more than trivial disruptions in our lives  a view easier to hold if you're in a financial position to buy carbon credits for your beachfront house.  Labor has indicated a willingness to support action on climate change, but it won't support deep cuts if working people are the most affected. This will leave environmentalists up against the well-financed business lobby. Good luck holding onto moderate Democrats, let alone Republicans  even those who are beginning to understand the need for action on global warming.  History teaches us that regulatory proposals that fail politically often lead to legislative paralysis. In 1993, the public was adamant that action be taken to address health care, and it seemed inevitable that some sort of reform would soon be signed into law. In 1994, the Clinton health care reform proposal failed before coming to a vote. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 to reject the United Nations Kyoto framework before it was even fully developed. Voters are still waiting for action on health care and global warming. 

Avoids political backlash
Harter 82
Philip, A.B. Kenyon College (1964); M.A. (Mathematics) Michigan (1966); J.D. Michigan (1969), 71 Geo. L.J. 1
The report of the consensus also should be furnished to Congress and to the White House to enable them to communicate any substantial concerns to the agency. Providing such notification to the political forces and permitting their concerns to be taken into account will help insulate the agency from political attack. In addition, this procedure would be a political prod to the agency because it would need a good reason to reject the consensus of competing forces. If the agency rejects the consensus without good reason it might appear that the agency is changing the results of the negotiations capriciously.

 
1NC
Rasmussen polls place Obama ahead, but it will be close
Rasmussen 10/5 (Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/political_updates/daily_presidential_tracking_poll)
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows President Obama attracting support from 49% of voters nationwide, while Mitt Romney earns the vote from 47%. One percent (1%) prefers some other candidate, and three percent (3%) are undecided. See daily tracking history.

Solar power is unpopular
Weiss 12 (Gary, journalist and author, 2/22, Obama Alienates Absolutely Everyone on This One Issue, http://www.thestreet.com/print/story/11427579.html)

Solar power has proven to be a liability for Obama, with the Solyndra bankruptcy giving him a major embarrassment. There is something of a silver lining in the recent performance of publicly traded solar energy companies like Suntech Power, SunPower, First Solar, Renesola, LDK Solar and JA Solar.  They've all proven disappointing to investors over the long term, but their recent price performance has been encouraging. Still, only the most glassy-eyed optimists believe that solar power will have any major impact on energy prices for a long time to come.

Obama win key to US-Russia relations – Romney’s agenda is belligerent and controversial.
Reichardt 7/9. (Adam is the Managing Editor of New Eastern Europe, “Considering Russia in the Voting Booth,” New Eastern Europe, 2012, http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/node/382)
Obama’s policy towards Russia is easier to gauge, since there has already been four years of his administration to judge. As Ross Wilson noted, “President Obama has a four-year record with Russia to defend – i.e., the reset policy and the benefits that the administration will argue have accrued from its more pragmatic and less confrontational approach to relations with Moscow.” President Obama’s policy of reset was indeed a glimmer of hope for US-Russian relations at the start of 2009, but that glimmer has all but faded. The case of Syria and Iran are clear examples of the real challenges America still faces when engaging with Russia on global issues and the Obama campaign will most likely avoid referring to the “reset” by name. “Though the Administration will not use the expression ‘reset’ too much, it can be expected to continue to emphasize pragmatism and to implement that line if the president is re-elected,” Wilson believes. Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney, has been less clear about his position on relations with Russia, but what is revealed in recent statements and on his website shows a more controversial approach. Most telling were the comments Romney made in June 2012. On Russia, Romney has stated: "The nation which consistently opposes our actions at the United Nations has been Russia. We're of course not enemies. We're not fighting each other. There's no Cold War, but Russia is a geopolitical foe in that regard." The Romney campaign’s web site reveals several areas of focus for Russia, none of them discuss active engagement, but rather focus on taking tougher stances with Russia, including renegotiating the New Start Treaty, decreasing Europe’s energy reliance on Russia, building stronger relations with Central Asia, as well as supporting Russia’s civil society. Surprisingly, the last one, engaging Russia’s civil society, could be the most controversial. The Romney campaign web site provides a strongly worded statement that “A Romney administration will be forthright in confronting the Russian government over its authoritarian practices.” Indeed, America needs a strong leader to stand up for its position in the world, however confronting Russia on internal issues may not only offend most Russians, even in the opposition – it could hurt the entire goal of this platform. Having the American government play an active role in the changes happening inside Russia could be detrimental to US-Russian relations. Many Russians believe that changes within their own country should be driven from the Russian society. Any outside interference would hurt the legitimacy of the Russian opposition and cause the Russian elite to become even more suspicious, and perhaps even hostile, to the intentions of American foreign policy.
U.S.-Russian war causes extinction – most probable
Bostrom ‘2 [Nick Bostrom, professor of philosophy - Oxford University, March, 2002, Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards, Journal of Evolution and Technology, p. http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html]
A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear war was a possibility with both a substantial probability and with consequences that might have been persistent enough to qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization.[4]  Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would not destroy or thwart humankind’s potential permanently. Such a war might however be a local terminal risk for the cities most likely to be targeted. Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are mere preludes to the existential risks that we will encounter in the 21st century.

 
1NC – Self- D
No impact to cultural survival
Coates 2009 – former adjunct professor at George Washington University, President of the Kanawha Institute for the Study of the Future and was President of the International Association for Impact Assessment and was President of the Association for Science, Technology and Innovation, M.S., Hon D., FWAAS, FAAAS, (Joseph F., Futures 41, 694-705, "Risks and threats to civilization,  humankind, and the earth”, ScienceDirect, WEA)

The first category of significant dreadful outcomes: the death of cultures, raises definitional questions of what is a culture, and how to define the boundaries on it and what it means for it to disappear. Obviously, most of the cultures that would be at risk today are small, involving thousands, tens of thousands, or surely well under a million people. Cultures larger than that are becoming increasingly globalized, westernized, and part of an expanding international advanced-nation culture, with local flavors in different parts of the world. When we turn to the smaller cultures, there is not even a good guess as to how many there are, but an excellent surrogate for that is the number of languages that there are. Each cultureinsofar as it is isolated has created its own language. Thelinguists tell us that languages are dying in great numbers.
Another side of the question is, whether the death of cultures is good or bad. There are, worldwide, people who deplore the loss of any culture. (We are not thinking about people, but about the culture of a people.) Unfortunately, they would like to see functional groups of the people at cultural risk preserved to become parts of a living museum. That is unfair and, to say the least, undemocratic. Consider the case of the people whomanage and harvest the reindeer in Finland, the Lapps. Their cultureis in large part framed around a great annual cycle. The animals are collected together and moved much like the situation so common in our western movies of taking the herds of cattle from Texas to the Midwest slaughter houses and railroad yards. The snowmobile was introduced into Lapp society and has been rapidly changing their customs. Some outsiders, as noted, deplore this. But remember, no one forced the snowmobile on the Lapps; it is their free choice and it is outrageous to think that we would deprive them of free choice to adopt what they see will enhance the quality of their lives. On net, I see the loss of cultures as, in some romantic sense, regrettable and undesirable, but in terms of the overall benefits to humankind, the integration of the minor cultures into a global culture carries far more benefit for them and for the world than local survival does.

And, you don’t have a moral obligation to preserve self-determination – the only rational way to calculate the ballot is based on the number of lives saved
Cummiskey 90 – Professor of Philosophy, Bates (David, Kantian Consequentialism, Ethics 100.3, p 601-2, p 606, jstor, AG)
We must not obscure the issue by characterizing this type of case as the sacrifice of individuals for some abstract "social entity." It is not a question of some persons having to bear the cost for some elusive "overall social good." Instead, the question is whether some persons must bear the inescapable cost for the sake of other persons. Nozick, for example, argues that "to use a person in this way does not sufficiently respect and take account of the fact that he is a separate person, that his is the only life he has."30 Why, however, is this not equally true of all those that we do not save through our failure to act? By emphasizing solely the one who must bear the cost if we act, one fails to sufficiently respect and take account of the many other separate persons, each with only one life, who will bear the cost of our inaction. In such a situation, what would a conscientious Kantian agent, an agent motivated by the unconditional value of rational beings, choose? We have a duty to promote the conditions necessary for the existence ofrational beings, but both choosing to act and choosing not to act will cost the life of a rational being. Since the basis of Kant's principle is "rational nature exists as an end-in-itself' (GMM, p. 429), the reasonable solution to such a dilemma involves promoting, insofar as one can, the conditions necessary for rational beings. If I sacrifice some for the sake of other rational beings, I do not use them arbitrarilyand I do not deny the unconditional value of rational beings.Persons may have "dignity, an unconditional and incomparable value" that transcends any market value (GMM, p. 436), but, as rational beings, persons also have a fundamental equalitywhich dictates that somemust sometimes give way for the sake of others.The formula of the end-in-itself thus does not support the view that we may never force another to bear some cost in order to benefit others. If one focuses on the equal value of all rational beings, then equal consideration dictates that one sacrifice some to save many. [continues] According to Kant, the objective end of moral action is the existence of rational beings. Respect for rational beings requires that, in deciding what to do, one give appropriate practical consideration to the unconditional value of rational beings and to the conditional value of happiness. Since agent-centered constraints require a non-value-based rationale, the most natural interpretation of the demand that one give equal respect to all rational beings lead to a consequentialist normative theory. We have seen that there is no sound Kantian reason for abandoning this natural consequentialist interpretation. In particular, a consequentialist interpretation does not require sacrifices which a Kantian ought to consider unreasonable, and it does not involve doing evil so that good may come of it. It simply requires an uncompromising commitment to the equal value and equal claims of all rational beings and a recognition that, in the moral consideration of conduct, one's own subjective concerns do not have overriding importance.

And, Indian culture is resilient
Stephen Cornell andJosephKalt, Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development,1993,Reloading the Dice: Improving the Chances for Economic Development on American Indian Reservations, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hpaied/pubs/pub_120.htm,
American Indian societies are phenomenally resilient. In the last several centuries, they have faced winds of economic, political, and cultural change that have blown as fiercely over them as over any people in history.These winds have brought military violenceand subjugation, epidemics of disease, seizures of land and property, vicious racism, and economic deprivation. Yet, as the twenty-first century approaches, hundreds of distinctIndian nations built upon dozens of cultural lineages still persevere and grow, variously bound together by ties of family, language, history, and culture. The lesson from Indian Country is a lesson of strength.

Russia is in control of Chechnya but that hold is fragile
Wood ‘9
[Mr. Tony Wood, the author of Chechnya: the Case for Independence, Chechnya: History, Resistance, and the Future, (Exclusive With Tony Wood) Part Two, Amr Taha, Staff Writer-IslamOnline.net Thu. Jun. 25, 2009
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout&cid=1239888383769 ]

The Russian authorities have indeed killed off many great and crucial figures in the Chechen separatist movement—including the assassinations of three presidents and one vice-president (Dzokhar Dudaev, Aslan Maskhadov and Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev; and Zelimkhan Yandarbiev).¶ The wars have removed scores of field commanders, while harsh repressive measures have crippled many more fighters and their families.¶ However, while these policies have certainly thinned the ranks of the resistance, they have not succeeded in finishing it off altogether.
Self determination of Native American tribes is modeled globally.
Jaimes 92 (M. Annette, Native woman and Mestiza author, scholar, activist, novelist, and poet, tenured associate professor in the College of Humanities, Women's Studies, at San Francisco State University. Pub. in 1992 by South End Press. The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance. Obt from the Center for World Indigenous Studies <http://cwis.org/fwdp/International/int.txt>; D/L: 7/08/09)

Although this chapter has implications for the status of all indigenous peoples, its concentration is primarily within the United States.  This is because, in several ways, the status of indigenous nations within the U.S. is unique, and the policy of the United States toward indigenous nations has frequently been emulated by other states.  The fact that a treaty relationship exists between the United States and indigenous nations, and the fact that indigenous nations within the U.S. retain defined and  separate land bases and continue to exercise some degree of effective self-government, may contribute to the successful application of international standards in their cases.  Also, given the size and relative power of the United States in international relations, and absent the unlikely independence of a majority- indigenous nation-state such as Guatemala or Greenland, the successful application of decolonization principles to indigenous nations within the U.S. could allow the extension of such applications to indigenous peoples in other parts of the planet.
US model fails in Chechnya and collapses Russia 

Julie M. Tremper 04 [Journal of Public and International Affairs, Volume 15/Spring 2004, Julie M. Tremper is a Master of Arts candidate at the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, http://www.princeton.edu/~jpia/pdf2004/Chapter%207.pdf]

Furthermore, a trust system might not succeed even if it were adopted and implemented. It is worth noting that the United States continues to be plagued by the tension between self-government and assimilation of Native Americans after more than two hundred years of attempting to deal with the problem (American Indian Resource Institute 1991, 3). Given the American difficulty in resolving this tension, it seems unlikely that Russia would fare any better in implementing a similar trust system. Moreover, the fluidity of the trust system, a characteristic vital to its longevity in the United States, makes it impractical in the Russian case, where greater stability and clarity are necessary. Given the current weak structure of the Russian state, the establishment of a trust system for ethnic minorities could undermine the state’s stability and cohesiveness.
 
The impact is nuclear war and extinction
David 99 (Steven R., professor of political science @ the john Hopkins U, Foreign Affairs, January/February, LN

Strong ethnic bonds promoted by shortsighted Soviet policies may motivate non-Russians to secede from the Federation. Chechnya's successful revolt against Russian control inspired similar movements for autonomy and independence throughout the country. If these rebellions spread and Moscow responds with force, civil war is likely. Should Russia succumb to internal war, the consequences for the United States and Europe will be severe. A major power like Russia  even though in decline  does not suffer civil war quietly or alone. An embattled Russian Federation might provoke opportunistic attacks from enemies such as China. Massive flows of refugees would pour into central and western Europe. Armed struggles in Russia could easily spill into its neighbors. Damage from the fighting, particularly attacks on nuclear plants, would poison the environment of much of Europe and Asia. Within Russia, the consequences would be even worse. Just as the sheer brutality of the last Russian civil war laid the basis for the privations of Soviet communism, a second civil war might produce another horrific regime. Most alarming is the real possibility that the violent disintegration of Russia could lead to loss of control over its nuclear arsenal. No nuclear state has ever fallen victim to civil war, but even without a clear precedent the grim consequences can be foreseen. Russia retains some 20,000 nuclear weapons and the raw material for tens of thousands more, in scores of sites scattered throughout the country. So far, the government has managed to prevent the loss of any weapons or much material. If war erupts, however, Moscow's already weak grip on nuclear sites will slacken, making weapons and supplies available to a wide range of anti-American groups and states. Such dispersal of nuclear weapons represents the greatest physical threat America now faces. And it is hard to think of anything that would increase this threat more than the chaos that would follow a Russian civil war. 

 
1NC – Environmental Justice
No runaway warming—satellite data proves the climate system isn’t sensitive to human causes and would cause less than 1 degree of warming
Spencer 10—former head climate scientist @ NASA
(Roy, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama and former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA. He now leads the US science team for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS on NASA’s Aqua Satellite “The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists,” pg 100-102)
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t understand these plots of data and my interpretation of them.  All this has just been a quantitative way of demonstrating that climate researchers have not accounted for clouds causing temperature changes (forcing) when trying to estimate how much temperature change causes clouds to change (feedback). In simple terms, they have mixed up cause and effect when analyzing cloud and temperature variations. As a result of this mix-up, the illusion of a sensitive climate system (positive feedbacks) emerges from their analysis. Thinking that the climate system is very sensitive, the climate modelers then built overly sensitive models that produce too much global warming. Or, to illustrate the issue another way, let's return to the question I had when I got involved in this line of research. When researchers have observed clouds decreasing with warming, they have claimed that this is evidence of positive feedback - a sensitive climate system. They have explained that the warming causes the clouds to decrease, which then amplifies the warming. But how did the researchers know that the warmer temperatures caused the clouds to decrease, rather than the reverse? In other words, how did they know they weren't mixing up cause and effect? It turns out they didn't know. We now have peer- reviewed and published evidence of decreases in cloud cover causing warmer temperatures, yet it has gone virtually unnoticed. I believe that this misinterpretation of how clouds really behave in the climate system helps explain why the scientific consensus is so sure that mankind is causing global warming. By confusing natural variability in clouds with positive feedback, researchers have been led to believe that the climate system is very sensitive. This, in turn, has led them to conclude that the small amount of forcing from humanity's greenhouse gas emissions is being amplified enough to explain most of the global warming that we have seen in the last fifty years or more. They claim that no natural explanation is needed for warming-that humanity's pollution is sufficient. By ignoring natural variations, they have concluded that they can ignore natural variations. The circular nature of their reasoning has not occurred to them. Furthermore, natural variability in clouds probably also explains why climate sensitivity estimates have been so variable when previous researchers have diagnosed feedbacks from satellite data. Depending on how much natural cloud variability was occurring when the satellites made their observations, a wide variety of feedback (climate sensitivity) estimates would result some bordering on a catastrophically sensitive climate system. And as long as the IPCC can claim that feedbacks in the real climate system are very uncertain, they can perpetuate their warnings that disastrous global warming cannot be ruled out. They tell us that the sensitivity of the climate system is high, but just how high isn't really known for sure. Therefore, we must prepare for catastrophic warming, just in case. One detail that 1 did not discuss in this chapter is how the infrared and solar parts of feedback behaved during the period for which we have satellite data. It turns out that the negative feedback seen by the satellites was entirely in the reflected solar component, which is most likely due to low clouds. The infrared portion of the feedback supported positive water vapor feedback, which is consistent with feedback estimates from other researchers. But it is the total feedback-solar plus infrared-that determines climate sensitivity. If negative feedbacks outweigh positive feedbacks, then the net feedback is still negative. Even the IPCC recognized the uncertainty associated with reflected solar feedback from low clouds in their 2007 report when they concluded: "Cloud feedbacks are the primary source of inter-model differences in equilibrium climate sensitivity, with low cloud being the largest contributor." Taken together, all this evidence indicates that the climate models are too sensitive, which is why they predict so much global warming for the future. In contrast, the satellite evidence indicates that the climate system is quite insensitive, which means that it doesn't really care how big your carbon footprint is. Rather than 1•5 to 6 deg. C (or more) of warming as predicted by the IPCC, a careful examination of the satellite data suggests that manmade warming due to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide could be less than 1 deg. C (1.8 deg. F)-possibly much less. 

Defo makes warming inevitable
Walker and King 8 Director of the School of Environment @Oxford
Gabrielle, PhD in Chemistry, Sir David, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, and a senior scientific adviser to UBS, The Hot Topic, pg. 106
Chopping down and burning tress contributes some eight billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year.  That’s a huge amount, more than 16 percent of total human greenhouse gas emissions—more than comes from either agriculture or transportation.  And yet it’s largely uncessary.  Destroying forests is one of the maddest form of interefering with the climate that humans have yet devised.  Most of the carbon dioxide from deforestation comes from the burning of tropical forests, especially with the Amazon rain forest.  Reasons for cutting it down range from logging of individual hardwood trees to shlash-and-burn for subsistence agriculture, to clearing land for large-scale agricultural plantions of palm oil.  Even logging of individual trees often creates mass destruction.   Bulldozers blast through the remaining trees to get to their prize: felling on individual trees often brings down their neighbors as they are bound together with woody lianas; the holes thus created in the leaf canapoy let in the hot tropical sunlight, whid dries out the forest and allows for the outbreak of accidental fire; and loggers usually build roads, which encourage the influx of subsistence slash-and-burn farmers. 

Can’t solve warming – it’s inevitable
Hamilton 10 – Professor of Public Ethics @ ANU
Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics in Australia, 2010, “Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change,” pg 27-28
The conclusion that, even if we act promptly and resolutely, the world is on a path to reach 650 ppm is almost too frightening to accept. That level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will be associated with warming of about 4°C by the end of the century, well above the temperature associated with tipping points that would trigger further warming.58 So it seems that even with the most optimistic set of assumptions—the ending of deforestation, a halving of emissions associated with food production, global emissions peaking in 2020 and then falling by 3 per cent a year for a few decades—we have no chance of preventing emissions rising well above a number of critical tipping points that will spark uncontrollable climate change. The Earth's climate would enter a chaotic era lasting thousands of years before natural processes eventually establish some sort of equilibrium. Whether human beings would still be a force on the planet, or even survive, is a moot point. One thing seems certain: there will be far fewer of us. These conclusions arc alarming, co say the least, but they are not alarmist. Rather than choosing or interpreting numbers to make the situation appear worse than it could be, following Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows 1 have chosen numbers that err on the conservative side, which is to say numbers that reflect a more buoyant assessment of the possibilities. A more neutral assessment of how the global community is likely to respond would give an even bleaker assessment of our future. For example, the analysis excludes non-CO2, emissions from aviation and shipping. Including them makes the task significantly harder, particularly as aviation emissions have been growing rapidly and are expected to continue to do so as there is no foreseeable alternative to severely restricting the number of flights.v' And any realistic assessment of the prospects for international agreement would have global emissions peaking closer to 2030 rather than 2020. The last chance to reverse the trajectory of global emissions by 2020 was forfeited at the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009. As a consequence, a global response proportionate to the problem was deferred for several years.

Solar causes more emissions causing more warming
Zycher, Pacific Research Institute Senior Fellow, 12¶
(Benjamin, Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics adjunct professor, associate in the Intelligence Community Associates Program of the Office of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State, former senior staff economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers, April 19, “Zycher testimony to joint House subcommittee hearing on subsidies for renewable energy,” http://www.aei.org/article/energy-and-the-environment/alternative-energy/zycher-testimony-to-joint-house-subcommittee-hearing-on-subsidies-for-renewable-energy/, d/a 8-1-12, ads)
A cleaner environment is worth it, you say? Not so fast. As counterintuitive as it may seem, increased reliance on wind and solar power will hurt the environment, not because of such phony issues as endangered cockroaches, used by the environmental left as a tool with which to obstruct the renewable energy projects that they claim to support. Instead, this damage will be real, in the form of greater air pollution. The conventional generators needed to back up the unreliable wind and solar production will have to be cycled up and down because the system operators will be required to take wind and solar generation when it is available. This means greater operating inefficiency and more emissions. That is precisely what a recent engineering study of the effects of renewables requirements found for Colorado and Texas.¶ So we have achieved the perfect leftist trifecta: higher costs, lower reliability, and more environmental degradation. Such plagues are hardly biblical, but neither are they trivial. Will Governor Brown finally be content? Obviously not, as he now wants higher taxes to feed a Sacramento monster utterly destructive in so many dimensions.

Nuclear power is the worst form of indigenous environmental racism
CANE 7 (9/7/07 Coalition against nuclear energy, http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:zorzbFAnhq8J:www.cane.org.za/2007/09/10/nuclear-energy-related/environmental-racism/+Nuclear+waste+dumping+racism+African&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us)
“The nuclear chain starts and ends with environmental racism.” This is according to Lea Foushee from the Prarie Island Coalition and American Indian people have good reason to think this after plans to store nuclear waste at the Prairie Island Reservation in Minnesota, atomic bomb testing and uranium mining have all adversely affected them.
 Foushee said that the nuclear chain begins with buying uranium found on aboriginal land in the United States, Canada and in the poorest black sections of South Africa. Uranium was then transported to an impoverished African American community in Louisiana to make into pellets.
 In one of her studies, Dr Carol Lujan, Arizona State University professor investigated the detrimental health effects of uranium mining on Navaho people. The Prairie Island government found cancer rates six times higher than the national health department statistics.
 Nuclear waste dumps were mainly located in disadvantaged communities. There was a nuclear waste dump near the Navaho reservation and one in Texas that would affect Chicanos and Mexican Americans. 

Utilitarianism is the only way to access morality. Sacrifice in the name of preserving rights destroys any hope of future generations attaining other values.                                                                                                                                
Nye 86 [Joseph S. Phd Political Science Harvard. University; Served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs; 1986; “Nuclear Ethics” pg. 45-46STRONG]
Is there any end that could justify a nuclear war that threatens the survival of the species? Is not all-out nuclear war just as self contradictory in the real world as pacifism is accused of being? Some people argue that "we are required to undergo gross injustice that will break many souls sooner than ourselves be the authors of mass murder."73 Still others say that "when a person makes survival the highest value, he has declared that there is nothing he will not betray. But for a civilization to sacrifice itself makes no sense since there are not survivors to give meaning to the sacrifical [sic] act. In that case, survival may be worth betrayal." Is it possible to avoid the "moral calamity of a policy like unilateral disarmament that forces us to choose between being dead or red (while increasing the chances of both)"?74 How one judges the issue of ends can be affected by how one poses the questions. If one asks "what is worth a billion lives (or the survival of the species)," it is natural to resist contemplating a positive answer. But suppose one asks, "is it possible to imagine any threat to our civilization and values that would justify raising the threat to a billion lives from one in ten thousand to one in a thousand for a specific period?" Then there are several plausible answers, including a democratic way of life and cherished freedoms that give meaning to life beyond mere survival. When we pursue several values simultaneously, we face the fact that they often conflict and that we face difficult tradeoffs. If we make one value absolute in priority, we are likely to get that value and little else. Survival is a necessary condition for the enjoyment of other values, but that does not make it sufficient. Logical priority does not make it an absolute value. Few people act as though survival were an absolute value in their personal lives, or they would never enter an automobile. We can give survival of the species a very high priority without giving it the paralyzing status of an absolute value. Some degree of risk is unavoidable if individuals or societies are to avoid paralysis and enhance the quality of life beyond mere survival. The degree of that risk is a justifiable topic of both prudential and moral reasoning. 

One-size-fits-all actions will never solve environmental justice

EPA 96 (A Report on the "Public Dialogues on Urban Revitalization and Brownfields: Envisioning Healthy and Sustainable Communities", December, http://www.epa.gov/Compliance/resources/publications/ej/nejac/public-dialogue-brownfields-1296.pdf)
Public Dialogue participants articulated the importance of developing holistic, multi-faceted, interactive, and integrative community-based planning models for Brownfields and urban revitalization. They view community based planning as an alternative to the current dependence on developer-driven models that traditionally define the Brownfields problem in a narrow way. Community-based planning is a framework for identifying and solving problems. Instead of addressing problems piecemeal and then applying a "one-size fits all" solution, community-based planning has the flexibility to confront problems in the context of the region, the ecosystem, the city, or the neighborhood in which they occur.
In the eyes of the community, the Brownfields issue is more than the simple identification of contaminated sites and goes beyond the definitions created by developers. The community defines the problem from the vantage point of their aspirations. There was support for this premise from virtually all Public Dialogue participants, including representatives of the business community and lending institutions. Each realized that "if we're not addressing transportation, housing, education and training, and racism and other driving factors that have led to deindustrialization of our urban areas and loss of vitality, then addressing Brownfields, environmental contamination and liability alone will not be a significant benefit for people in the communities."
Racism is inevitable-it's biologically hardwired and proven in lab experiments Consuming Experience 07  [Science/Technology blog, citing a study by Mark Buchanan published in the New Scientist, http://www.consumingexperience.com/2007/05/prejudice¬discrimination-is-racism.html]
The tendency to discriminate against people of a different ethnic origin or skin colour may have a biological origin - there may well be a scientific basis for racism, as a manifestation of "us and them" (New Scientist article by
Mark Buchanan, 17 March 2007). Recent computer modelling by political scientists Ross Hammond of the Brookings Institute in Washington
DC and Robert Axelrod of the University of Michigan showed that, when interacting with others individually, software agents which act in a "groupist" way - dividing others into groups and acting so as to favour "their group" and discriminate against, or "cheat",
outsiders not in "their" group - in fact do best, at the expense of the others. "Ethnocentric" groupists eventually come to  dominate over those who adopt different behavioural strategies (e.g. acting randomly, or always cooperating with others whether in "their" group or not, etc). In other words, groupism seems the most effective behavioural strategy for the success of an individual and their group, mathematically speaking: groupists and their group survive
and even thrive. (Interestingly, groupism also increased the general total level of cooperation between individuals in that virtual world: "Ethnocentrism is actually a mechanism for generating cooperation, and one that does not demand much in the way of cognitive ability," said Hammond. So it's not necessarily a bad thing for general cooperation in the "world", per se. ) Now, if the rule is "survival of the most groupist",
i.e. if the most groupist are those who will flourish, then modem day humans may through natural selection have evolved a genetic predisposition to act groupistly, from an evolutionary biology
perspective. Other experiments, e.g. by psychologist Henri Tajfel of the University of Bristol using groups of teenage boys, suggest that
"if you put people into different groups, call them red and blue, north and south, or whatever, a bias towards one's own group will automatically emerge".
 
1nc-Solvency  
Solar can't solve –
A. Operates at 20%; one coal plant beats all the solar in the world
Savinar, 08.Esq. of LATOC.( Matthew David, Life After the Oil Crash, http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/secondpage.html, accessed July 9, 2008)
In the real world, the average solar cell operates at about 20% of its maximum capacity.This means the combined output of all the solar cells in the world is equal to less than 40% of the output of a single coal fired power plant. UPDATE:By end of last year, there was just over 5,000 megawatts of solar pv cells installed worldwide. Operating at average efficiency of 20%, the combined output of all the pv cells in the world is now equal to the output of a single coal fired power-planet.

B. Not enough land
McCluney 2K3 [Ross, June 14, 2003, "Renewable Energy Limits", Page 4, http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/publications/pdf/FSEC-GP-216-03.PDF]
There are physical limits to the production of energy from direct solar radiation.  In the absurd limit, we clearly could not cover all available land area with solar collectors.  A more reasonable limit would be to fill existing future rooftops with solar collectors.  From data provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, I estimated the total combined commercial and residential building roof area in the United States in the year 2000 at 18 billion square meters.  From a National Renewable Energy Laboratory web site, I found that the approximate annual average quantity of solar energy falling on a square meter of land area in the United States is about 4.5 kWh of energy per square meter of area per day.  Multiplying this by 365 days in a year and by the 18 billion square meter roof area figure, yieldsthe total energy received by rooftop solar systems in this scenario: 2.46 x 10 ^ 13 kWh per year, or 84 Quads per year.  Thisisjust a bitbelow the 102 Quads per yearU.S primary energy consumption figure. Not all roof areas is usable, however.  Roofs sloped away from the sun's strongest radiation, shaded by trees and other buildings, having interfering equipment, or insufficiently strong to support solar equipment, are either not practical or not possible for this utilization.
C. Intermittency and requires fossil fuels
Choi 08. (Charles, February 27, Livescience.com, "Solar Power's Greenhouse Emissions Measured," http://www.livescience.com/environment/080227-solar-power-green.html)
"One of the most promising photovoltaic technologies is based on cadmium telluride, but cadmium is one of the worst heavy metals. Still, if we compare direct emissions from production of cadmium telluride cells with coal power plants, toxic emissions would up 300 times lower," said researcher Vasilis Fthenakis, an environmental engineer at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. In fact, most of the toxic emissions from making solar cells come indirectly from fossil fuel-burning power plants, which provide the electricity needed for manufacture. Ironically, the solar cell factories will likely need to rely on fossil fuels for power for a while, since solar power is too intermittent to use,Fthenakis explained, shutting down as it does when sun goes down.
D. Can’t solve – silver
Matt Savinar, Poly Sci UCDavis, J.D. @ UC Hastings 2004, http://www.unicamp.br/fea/ortega/eco/traducao-DieOff.pdf, p. 58
The geographic areas most suited for large solar farms are typically very warm areas, such as deserts. This requires the energy collected by the panels to be converted to electricity and then transmitted over large distances to power more densely populated regions. Unfortunately, heat makes electricity extremely difficult to transmit. The benefits of setting up solar farms in sun-drenched areas like the desert are largely offsetby the additional costs of transmitting the electricity. The only way to overcome this problem is through the use of superconducting wires, which require copious quantities of silver, a precious metal already in short supply.

Even if the plan passes plan the Tribal councils jack the plan
Clark and Lee ‘5 (J. R. Clark holds the Scott L. Probasco Jr. Chair of Free Enterprise at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dwight R. Lee holds the Ramsey Chair of Private Enterprise at the University of Georgia. LEADERSHIP, PRISONERS’ DILEMMAS AND POLITICS, J. R. Clark and Dwight R. Lee, Cato Journal, Vol. 25, No. 2.Spring/Summer 2005)

Both the elected and appointed leadership of American Indian groups provide another example of the political lobbying of leaders conflicting with the welfare of those whom they represent. Both, bureaucrats managing the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the various tribal leaders on American Indian reservations have actively engaged in political activity that served their interest at the expense of the group for which they assumed responsibility. nFrom the General Allotment Act of 1887 until the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, it was customary for Native Americans to own private property on the reservations, which they could sell if they left. The problem, from the perspective of the BIA and tribal leaders, was that many individuals on the reservations were moving off to take advantage of opportunities elsewhere. Worried that they would lose too many of their constituents, tribal leaders, in cooperation with officials at the BIA, increased the cost of moving off reservations by successfully lobbying for the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 making it illegal for Indians leaving to sell their land and houses. The justification offered for outlawing the alienation of private property on reservations was that private property supposedly violated Native American traditions, which emphasized communal ownership. This justification was belied by many historical examples of private ownership arrangements among tribes of Native Americans, but historical accuracy was not the concern. Restricting the sale of private property on the reservations clearly benefited tribal leaders by shifting the short-run advantage of their individual constituents in favor of remaining on the reservations. The long-run effect on the welfare of Native Americans, particularly those, who did remain on the reservations, has surely been negative.12
 
The plan leads to tribal infighting which is genocidal and crushes sovereignty
Porter 1997 (Robert B, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Tribal Law and Government Center at the University of Kansas. Winter 1997. “Strengthening Tribal Sovereignty Through Government Reform: What are the Issues.” Lexus. Accessed: 7/7/09)

The last type of tribal governmental dysfunction, infighting, has particular impact on tribal sovereignty because it is the only problem that can generate its immediate destruction. It is certainly true that indigenous communities have always undergone tumultuous periods of internal division and chaos and with it, periods of weakness. Indeed, for some native people, the historic aggregation of people in small villages was the direct result of feuds causing various families and clans to split off and start their own settlements. Much of this was possible because survival, while dependent upon a collective existence, did not necessarily require that all members of a tribal nation live in one area at a time for all eternity. Given the way of life at the time, fragmentation and reconstitution was possible without any long term effects on the existence of the people as a whole. In the modern era, this luxury does not exist because native people now live in the era of the cultural and political atom bomb. One does not need to be paranoid to see that there are enemies of tribal sovereignty everywhere. The federal government is fully empowered and has a track record of taking actions from time to time that have the genocidal effect of wiping out our nations and, over time, each and every one of us. Because it is not predisposed to exercising its protective trust responsibility, it is frequently unable to keep the enemies of tribal sovereignty at bay. In addition, to the federal government, the usual suspects in the fight against tribal survival- the states and the speculators- all continue to pose threats to the existence of indigenous nations. n91 Indeed, the very worst threat to our sovereignty may be our own members, who seem to have no qualms drawing upon the legal machinery of the colonizing nation to effectuate their personal political agendas. n92 In an age when native economic and political competition with the dominant society and its agents can be a life or death struggle, the specter of the Termination Era occurring only 30 years ago is a haunting prospect for the future.

Infighting leads to extinction of native Americans
Porter 1997 (Robert B, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Tribal Law and Government Center at the University of Kansas. Winter 1997. “Strengthening Tribal Sovereignty Through Government Reform: What are the Issues.” Lexus. Accessed: 7/7/09)

Against this backdrop, infighting can be a matter of life or death for tribal sovereignty. If an Indian nation is overwhelmed with acrimony, infighting and civil war, it cannot possibly [*93] muster enough strength to repel the forces that would seek its destruction. Even in those instances where there might be an enemy obvious enough to unify opposing factions, the days, months, and years of prior conflict will have had a long-term corrosive effect that would make those moments when unity is necessary terribly difficult to achieve. Put simply, divided and dysfunctional tribal governments are weak tribal governments, and weak tribal governments are unable over the long haul to protect and defend their membership from the continuing onslaught of over 500 years of American colonization. If we are too divided to have the ability to control our own affairs and determine our future course, then we simply cannot expect to survive very long as sovereign nations.

Tournament: Kentucky | Round: 6 | Opponent: Kansas | Judge:
1NC Shell
A. Not in the US
U.S. Department of State 12
[Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual, Volume 7, June 29, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86755.pdf

7 FAM 1112 WHAT IS BIRTH “IN THE UNITED STATES”?
(CT:CON-314; 08-21-2009)
a. INA 101(a)(38) (8 U.S.C. 1101 (a)(38)) provides that “the term „United States,‟ when used in a geographical sense, means the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands of the United States.”

B. Violation Plan does not take place in any of the US takes place in Space

Voter

Limits – allows them an infinite number of advantages based off actions I outside of the United States 

Education – kills topic education becomes a space debate not an energy debate

Voter for Fairness and Education

 
1NC

The affirmative is either not topical or can solve zero of their impacts the aff plan text is

The Department of Defense should procure electricity produced in the United States from space based solar power

Space Based Solar Power does not already exist, means that they procure something that doesn’t actually exist

Voter

Ground – we can’t get ground off them procuring things that just don’t exist kills neg ground

Education – we don’t learn anything about status quo energy production 

Limits – unlimits the topic and doesn’t require the affirmative to have a direct effect

Effectst T at worst and that’s an independent voter for fairness and education

1NC
Rasmussen polls place Obama ahead, but it will be close
Rasmussen 10/5 (Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/political_updates/daily_presidential_tracking_poll)
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows President Obama attracting support from 49% of voters nationwide, while Mitt Romney earns the vote from 47%. One percent (1%) prefers some other candidate, and three percent (3%) are undecided. See daily tracking history.

Solar power is unpopular
Weiss 12 (Gary, journalist and author, 2/22, Obama Alienates Absolutely Everyone on This One Issue, http://www.thestreet.com/print/story/11427579.html)

Solar power has proven to be a liability for Obama, with the Solyndra bankruptcy giving him a major embarrassment. There is something of a silver lining in the recent performance of publicly traded solar energy companies like Suntech Power, SunPower, First Solar, Renesola, LDK Solar and JA Solar.  They've all proven disappointing to investors over the long term, but their recent price performance has been encouraging. Still, only the most glassy-eyed optimists believe that solar power will have any major impact on energy prices for a long time to come.

Obama win key to US-Russia relations – Romney’s agenda is belligerent and controversial.
Reichardt 7/9. (Adam is the Managing Editor of New Eastern Europe, “Considering Russia in the Voting Booth,” New Eastern Europe, 2012, http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/node/382)
Obama’s policy towards Russia is easier to gauge, since there has already been four years of his administration to judge. As Ross Wilson noted, “President Obama has a four-year record with Russia to defend – i.e., the reset policy and the benefits that the administration will argue have accrued from its more pragmatic and less confrontational approach to relations with Moscow.” President Obama’s policy of reset was indeed a glimmer of hope for US-Russian relations at the start of 2009, but that glimmer has all but faded. The case of Syria and Iran are clear examples of the real challenges America still faces when engaging with Russia on global issues and the Obama campaign will most likely avoid referring to the “reset” by name. “Though the Administration will not use the expression ‘reset’ too much, it can be expected to continue to emphasize pragmatism and to implement that line if the president is re-elected,” Wilson believes. Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney, has been less clear about his position on relations with Russia, but what is revealed in recent statements and on his website shows a more controversial approach. Most telling were the comments Romney made in June 2012. On Russia, Romney has stated: "The nation which consistently opposes our actions at the United Nations has been Russia. We're of course not enemies. We're not fighting each other. There's no Cold War, but Russia is a geopolitical foe in that regard." The Romney campaign’s web site reveals several areas of focus for Russia, none of them discuss active engagement, but rather focus on taking tougher stances with Russia, including renegotiating the New Start Treaty, decreasing Europe’s energy reliance on Russia, building stronger relations with Central Asia, as well as supporting Russia’s civil society. Surprisingly, the last one, engaging Russia’s civil society, could be the most controversial. The Romney campaign web site provides a strongly worded statement that “A Romney administration will be forthright in confronting the Russian government over its authoritarian practices.” Indeed, America needs a strong leader to stand up for its position in the world, however confronting Russia on internal issues may not only offend most Russians, even in the opposition – it could hurt the entire goal of this platform. Having the American government play an active role in the changes happening inside Russia could be detrimental to US-Russian relations. Many Russians believe that changes within their own country should be driven from the Russian society. Any outside interference would hurt the legitimacy of the Russian opposition and cause the Russian elite to become even more suspicious, and perhaps even hostile, to the intentions of American foreign policy.
U.S.-Russian war causes extinction – most probable
Bostrom ‘2 [Nick Bostrom, professor of philosophy - Oxford University, March, 2002, Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards, Journal of Evolution and Technology, p. http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html]
A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear war was a possibility with both a substantial probability and with consequences that might have been persistent enough to qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization.[4]  Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would not destroy or thwart humankind’s potential permanently. Such a war might however be a local terminal risk for the cities most likely to be targeted. Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are mere preludes to the existential risks that we will encounter in the 21st century.

 
1NC
The United States Federal Government should implement a policy mandating a shift from Portland cement to magnesium carbonate-based cement in 80% of total cement use. The United States federal government should reinstate all necessary funding for the F22 Raptor

Ecocement solves warmingsequesters 2 billion tons of Co2 from the atmosphere
Harrison no date John W Harrison, B.Sc. B.Ec. FCPA., TecEco Pty. Ltd.TECECO ECO-CEMENT MASONRY PRODUCT UPDATE – Carbonation = Sequestration A http://www.tececo.com/files/conference%20papers/TecEcoEco-CementMasonryProductCarbonation=Sequestration7thAustralasianMasonryConferenceNewcastle160704.pdf

If eco-cements were adopted for 80% of concrete the potential global sequestration is over two billion tonnes, over the 10% of the global anthropogenic emissions contributed by concrete because of potential cross substitution of more emitting materials. If carbon based materials such as plastic, sawdust and bottom ash are included as aggregates the figure could be higher. Summary The late great H.F.W. Taylor, perhaps the most pre-eminent cement chemist ever, predicted a need to do something about global warming in regard to cement and concrete publicly at least as far back as 1990 in his address to a Conference on Advances in Cementitious Materials (Taylor, 1990), and forecast many changes not only in the way cements are made but in their composition, particularly in relation to the incorporation of wastes. The TecEco eco-cement development is the first successful method of using carbon dioxide and wastes to create construction materials such as masonry products. As stated by Fred Pearce in the article on eco-cements that was published in the New Scientist “There is a way to make our city streets as green as the Amazon Forest. Almost every aspect of the built environment from bridges to factories to tower blocks, and from roads to sea walls, could be turned into structures that soak up carbon dioxide – the main greenhouse gas behind global warming. All we need to do it change the way we make cement.”

The F22 has been cut – Reinstating funding is key to all aspects of heg

Forbes 9 (Steve, President and Chief Executive Officer of Forbes and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes magazine, honorary doctorate in economics from Stevenson University “Resurrect the Raptor” 9/7/9 http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0907/opinions-steve-forbes-resurrect-the-raptor.html)

The Obama Administration has successfully killed the fabulous F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft. What a blunder. At a time when Washington has been spending on a scale unparalleled in American history, shooting down this program is supposed to demonstrate the Administration's ultimate deep-down fiscal rectitudewe're spending only to fight the recessionand its determination to bring sanity to defense spending. Instead of the F-22 the military will now have to make do with the F-35, a jet that has yet to go into production. The alleged virtue of the F-35 is that it's an all-purpose planethere will be versions for the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines, as well as a couple of variations for export. The F-35 shouldn't cost as much as the F-22, and it's more versatile. What's not to like?  The problem isassuming the F-35 sees the light of day in a timely mannerthat this aircraft simply doesn't do the job in air-to-air combat that the F-22 does, nor does it have the F22's ability to penetrate sophisticated defenses. The F-22 is stealthier and faster and has greater range and considerably more firepower than the F-35. No potential enemy will be able to match the F-22.  Moreover, the F-22 is already in production. We will have manufactured 187 before the assembly lines shut down. The original plan was to build 750 of these planes. Killing the F-22 is false economy. While we face no Soviet-style threat today, who's to say what enemy may emerge a decade or so from now? The F-35 can be used for other functions, such as close air support for ground troops. In short, we should produce both types of aircraft. After all, the F-35 won't be in full production for at least another seven years. Doesn't prudence dictate that we continue with what we already have, thereby achieving at least something resembling economies of scale?  And isn't it telling that Japan, Israel and other allies strongly prefer the F-22 to the F-35? Critics say that the F-22 fighter has vastly exceeded its cost estimates. Well, so has the F-35. The profound problems the Air Forceand indeed the entire militaryhas with weapons development and procurement is a separate issue. The need to reform our procurement systems shouldn't stand in the way of developing the weapons we need now and will need in the future.  Administration officials and others take our superiority in the air for granted and thereby conclude we don't need to make big investments on future weapons systems to maintain that superiority. This is a classic mistake. There's a reason that U.S. ground forces haven't suffered a battlefield casualty from hostile aircraft since 1952, during the Korean War. Even in that conflict North Korean and Chinese aircraft were rarely able to attack our ground forces. We should take no chances with this superiority.  And going ahead with the F-22 shouldn't in any way block development and funding of unmanned vehicles, which are becoming more sophisticated and deadly. The world in which we live requires that we have strong military capabilities in all areasconventional and unconventional.

 
1NC
Solar power is a tools of capitalist exploitation – voting affirmative promotes the centralization of economic power within the hands of transnational capitalism.
Harris 10 [Jerry, professor of history at DeVry University, Chicago, “Going Green to Stay in the Black: Transnational Capitalism and Renewable Energy”, Race Class -2010-Harris-62-78.pdf]
With global warming widely accepted as an existential crisis, capitalists have seized upon alternative and sustainable energy as a major transformative technology. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has called for a worldwide ‘green new deal’ that would be a ‘wholesale reconfiguration of global industry’.5 A study published by Scientific American argues for a $100 trillion programme, projecting that ‘100 percent of the world’s energy, for all purposes, could be supplied by wind, water and solar resources by 2030’.6 That is a fair amount of money but Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, points out that: ‘Each year without an international agreement adds $500 billion to the costs – estimated at $10 trillion annually – of cleaning up the Downloaded from rac.sagepub.com at University of Wyoming Libraries on July 25, 2011 64 Race & Class 52(2) power sector to help keep temperatures within a range that would avoid unstoppable climate changes.’7 Given the scale of the problem, $100 trillion over twenty years sounds feasible. But dedicating $5 trillion a year from a world GDP of $54 trillion (2007) seems impossible without a political revolution. Although still a very small part of energy consumption, wind and solar power are rapidly expanding. Total clean energy investments in 2008 were $155 billion and $145 billion in 2009.8 Eventually renewable energy may play an economic role similar to the digital, computer and telecommunications revolution of the past thirty years. These technologies laid the basis for globalisation and vastly expanded access to knowledge and information.9 Economically there was innovation, dynamic emerging corporations and new cycles of accumulation. The technologies were also used by progressive activists across the world for organising and education. Just as the digital revolution spearheaded a new era of capitalist globalisation, so too can green technology open the door to the next era of growth while promoting important progressive changes. While these possibilities exist, they will develop within historic capitalist patterns that continually reassert themselves. Digital technologies became centralised into a handful of transnational corporations, both old and new, which today dominate the market and consume innovations through constant buy-outs. That pattern is already appearing in the green energy field, except there will be no single leading location such as Silicon Valley. Solar and wind technologies are global and they are being consolidated by a small number of competitive TNCs. This does not necessarily undercut their environmental benefits. But it does undercut the democratic possibilities for a decentralised system of energy and fails to solve the problems between capital and labour. By examining, in the following sections, the major wind and solar TNCs, the character of the new green economy can begin to be uncovered.

Capitalism’s drive for profits makes all social exclusion, nuclear war, environmental destruction and extinction inevitable.
Brown, 05 (Charles, Professor of Economics and Research Scientist at the University of Michigan, 05/13/2005, http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2005w15/msg00062.htm)
The capitalist class owns the factories, the banks, and transportation-the means of production and distribution. Workers sell their ability to work in order to acquire the necessities of life. Capitalists buy the workers' labor, but only pay them back a portion of the wealth they create. Because the capitalists own the means of production, they are able to keep the surplus wealth created by workers above and beyond the cost of paying worker's wages and other costs of production. This surplus is called "profit" and consists of unpaid labor that the capitalists appropriate and use to achieve ever-greater profits. These profits are turned into capital which capitalists use to further exploit the producers of all wealth-the working class.  Capitalists are compelled by competition to seek to maximize profits. The capitalist class as a whole can do that only by extracting a greater surplus from the unpaid labor of workers by increasing exploitation. Under capitalism, economic development happens only if it is profitable to the individual capitalists, not for any social need or good. The profit drive is inherent in capitalism, and underlies or exacerbates all major social ills of our times. With the rapid advance of technology and productivity, new forms of capitalist ownership have developed to maximize profit.  The working people of our country confront serious, chronic problems because of capitalism. These chronic problems become part of the objective conditions that confront each new generation of working people.  The threat of nuclear war, which can destroy all humanity, grows with the spread of nuclear weapons, space-based weaponry, and a military doctrine that justifies their use in preemptive wars and wars without end. Ever since the end of World War II, the U.S. has been constantly involved in aggressive military actions big and small. These wars have cost millions of lives and casualties, huge material losses, as well as trillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Threats to the environment continue to spiral, threatening all life on our planet.  Millions of workers are unemployed or insecure in their jobs, even during economic upswings and periods of "recovery" from recessions. Most workers experience long years of stagnant real wages, while health and education costs soar. Many workers are forced to work second and third jobs to make ends meet. Most workers now average four different occupations during their lifetime, being involuntarily moved from job to job and career to career. Often, retirement-age workers are forced to continue working just to provide health care for themselves. With capitalist globalization, jobs move as capitalists export factories and even entire industries to other countries. Millions of people continuously live below the poverty level; many suffer homelessness and hunger. Public and private programs to alleviate poverty and hunger do not reach everyone, and are inadequate even for those they do reach.  Racism remains the most potent weapon to divide working people. Institutionalized racism provides billions in extra profits for the capitalists every year due to the unequal pay racially oppressed workers receive for work of comparable value. All workers receive lower wages when racism succeeds in dividing and disorganizing them. In every aspect of economic and social life, African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian a nd Pacific Islanders, Arabs and Middle Eastern peoples, and other nationally and racially oppressed people experience conditions inferior to that of whites. Racist violence and the poison of racist ideas victimize all people of color no matter which economic class they belong to. The attempts to suppress and undercount the vote of the African American and other racially oppressed people are part of racism in the electoral process. Racism permeates the police, judicial and prison systems, perpetuating unequal sentencing, racial profiling, discriminatory enforcement, and police brutality.  The democratic, civil and human rights of all working people are continually under attack. These attacks range from increasingly difficult procedures for union recognition and attempts to prevent full union participation in elections, to the absence of the right to strike for many public workers. They range from undercounting minority communities in the census to making it difficult for working people to run for office because of the domination of corporate campaign funding and the high cost of advertising. These attacks also include growing censorship and domination of the media by the ultra-right; growing restrictions and surveillance of activist social movements and the Left; open denial of basic rights to immigrants; and, violations of the Geneva Conventions up to and including torture for prisoners. These abuses all serve to maintain the grip of the capitalists on government power. They use this power to ensure the economic and political dominance of their class. Women still face a considerable differential in wages for work of equal or comparable value. They also confront barriers to promotion, physical and sexual abuse, continuing unequal workload in home and family life, and male supremacist ideology perpetuating unequal and often unsafe conditions. The constant attacks on social welfare programs severely impact single women, single mothers, nationally and racially oppressed women, and all working class women. The reproductive rights of all women are continually under attack ideologically and politically. Violence against women in the home and in society at large remains a shameful fact of life in the U.S.

The alternative – Reject the affirmative through the complete rejection of capitalism this is key to destroying the credibility of the capitalist system as small democratic non-hierarchical societies that can accomplish this rejection

Herod 6 [James, Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, “Getting Free” http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/GetFre/06.htm]

It is time to try to describe, at first abstractly and later concretely, a strategy for destroying capitalism. This strategy, at its most basic, calls for pulling time, energy, and resources out of capitalist civilization and putting them into building a new civilization. The image then is one of emptying out capitalist structures, hollowing them out, by draining wealth, power, and meaning out of them until there is nothing left but shells. This is definitely an aggressive strategy. It requires great militancy, and constitutes an attack on the existing order. The strategy clearly recognizes that capitalism is the enemy and must be destroyed, but it is not a frontal attack aimed at overthrowing the system, but an inside attack aimed at gutting it, while simultaneously replacing it with something better, something we want. Thus capitalist structures (corporations, governments, banks, schools, etc.) are not seized so much as simply abandoned. Capitalist relations are not fought so much as they are simply rejected. We stop participating in activities that support (finance, condone) the capitalist world and start participating in activities that build a new world while simultaneously undermining the old. We create a new pattern of social relations alongside capitalist relations and then we continually build and strengthen our new pattern while doing every thing we can to weaken capitalist relations. In this way our new democratic, non-hierarchical, non-commodified relations can eventually overwhelm the capitalist relations and force them out of existence. This is how it has to be done. This is a plausible, realistic strategy. To think that we could create a whole new world of decent social arrangements overnight, in the midst of a crisis, during a so-called revolution, or during the collapse of capitalism, is foolhardy. Our new social world must grow within the old, and in opposition to it, until it is strong enough to dismantle and abolish capitalist relations. Such a revolution will never happen automatically, blindly, determinably, because of the inexorable, materialist laws of history. It will happen, and only happen, because we want it to, and because we know what we’re doing and know how we want to live, and know what obstacles have to be overcome before we can live that way, and know how to distinguish between our social patterns and theirs. But we must not think that the capitalist world can simply be ignored, in a live and let live attitude, while we try to build new lives elsewhere. (There is no elsewhere.) There is at least one thing, wage-slavery, that we can’t simply stop participating in (but even here there are ways we can chip away at it). Capitalism must be explicitly refused and replaced by something else. This constitutes War, but it is not a war in the traditional sense of armies and tanks, but a war fought on a daily basis, on the level of everyday life, by millions of people. It is a war nevertheless because the accumulators of capital will use coercion, brutality, and murder, as they have always done in the past, to try to block any rejection of the system. They have always had to force compliance; they will not hesitate to continue doing so. Nevertheless, there are many concrete ways that individuals, groups, and neighborhoods can gut capitalism, which I will enumerate shortly. We must always keep in mind how we became slaves; then we can see more clearly how we can cease being slaves. We were forced into wage-slavery because the ruling class slowly, systematically, and brutally destroyed our ability to live autonomously. By driving us off the land, changing the property laws, destroying community rights, destroying our tools, imposing taxes, destroying our local markets, and so forth, we were forced onto the labor market in order to survive, our only remaining option being to sell, for a wage, our ability to work. It’s quite clear then how we can overthrow slavery. We must reverse this process. We must begin to reacquire the ability to live without working for a wage or buying the products made by wage-slaves (that is, we must get free from the labor market and the way of living based on it), and embed ourselves instead in cooperative labor and cooperatively produced goods. Another clarification is needed. This strategy does not call for reforming capitalism, for changing capitalism into something else. It calls for replacing capitalism, totally, with a new civilization. This is an important distinction, because capitalism has proved impervious to reforms, as a system. We can sometimes in some places win certain concessions from it (usually only temporary ones) and win some (usually short-lived) improvements in our lives as its victims, but we cannot reform it piecemeal, as a system. Thus our strategy of gutting and eventually destroying capitalism requires at a minimum a totalizing image, an awareness that we are attacking an entire way of life and replacing it with another, and not merely reforming one way of life into something else.   Many people may not be accustomed to thinking about entire systems and social orders, but everyone knows what a lifestyle is, or a way of life, and that is the way we should approach it. The thing is this: in order for capitalism to be destroyed millions and millions of people must be dissatisfied with their way of life. They must want something else and see certain existing things as obstacles to getting what they want. It is not useful to think of this as a new ideology. It is not merely a belief-system that is needed, like a religion, or like Marxism, or Anarchism. Rather it is a new prevailing vision, a dominant desire, an overriding need. What must exist is a pressing desire to live a certain way, and not to live another way. If this pressing desire were a desire to live free, to be autonomous, to live in democratically controlled communities, to participate in the self-regulating activities of a mature people, then capitalism could be destroyed. Otherwise we are doomed to perpetual slavery and possibly even to extinction.

 
Case – Warming

No runaway warming—satellite data proves the climate system isn’t sensitive to human causes and would cause less than 1 degree of warming
Spencer 10—former head climate scientist @ NASA
(Roy, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama and former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA. He now leads the US science team for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS on NASA’s Aqua Satellite “The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists,” pg 100-102)
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t understand these plots of data and my interpretation of them.  All this has just been a quantitative way of demonstrating that climate researchers have not accounted for clouds causing temperature changes (forcing) when trying to estimate how much temperature change causes clouds to change (feedback). In simple terms, they have mixed up cause and effect when analyzing cloud and temperature variations. As a result of this mix-up, the illusion of a sensitive climate system (positive feedbacks) emerges from their analysis. Thinking that the climate system is very sensitive, the climate modelers then built overly sensitive models that produce too much global warming. Or, to illustrate the issue another way, let's return to the question I had when I got involved in this line of research. When researchers have observed clouds decreasing with warming, they have claimed that this is evidence of positive feedback - a sensitive climate system. They have explained that the warming causes the clouds to decrease, which then amplifies the warming. But how did the researchers know that the warmer temperatures caused the clouds to decrease, rather than the reverse? In other words, how did they know they weren't mixing up cause and effect? It turns out they didn't know. We now have peer- reviewed and published evidence of decreases in cloud cover causing warmer temperatures, yet it has gone virtually unnoticed. I believe that this misinterpretation of how clouds really behave in the climate system helps explain why the scientific consensus is so sure that mankind is causing global warming. By confusing natural variability in clouds with positive feedback, researchers have been led to believe that the climate system is very sensitive. This, in turn, has led them to conclude that the small amount of forcing from humanity's greenhouse gas emissions is being amplified enough to explain most of the global warming that we have seen in the last fifty years or more. They claim that no natural explanation is needed for warming-that humanity's pollution is sufficient. By ignoring natural variations, they have concluded that they can ignore natural variations. The circular nature of their reasoning has not occurred to them. Furthermore, natural variability in clouds probably also explains why climate sensitivity estimates have been so variable when previous researchers have diagnosed feedbacks from satellite data. Depending on how much natural cloud variability was occurring when the satellites made their observations, a wide variety of feedback (climate sensitivity) estimates would result some bordering on a catastrophically sensitive climate system. And as long as the IPCC can claim that feedbacks in the real climate system are very uncertain, they can perpetuate their warnings that disastrous global warming cannot be ruled out. They tell us that the sensitivity of the climate system is high, but just how high isn't really known for sure. Therefore, we must prepare for catastrophic warming, just in case. One detail that 1 did not discuss in this chapter is how the infrared and solar parts of feedback behaved during the period for which we have satellite data. It turns out that the negative feedback seen by the satellites was entirely in the reflected solar component, which is most likely due to low clouds. The infrared portion of the feedback supported positive water vapor feedback, which is consistent with feedback estimates from other researchers. But it is the total feedback-solar plus infrared-that determines climate sensitivity. If negative feedbacks outweigh positive feedbacks, then the net feedback is still negative. Even the IPCC recognized the uncertainty associated with reflected solar feedback from low clouds in their 2007 report when they concluded: "Cloud feedbacks are the primary source of inter-model differences in equilibrium climate sensitivity, with low cloud being the largest contributor." Taken together, all this evidence indicates that the climate models are too sensitive, which is why they predict so much global warming for the future. In contrast, the satellite evidence indicates that the climate system is quite insensitive, which means that it doesn't really care how big your carbon footprint is. Rather than 1•5 to 6 deg. C (or more) of warming as predicted by the IPCC, a careful examination of the satellite data suggests that manmade warming due to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide could be less than 1 deg. C (1.8 deg. F)-possibly much less. 

Defo makes warming inevitable
Walker and King 8 Director of the School of Environment @Oxford
Gabrielle, PhD in Chemistry, Sir David, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, and a senior scientific adviser to UBS, The Hot Topic, pg. 106
Chopping down and burning tress contributes some eight billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year.  That’s a huge amount, more than 16 percent of total human greenhouse gas emissions—more than comes from either agriculture or transportation.  And yet it’s largely uncessary.  Destroying forests is one of the maddest form of interefering with the climate that humans have yet devised.  Most of the carbon dioxide from deforestation comes from the burning of tropical forests, especially with the Amazon rain forest.  Reasons for cutting it down range from logging of individual hardwood trees to shlash-and-burn for subsistence agriculture, to clearing land for large-scale agricultural plantions of palm oil.  Even logging of individual trees often creates mass destruction.   Bulldozers blast through the remaining trees to get to their prize: felling on individual trees often brings down their neighbors as they are bound together with woody lianas; the holes thus created in the leaf canapoy let in the hot tropical sunlight, whid dries out the forest and allows for the outbreak of accidental fire; and loggers usually build roads, which encourage the influx of subsistence slash-and-burn farmers. 

Can’t solve warming – it’s inevitable
Hamilton 10 – Professor of Public Ethics @ ANU
Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics in Australia, 2010, “Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change,” pg 27-28
The conclusion that, even if we act promptly and resolutely, the world is on a path to reach 650 ppm is almost too frightening to accept. That level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will be associated with warming of about 4°C by the end of the century, well above the temperature associated with tipping points that would trigger further warming.58 So it seems that even with the most optimistic set of assumptions—the ending of deforestation, a halving of emissions associated with food production, global emissions peaking in 2020 and then falling by 3 per cent a year for a few decades—we have no chance of preventing emissions rising well above a number of critical tipping points that will spark uncontrollable climate change. The Earth's climate would enter a chaotic era lasting thousands of years before natural processes eventually establish some sort of equilibrium. Whether human beings would still be a force on the planet, or even survive, is a moot point. One thing seems certain: there will be far fewer of us. These conclusions arc alarming, co say the least, but they are not alarmist. Rather than choosing or interpreting numbers to make the situation appear worse than it could be, following Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows 1 have chosen numbers that err on the conservative side, which is to say numbers that reflect a more buoyant assessment of the possibilities. A more neutral assessment of how the global community is likely to respond would give an even bleaker assessment of our future. For example, the analysis excludes non-CO2, emissions from aviation and shipping. Including them makes the task significantly harder, particularly as aviation emissions have been growing rapidly and are expected to continue to do so as there is no foreseeable alternative to severely restricting the number of flights.v' And any realistic assessment of the prospects for international agreement would have global emissions peaking closer to 2030 rather than 2020. The last chance to reverse the trajectory of global emissions by 2020 was forfeited at the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009. As a consequence, a global response proportionate to the problem was deferred for several years.

Solar causes more emissions causing more warming
Zycher, Pacific Research Institute Senior Fellow, 12¶
(Benjamin, Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics adjunct professor, associate in the Intelligence Community Associates Program of the Office of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State, former senior staff economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers, April 19, “Zycher testimony to joint House subcommittee hearing on subsidies for renewable energy,” http://www.aei.org/article/energy-and-the-environment/alternative-energy/zycher-testimony-to-joint-house-subcommittee-hearing-on-subsidies-for-renewable-energy/, d/a 8-1-12, ads)
A cleaner environment is worth it, you say? Not so fast. As counterintuitive as it may seem, increased reliance on wind and solar power will hurt the environment, not because of such phony issues as endangered cockroaches, used by the environmental left as a tool with which to obstruct the renewable energy projects that they claim to support. Instead, this damage will be real, in the form of greater air pollution. The conventional generators needed to back up the unreliable wind and solar production will have to be cycled up and down because the system operators will be required to take wind and solar generation when it is available. This means greater operating inefficiency and more emissions. That is precisely what a recent engineering study of the effects of renewables requirements found for Colorado and Texas.¶ So we have achieved the perfect leftist trifecta: higher costs, lower reliability, and more environmental degradation. Such plagues are hardly biblical, but neither are they trivial. Will Governor Brown finally be content? Obviously not, as he now wants higher taxes to feed a Sacramento monster utterly destructive in so many dimensions.

 
Case – Heg
Hegemonic decline is inevitable – multiple reasons.
Layne 12 [Christopher Layne is professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A & M, January 27, 2012 (The National Interest, “The Almost Triumph of Offshore Balancing,” http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/almost-triumph-offshore-balancing-6405)]

Although cloaked in the reassuring boilerplate about American military preeminence and global leadership, in reality the Obama administration’s new Defense Strategic Guidance (DSG) is the first step in the United States’ adjustment to the end of the Pax Americana—the sixty-year period of dominance that began in 1945. As the Pentagon document says—without spelling out the long-term grand-strategic implications—the United States is facing “an inflection point.” In plain English, a profound power shift in international politics is taking place, which compels a rethinking of the U.S. world role. The DSG is a response to two drivers. First, the United States is in economic decline and will face a serious fiscal crisis by the end of this decade. As President Obama said, the DSG reflects the need to “put our fiscal house in order here at home and renew our long-term economic strength.” The best indicators of U.S. decline are its GDP relative to potential competitors and its share of world manufacturing output. China’s manufacturing output has now edged past that of the United States and accounts for just over 18 or 19 percent of world manufacturing output. With respect to GDP, virtually all leading economic forecasters agree that, measured by market-exchange rates, China’s aggregate GDP will exceed that of the United States by the end of the current decade. Measured by purchasing-power parity, some leading economists believe China already is the world’s number-one economy. Clearly, China is on the verge of overtaking the United States economically. At the end of this decade, when the ratio of U.S. government debt to GDP is likely to exceed the danger zone of 100 percent, the United States will face a severe fiscal crisis. In a June 2011 report, the Congressional Budget Office warned that unless Washington drastically slashes expenditures—including on entitlements and defense—and raises taxes, it is headed for a fiscal train wreck. Moreover, concerns about future inflation and America’s ability to repay its debts could imperil the U.S. dollar’s reserve-currency status. That currency status allows the United States to avoid difficult “guns-or-butter” trade-offs and live well beyond its means while enjoying entitlements at home and geopolitical preponderance abroad. But that works only so long as foreigners are willing to lend the United States money. Speculation is now commonplace about the dollar’s long-term hold on reserve-currency status. It would have been unheard of just a few years ago. The second driver behind the new Pentagon strategy is the shift in global wealth and power from the Euro-Atlantic world to Asia. As new great powers such as China and, eventually, India emerge, important regional powers such as Russia, Japan, Turkey, Korea, South Africa and Brazil will assume more prominent roles in international politics. Thus, the post-Cold War “unipolar moment,” when the United States commanded the global stage as the “sole remaining superpower,” will be replaced by a multipolar international system. The Economist recently projected that China’s defense spending will equal that of the United States by 2025. By the middle or end of the next decade, China will be positioned to shape a new international order based on the rules and norms that it prefers—and, perhaps, to provide the international economy with a new reserve currency. Two terms not found in the DSG are “decline” and “imperial overstretch” (the latter coined by the historian Paul Kennedy to describe the consequences when a great power’s economic resources can’t support its external ambitions). But, although President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta may not admit it, the DSG is the first move in what figures to be a dramatic strategic retrenchment by the United States over the next two decades. This retrenchment will push to the fore a new U.S. grand strategy—offshore balancing. In a 1997 article in International Security, I argued that offshore balancing would displace America’s primacy strategy because it would prove difficult to sustain U.S. primacy in the face of emerging new powers and the erosion of U.S. economic dominance. Even in 1997, it was foreseeable that as U.S. advantages eroded, there would be strong pressures for the United States to bring its commitments into line with its shrinking economic base. This would require scaling back the U.S. military presence abroad; setting clear strategic priorities; devolving the primary responsibility for maintaining security in Europe and East Asia to regional actors; and significantly reducing the size of the U.S. military. Subsequent to that article, offshore balancing has been embraced by other leading American thinkers, including John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, Barry Posen, Christopher Preble and Robert Pape. To be sure, the proponents of offshore balancing have differing ideas about its specifics. But they all agree that offshore balancing is based on a common set of core strategic principles. ● Fiscal and economic constraints require that the United States set strategic priorities. Accordingly, the country should withdraw or downsize its forces in Europe and the Middle East and concentrate is military power in East Asia. ● America’s comparative strategic advantages rest on naval and air power, not on sending land armies to fight ground wars in Eurasia. Thus the United States should opt for the strategic precepts of Alfred Thayer Mahan (the primacy of air and sea power) over those of Sir Halford Mackinder (the primacy of land power). ● Offshore balancing is a strategy of burden shifting, not burden sharing. It is based on getting other states to do more for their security so the United States can do less. ● By reducing its geopolitical and military footprint on the ground in the Middle East, the United States can reduce the incidence of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism directed against it. Islamic terrorism is a push back against U.S. dominance and policies in the region and against on-the-ground forces in the region. The one vital U.S. interest there—safeguarding the free flow of Persian Gult oil—can be ensured largely by naval and air power. ● The United States must avoid future large-scale nation-building exercises like those in Iraq and Afghanistan and refrain from fighting wars for the purpose of attaining regime change. Several of these points are incorporated in the new DSG. For example, the new strategy document declares that the United States “will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region.” The document also states the United States will “rebalance [its] military investment in Europe” and that the American military posture on the Continent must “evolve.” (The Pentagon’s recent decision to cut U.S. ground forces in Europe from four brigades to two is an example of this “evolution.”) Finally, implicitly rejecting the post-9/11 American focus on counterinsurgency, the strategy document says that with the end of the Iraq war and the winding down of the conflict in Afghanistan, “U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations.” The DSG reflects the reality that offshore balancing has jumped from the cloistered walls of academe to the real world of Washington policy making. In recent years the U.S. Navy, the Joint Staff and the National Intelligence Council all have shown interest in offshore balancing as an alternative to primacy. Indeed, in his February 2011 West Point speech, then defense secretary Robert Gates made two key points that expressed a clear strategic preference for Mahan over Mackinder. First, he said that “the most plausible, high-end scenarios for the U.S. military are primarily naval and air engagements—whether in Asia, the Persian Gulf, or elsewhere.” Second—with an eye on the brewing debate about intervention in Libya—he declared that “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.” In plain English, no more Eurasian land wars. The subsequent Libyan intervention bore the hallmarks of offshore balancing: The United States refused to commit ground forces and shifted the burden of military heavy lifting to the Europeans. Still, within the DSG document there is an uneasy tension between the recognition that economic constraints increasingly will impinge on the U.S. strategic posture and the assertion that America’s global interests and military role must remain undiminished. This reflects a deeper intellectual dissonance within the foreign-policy establishment, which is reluctant to accept the reality of American decline. In August 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed a “New American Moment;” reaffirmed the U.S. responsibility to lead the world; and laid out an ambitious U.S. global agenda. More recently, Mitt Romney, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, declared that the twenty-first century “must be an American century” and that “America is not destined to be one of several equally balanced global powers.” These views are echoed by foreign-policy scholars who refuse to acknowledge the reality of decline or embrace a theory of “painless decline” whereby Pax Americana’s norms and institutions will survive any American retrenchment. But, American “exceptionalism” notwithstanding, the United States is not exempt from the historical pattern of great-power decline. The country needs to adjust to the world of 2025 when China will be the number-one economy and spending more on defense than any other nation. Effective strategic retrenchment is about more than just cutting the defense budget; it also means redefining America’s interests and external ambitions. Hegemonic decline is never painless. As the twenty-first century’s second decade begins, history and multipolarity are staging a comeback. The central strategic preoccupation of the United States during the next two decades will be its own decline and China’s rise.

Best data concludes hegemony doesn’t solve war
Fettweis 11 (Christopher J. Fettweis, Department of Political Science, Tulane University, 9/26/11, Free Riding or Restraint? Examining European Grand Strategy, Comparative Strategy, 30:316–332, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01495933.2011.605020)

Strategy Based on Faith, Not Evidence
It is perhaps worth noting that there is no evidence to support a direct relationship between the relative level of U.S. activism and international stability. In fact, the limited data we do have suggest the opposite may be true. During the 1990s, the United States cut back on its defense spending fairly substantially. By 1998, the United States was spending $100 billion less on defense in real terms than it had in 1990.51 To internationalists, defense hawks and believers in hegemonic stability, this irresponsible “peace dividend” endangered both national and global security. “No serious analyst of American military capabilities,” argued Kristol and Kagan, “doubts that the defense budget has been cut much too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace.”52 On the other hand, if the pacific trends were not based upon U.S. hegemony but a strengthening norm against interstate war, one would not have expected an increase in global instability and violence.
The verdict from the past two decades is fairly plain: The world grew more peaceful while the United States cut its forces. No state seemed to believe that its security was endangered by a less-capable United States military, or at least none took any action that would suggest such a belief. No militaries were enhanced to address power vacuums, no security dilemmas drove insecurity or arms races, and no regional balancing occurred once the stabilizing presence of the U.S. military was diminished. The rest of the world acted as if the threat of international war was not a pressing concern, despite the reduction in U.S. capabilities. Most of all, the United States and its allies were no less safe. The incidence and magnitude of global conflict declined while the United States cut its military spending under President Clinton, and kept declining as the Bush Administration ramped the spending back up. No complex statistical analysis should be necessary to reach the conclusion that the two are unrelated.

 
Solvency
Electricity generated by SBSP will not be produced at economically competitive rates due to transmission inefficiencies.
Fetter, Steve, PhD, Energy and Resources, UC-Berkeley and Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland. “Space Solar Power: An Idea Whose Time Will Never Come?.” Forum on Physics & Society. The American Physical Society. Jan 04 <http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2004/january/jan04.pdf>.

Smith correctly states that earth-based systems suffer from the day-night cycle and cloud cover, and the consequent need for energy storage or very-long-distance transmission. But earth-based solar systems could supply up to 20 percent of U.S. electricity demand3—the fraction currently provided by nuclear or hydro—without significant storage or long-distance transmission. Even if solar was used to meet all electricity demand—an unlikely scenario—only about half of the solar electricity produced by earth-based systems would have to be stored or transmitted over intercontinental distances. By comparison, 100 percent of SSP electricity would have to be transmitted wirelessly to earth, at efficiencies optimistically estimated at 40 percent. Moreover, SSP transmission is very likely to be less efficient and more expensive per kilowatt-hour than storage or transmission of electricity generated by earth-based stations.

Space-based solar power is infeasible—launch costs
Fetter, Steve, PhD, Energy and Resources, UC-Berkeley and Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland. “Space Solar Power: An Idea Whose Time Will Never Come?.” Forum on Physics & Society. The American Physical Society, Vol. 33, No. 1. Jan 04 <http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2004/january/jan04.pdf>.
In summary, SSP could compete with earth-based solar power only if all of the following conditions are met:   • solar supplies 100% of total electricity demand;  • the cost of space-based solar arrays is reduced to $1000 kWp–1 and that earth-based arrays do not cost less than space-based arrays;  • SSP transmission costs no more than $0.01 kWh–1 and is no less efficient and no more expensive than storage or intercontinental transmission of electricity generated by earth-based systems;  • SSP operation and maintenance costs no more than $0.01 kWh–1 and is no more expensive than operations and maintenance of earth-based systems; and  • launch cost to low-earth orbit (currently about $10,000 kg–1) is reduced by a factor of 40, to less than $250 [per kilogram] kg–1.   Much of the discussion surrounding SSP has focused on the last of these conditions. A launch cost of $250 kg–1 corresponds to a cost of only $3 to $5 kg–1 for a disposable launcher—comparable to the cost of the propellants alone.7 Propellant for a reusable vehicle is likely to cost more than $50 per kilogram placed into orbit;8 achieving a total cost of $250 [per kilogram]kg–1 would therefore require a total-to-fuel cost ratio of no more than 5:1. Given that the total-to-fuel cost ratio for the U.S. air freight industry is about 4:1, launch costs below $250 [per kilogram] kg–1 are probably unachievable with chemical rocket technology.  The probability the SSP could produce electricity more cheaply than solar arrays on earth is so small that any expenditure of federal funds for research and development on this concept would be unwise and unwarranted.

Space-based solar power is infeasible—launch costs
The American Physical Society. “Concerns Voiced Over Future of Space Science Programs.” Forum on Physics & Society., Vol. 36, No. 3. Jan 07 < http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2007/july/forum-news.html#space_science>.
Illingworth also testified that, in the past, mission cost estimates were often "unrealistic and incomplete," leading to "a gap between what we wanted to do and what we can do." He said this concern has been recognized by both the agency and the science community. Stern commented that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has instituted new policies requiring higher confidence levels for project costs, and allowing principal investigators to be removed from heading missions if cost growth gets out of control. Stern also suggested that principal investigators consider reducing their research and teaching workloads during the critical stages of mission development. Baker pointed out that launch costs could increase dramatically when Boeing phases out its Delta II launch vehicle. The panelists agreed that NASA needs to find a way to maintain such a critical payload launch capability. They also suggested that the bureaucratic overhead involved in mission risk reduction, while appropriate to manned missions, was perhaps unnecessary for unmanned missions and led to additional cost growth.

SBSP has significant maintenance issues—radiation, high orbit
URSI (UNION RADIO-SCIENTIFIQUE INTERNATIONALE) “URSI White Paper on Solar Power Satellite (SPS) Systems” 01 Sept 2006. <http://ursi.ca/SPS-2006sept.pdf>.
Other key issues of SPS technology are lifetime and maintenance. The limited lifetime of solar cells has already been mentioned, but a long-term radiation hazard also exists for any solid-state device on the SPS, such as dc-to microwave converters, for instance. In addition, there is the problem of the long-term mechanical stability of the very large structures of the solar panels and the microwave transmitting antenna. The long-term influence of tidal effects and radiation pressure have to be examined. In principle, both effects can deform the structure as well as change its orientation. In particular, the radiation pressure exerts a force that changes continuously in direction with respect to the line joining the satellite and the rectenna. This may pose serious problems concerning the control of the orbit and the orientation of the RF beam. The amplitude of this force is of the order of 100 N for a solar-cell area of 10 km2 (2 × solar radiation power flux × 10 km2/velocity of light). Regarding maintenance, the present-day experiences for low Earth orbits with the Hubble space telescope and the International Space Station indicate that maintaining and servicing a much larger system in a much higher orbit may be very difficult and much more expensive than for low Earth orbits. A completely new approach to space maintenance may be required to maintain assets at geostationary orbit. Currently, progressive replacement is the only viable option.

SBSP is awful—engineers say so
Rako, Paul, technical editor for EDN.com. “Solar power in space, a really stupid idea.”  EDN.com [a comprehensive information source for the EOEM (electronics original equipment manufacturer) segment, providing in-depth technical information for electronics design engineers and news and strategic business insight for executives]  7/25/08 <http://www.edn.com/blog/1700000170/post/1830030583.html>
The New York Times has an article about solar power satellites (SPS). This is where you put a few square mile of solar panels up in space and then just beam the power down to earth with microwaves. This idea was so loony and so farcical on it’s face that I about had a conniption fit. Well, this is the great thing about the Internet. See, the New York Times allows comments on its articles and they soon had six pages of comments, many from engineers like ourselves that pointed out how incredibly stupid this idea was. A few years ago the Times would have received a dozen letters critical of the article and maybe published one or maybe killed them and nobody is the wiser. Now they get 143 comments, mostly con, that suddenly appear and the whole world can see how absurd the proposals in the article are. And I love the researcher that comments, “What would it hurt to spend about 100 million on further research?” Well not his house payment, but we peons have better things to research with our tax dollars. Like why the seam of my blue jeans’ legs curl up when they come out of the dryer. I always wondered about that.
US action in space violates treaties, hurting softpower
John S. Lewis, Professor of Planetary Science and Co-Director, Space Engineering Research Center, University of Arizona. Ph. D. in Chemistry and Cosmochemistry, University of California, San Diego, Christopher Lewis, J.D. J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, 2005, “A PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL LEGAL REGIME FOR THE ERA OF PRIVATE COMMERCIAL UTILIZATION OF SPACE” George Washington International Law Review, Lexis 

1. The Outer Space Treaty   The Outer Space Treaty, which ninety countries have ratified, forms an important part of international law and establishes many fundamental legal principles that relate to the utilization of space resources. It states that "the exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind." n13 Furthermore, it asserts that "outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." n14   [*752]   2. The Moon Treaty   Unlike the Outer Space Treaty, only a small number of nations formally support the Moon Treaty. n15 The Moon Treaty provides that non-terrestrial space resources, including mineral and other resources on the Moon and any other celestial bodies, "are the common heritage of mankind" n16 and that they "shall be the province of all mankind and shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development." n17  Echoing, and adding to, some of the Outer Space Treaty's general principles, the Moon Treaty states that "neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person." n18 It also states that "the placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface, shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the moon or any areas thereof." n19 To the degree of the Treaty's applicability, then, no private enterprise, individual, government, or other entity may lay claim to asteroid and lunar resources. n20  In addition to reiterating and expanding the general principles set forth in the Outer Space Treaty, the Moon Treaty contains some novel provisions, including requiring the establishment of "an international regime, including appropriate procedures, to  [*753]  govern the exploitation of the natural resources of the moon as such exploitation is about to become feasible." n21 The international regime is, designed in part, to ensure "an equitable sharing by all State Parties in the benefits derived from those resources, whereby the interests and needs of the developing countries, as well as the efforts of those countries which have contributed either directly or indirectly to the exploration of the moon, shall be given special consideration." n22 

Violating international is irrational, invites others to break the rules causing boundary disputes destabilizing the world resulting in extinction
Thomas M. Franck, Board of Directors, January, 2006, “CENTENNIAL ESSAY: THE POWER OF LEGITIMACY AND THE LEGITIMACY OF POWER: INTERNATIONAL LAW IN AN AGE OF POWER DISEQUILIBRIUM,” American Journal of International Law,
Lexis Sixteen years ago, in a book about legitimacy, I posed the question: Why do nations obey rules? n15 My answer was that, at least in part, they obey because they perceive the rule and its institutional penumbra to have a high degree of legitimacy. Forced, then, to answer the next question  What is legitimacy?  I argued that legitimacy is the capacity of a rule to pull those to whom it is addressed toward consensual compliance. That argument does not claim that a rule's legitimacy is the sole or, in some instances, even the primary reason a state chooses to obey the law. It does not maintain that lack of legitimacy is necessarily the sole or primary reason for any state's decision not to comply. It does claim, however, that states, in determining whether or not to obey the law, usually take into account their interest in the law as such, quite aside from whether, in any particular instance, the rules serve the national interest by validating a desired outcome. Rational choice, in other words, must take into account the important interest of a state  even a superpower  in strengthening the rule of law in interstate relations by making itself hostage to the rule, through compliance with it, even to the detriment of shortterm national interests. n16  In writing about the power of legitimacy, my primary objective was to demonstrate that rule legitimacy matters, so I focused on the elements that reinforce it: determinacy, symbolic validation, coherence, and adherence. Of these, determinacy seems the most important, being that quality of a norm that generates an ascertainable understanding of what it permits and what it prohibits. When that line becomes unascertainable, states are unlikely to defer opportunities for self-gratification. The rule's compliance pull evaporates.  Recent actions of states in Kosovo and Iraq have led to questions about the continuing compliance pull of the fundamental rule of the post-World War II legal order, the rule contained in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter that prohibits states' unilateral recourse to force except (per Article 51) in response to an armed attack. Like the "realists," I am aware that noncompliance with that law is undermining respect for it, and for international law in general. My concern is that noncompliant behavior, if tolerated, may render the content of that rule so indeterminate as to make it easy and tempting to be a scofflaw. Must we conclude that what NATO did with respect to Kosovo and what the U.S.-led states did in invading Iraq have generated a widespread perception that violations of the international law restraining states from recourse to  [*94]  force have dissolved the rule's element of determinacy, so that it no longer actually "binds" states?  That, it seems, is what some American commentators have concluded. Theirs is a challenge to which response must be made, for a rule that is riddled with exceptions no longer makes a clear statement and cannot be taken as a serious predictor of state conduct. As such, it invites further violations of that and other rules. Or it generates momentum for a different norm, one that accommodates the violations and makes them the basis of a new rule. For example, some are already arguing that states that harbor terrorists or violate the rights of their own people are no longer entitled to the sovereign prerogatives that underpin Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. n17  The perception of a rule's degree of bindingness, at any particular juncture of its history, will determine its vulnerability to this sort of displacement. That all-important degree, however, is not easily measured; certainly not simply by counting the number of violations. Violations of treaties, and of universal treaties in particular, are no substitutes for legitimate amendments. Still, laws can fall into desuetude.  What follows, hereafter, is an attempt at a nuanced inquiry into the determinacy of the rule against states' unilateral recourse to force in the wake of the interventions in Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq in 2003. Has the prohibition been battered beyond recognition, forfeiting its legitimacy as nations conclude that it lacks all determinacy? Has it lost its capacity to pull states toward consensual compliance? Have we now entered an age in which anything goes?  II. LEGITIMACY AND DETERMINACY  Let us begin by examining in somewhat greater detail the principal variable in determining the rule's degree of legitimacy. That variable is the rule's perceived determinacy. Has the prohibition on the unilateral recourse to force by states become meaningless through the response of states to scofflaw behavior? n18  Determinacy is "that which makes [the rule's] message clear" or "transparent." n19 It is usually achieved by a rule text's explicit statement of a boundary between the permissible and the impermissible, or by the designation of a process for clarifying, in a contested instance, the meaning of a rule. In other words, a rule that is vague may still be seen as quite legitimate if its application in given, contested instances is open to a process that yields specificity. For example, I argued in my book Recourse to Force that the case-by-case interpretation by the Security Council of the prohibition on the use of force except in self-defense  in practice  has qualified the meaning of "armed attack" so as to include instances of imminent attack, n20 a view recently also taken by the high-level panel advising the UN secretary-general on Charter reform. n21 In practice, the rule evolves but remains determinate.  In instances like Kosovo and Iraq, where neither Yugoslavia nor Iraq had committed an armed attack such as to give automatic rise to a right to use force in self-defense, the Charter  [*95]  designates the Security Council as the appropriate institution  the jury  for deciding, in accordance with Article 39, whether the situation has risen to the level of a "threat to the peace" that could warrant recourse to force, even in the absence of a prior armed attack. Yet, in the instance of Kosovo, NATO chose to circumvent the Council and, in the Iraqi case, the United States and Britain also chose to do so. What effect has this evasion had on the legitimacy and, thus, the compliance pull of the rules? Is there any longer a bright line between the permissible and the impermissible?  Certainly, some in the administration in Washington, and some, primarily American, scholars, have been quite vociferous in claiming that such a line between the permissible and the impermissible, whether it ever existed or not, no longer exerts any compliance pull on states. n22 They have attacked the legitimacy of the rule against recourse to force directly and, indirectly, the rule  pacta sunt servanda  on which all else depends in international law. They have done this in the name of humanitarian intervention and preventive measures against terrorism, both very modern issues high on almost everyone's list of concerns. These concerns, they have argued, cannot any longer be met with the old rules and processes.  Are they right?  There can be no doubt that, as a result of those recent recourses to force in Kosovo and Iraq, widespread unease can be sensed about the state of Charter-based international law applicable to war. That unease is probably even more pronounced among those of us who believe that compliance with international law is not an option but a mandate.  III. HAVE THE CHARTER RULES LOST DETERMINACY?  The all-important question of whether the Charter rules have lost determinacy can be addressed only by reference to state practice: the conduct and opinions of a world of states. Care must be taken in defining that universe of state practice. In matters of usage and perception, the U.S. government is profoundly affected by its sense of being the world's only superpower and of the prerogatives that supposedly entails. Yet the rest of the nations, some two hundred of them, may see the rules  and act on them  quite differently. For example, the UN Security Council's persistent refusal to validate the 2003 invasion of Iraq demonstrates most states' continued reliance on the Charter rules, conduct that does not conduce to any theory of their obsolescence or delegitimation.  It also matters what we count as perceptions and usages. For example, things states do not do, or which they say they are not doing, or not saying they are doing, may be as important a gauge of the rules' efficacy as what they actually do. If rule violators are highly visible, the preponderant majority of law abiders is less so. But compliant behavior should count as much as noncompliant, in determining prevalent perceptions and usages.  The behavior of the noncompliant also requires close scrutiny. Professor H. L. A. Hart, although keenly aware of the shortcomings of international law as a system of normative obligations, nevertheless acknowledged that even in this imperfect system, nations behave as if the law were binding; not, he said, by always obeying its strictures but by acknowledging a "general pressure for conformity to the rules. . . . When the rules are disregarded, it is not on the footing that they are not binding; instead efforts are made to conceal the facts." n23 <Several Paragraphs Later> If these avowals of fact had been true, the actions of Hanoi, Moscow, London, and Washington might well have been law-compliant. Even after the U.S. government's own 9/11 Commission concluded that there was no evidence of complicity with Al Qaeda by Saddam Hussein, n30 Vice President Dick Cheney has persisted in perpetuating that myth. n31 Why? To make the U.S. resort to force seem legally justified. Deprived of the myth, the illegality stands exposed. Even after the president's own chief weapons hunter, David Kay, reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction to be found in Iraq, n32 the Bush administration will not admit that they did not exist. n33 Why? Because to admit what is obvious to almost everyone else n34 would be to admit that the invasion of Iraq was illegal.  But why should the world's sole superpower care whether it is perceived as acting illegally? Why defend a "rational choice" in tortured legal terms? Why would some prefer to live in a bubble of false information, rather than stand exposed as facilitators of what is defined as aggression under a system of international law they revile as ineffective and contrary to rational choice? It does seem that somewhere, deep in the recesses of their reasoning process, leaders in Washington harbor a grudging awareness that the rest of the world still regards the rules, however egregiously violated by a few powerful scofflaws, as legitimate and binding. More generally, the failure of many of America's closest allies to help share the burden of invading and controlling Iraq speaks of widespread support for the "old" rules. n35  Even a cursory examination of the post-Charter historic record makes clear that, in actual practice, almost all states, almost all the time, do abide by the strictures of Articles 2(4) and 51, refraining from resolving problems they may have with other states by recourse to force. Yes, there have been flare-ups between India and Pakistan, n36 and between India and China. n37 But during the Cold War, most scofflaw behavior was skirmishing between the superpowers. Another spate of flare-ups followed the disintegration of the Soviet empire. States in the Congo Basin, too, have exhibited instability and unlawful behavior. n38 In each instance, however, and with varying degrees of success, the UN system has been enlisted in strenuous efforts to mitigate and end those violations, applying and reinforcing precisely the rules that had been violated. n39   [*98]  Against these highly visible instances of unlawful behavior must be set a much larger, but largely unremarked, aggregation of almost habitual compliance practice affirming the rules of the game. That so many states, so much of the time, resolve their boundary disputes by adjudication or arbitration n40 tells us the very same thing as the hapless lies of the persistent violators: that the rules against first use of force retain a high level of legitimacy in the community of states to which they are addressed.  It seems apparent to me that the normative system established by the UN Charter is not eroding. On the contrary, its legitimacy is rather consistently upheld in the rhetoric of all states and the behavior of most. The unlawful conduct of the scofflaws may be a great political problem because of the scale of the suffering it inflicts on the innocent and because of its great capacity to destabilize world order. But such aberrant behavior has not been a serious challenge to the law, because only the most extreme of its apologists openly attack the normative order or seek to replace it with any alternative set of rules. President George W. Bush's desire to make clear that the United States would act preemptively, more or less at will, whenever it thought its security threatened, n41 was not taken seriously as a legal proposition, since it was not remotely advanced as a new reciprocal right, one tenable by any nation, but, rather, in the unilateralist spirit of Thucydides' characterization of the law governing relations between Athens and little Melos during the Peloponnesian Wars: that the powerful do as they will, while the weak do as they must. n42  Oddly, almost nothing proposed by the United States since it thus proclaimed itself the world's sole superpower has taken the form of new norms meant to govern state recourse to force, even though this is an era with complex new problems for which new rules might even be desirable. Indeed, it is remarkable that the United States, in what Andy Warhol might have called its fifteen minutes as sole superpower, has not sought to shape new rules, willfully abdicating one of the prerogatives, one would think, of superpower-dom. Instead, it has tried, even risibly, to show sometimes that it still adheres to the old rules, and at other times that it does not believe rules apply to it at all.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
T- Subsets

Our interpretation is that the affirmative must increase one or more forms of energy specified in the resolution as whole

Violation – They don’t increase that industry as a whole – they specify

Limits – it’s infinitely regressive –they get to specify farther than the resolution intended and get out of our links and destroy clash in the debate 

Framer’s Intent – Resolution was clearly made for a debate over industry they turn it into a debate about obscure technologies

Ground – They use this to spike our links, affirmative ground is stacked in the arguments about obscure technologies – while the negative evidence is more about the industry skews the topic

Education - kills topic education we don’t get to learn about the industry or the specifics in energy instead they shift the debate into obscure technology forcing the debate into generics 

Extra-T – They do more than the resolution allows – their specific form of technology arguments are all extra topical – independent voter 

Voter for fairness and education

 
1NCQuid Pro Quo 

A. Incentives must be QPQ 

1. There must be a change in behavior
   De LaHunt, 6 - Assistant Director for Environmental Health & Safety Services in Colorado College's Facilities Services department (John, “Perverse and unintended” Journal of Chemical Health and Safety, July-August, Science direct)

Incentives work on a quid pro quo basis – this for that. If you change your behavior, I’ll give you a reward. One could say that coercion is an incentive program – do as I say and I’ll let you live. However, I define an incentive as getting something you didn’t have before in exchange for new behavior, so that pretty much puts coercion in its own box, one separate from incentives. But fundamental problems plague the incentive approach. Like coercion, incentives are poor motivators in the long run, for at least two reasons – unintended consequences and perverse incentives.
2. It’s a sequencing question—the change has to happen first
ENGLE & DOWLING 05
Allen, Univ of Eastern Kentucky,  Peter, Univ of Canberra¶  http://people.eku.edu/englea/GlobalrewardsWEBLJUB.pdf.

Incentives are defined as promises made in exchange for performance; ¶ rewarded after the performance occurs (Mahoney, 1979; 1989; Maxwell, 2000: 245-¶ 247). The sequence is as follows: promise – performance – rewards. Rewards are ¶ defined as the consequence of performance. Here the sequence is performance¶ followed by rewards.

B. Violations there are 2
i. Gives money and does not designate what they get in return
ii. The giving of the incentive happens BEFORE the
C. RTP
i. Solves effects—allows the plan in a vacuum test to determine if the incentive is direct and if there is a condition on the receipt of a reward  
ii. Limits: Their interpretation would explode the topic because it would allow any action that would spur investment to be topical.  This means that they could in theory remove an current incentive to on a non-topic sector and argue that they are an incentive.  In essence they could remove a subsidy for ethanol and argue Ethanol bad and that fewer subsidies for ethanol would spur oil production.  It would functionally make the topic bi-directional and would moot the importance of the topic sectors.  Err on the side of caution.
T is a voter for education and competitive equity  
Politics
Obama will win – majority of polling techniques – but it’s close

American Political Science Association 9/19/12 [8 Of 13 Election Forecasts Predict Obama Wins 2012 Popular Vote;

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/  Several forecast models developed by prominent political scientists predict President Obama will win the popular vote in the 2012 US presidential election, with 8 of 13 polls giving Barack Obama the edge over Mitt Romney. Nevertheless, it will be extremely close with the average of all forecast models predicting Obama will receive 50.2% of the two-party popular vote. For comparison, in 2008, Obama received 53.7% of the two-party popular vote. Five of the 13 models predict a modest to close popular-vote plurality for Barack Obama, though three of these are on the cusp of predicting a tossup; five predict a modest to close popular vote victory for Mitt Romney; and three regard the election as a tossup. The forecasts range from predicting a 53.8% vote for Obama to a 53.1% vote for Romney.¶ All of the predictions appear in an election-themed symposium in the October issue of PS: Political Science and Politics, a journal of the American Political Science Association (APSA). The forecasts are based on different combinations of statistical and historical data and differ in their complexity and how far in advance their predictions were made. The earliest forecast was made 299 days in advance while the latest was made 57 days before the election. Together, these forecasts use a range of approaches and indicators that are critical to understanding national electoral processes and the dynamics at work in US presidential elections.

Solar power is unpopular
Weiss 12 (Gary, journalist and author, 2/22, Obama Alienates Absolutely Everyone on This One Issue, http://www.thestreet.com/print/story/11427579.html)

Solar power has proven to be a liability for Obama, with the Solyndra bankruptcy giving him a major embarrassment. There is something of a silver lining in the recent performance of publicly traded solar energy companies like Suntech Power, SunPower, First Solar, Renesola, LDK Solar and JA Solar.  They've all proven disappointing to investors over the long term, but their recent price performance has been encouraging. Still, only the most glassy-eyed optimists believe that solar power will have any major impact on energy prices for a long time to come.

Energy is a key voting point – recent economic success has brought it to the forefront
Gardett 12 (Peter, 8/23, As Voters Focus on Energy, API Chief Begs: 'Turn Us Loose', http://energy.aol.com/2012/08/23/as-voters-focus-on-energy-api-chief-begs-turn-us-loose/?icid=related4)
The US oil and natural gas business has been an unusual bright spot for the American economy over the past four years, and that success has helped highlight energy issues as a major factor in the 2012 election cycle. Energy has not traditionally been a focus of electoral politics beyond prices at the gasoline pump, but this year the broader focus on the economy and the government's role in directing it have brought to light the successes, the potential and the risks of energy development in the US.

Obama win key to US-Russia relations – Romney’s agenda is belligerent and controversial.
Reichardt 7/9. (Adam is the Managing Editor of New Eastern Europe, “Considering Russia in the Voting Booth,” New Eastern Europe, 2012, http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/node/382)
Obama’s policy towards Russia is easier to gauge, since there has already been four years of his administration to judge. As Ross Wilson noted, “President Obama has a four-year record with Russia to defend – i.e., the reset policy and the benefits that the administration will argue have accrued from its more pragmatic and less confrontational approach to relations with Moscow.” President Obama’s policy of reset was indeed a glimmer of hope for US-Russian relations at the start of 2009, but that glimmer has all but faded. The case of Syria and Iran are clear examples of the real challenges America still faces when engaging with Russia on global issues and the Obama campaign will most likely avoid referring to the “reset” by name. “Though the Administration will not use the expression ‘reset’ too much, it can be expected to continue to emphasize pragmatism and to implement that line if the president is re-elected,” Wilson believes. Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney, has been less clear about his position on relations with Russia, but what is revealed in recent statements and on his website shows a more controversial approach. Most telling were the comments Romney made in June 2012. On Russia, Romney has stated: "The nation which consistently opposes our actions at the United Nations has been Russia. We're of course not enemies. We're not fighting each other. There's no Cold War, but Russia is a geopolitical foe in that regard." The Romney campaign’s web site reveals several areas of focus for Russia, none of them discuss active engagement, but rather focus on taking tougher stances with Russia, including renegotiating the New Start Treaty, decreasing Europe’s energy reliance on Russia, building stronger relations with Central Asia, as well as supporting Russia’s civil society. Surprisingly, the last one, engaging Russia’s civil society, could be the most controversial. The Romney campaign web site provides a strongly worded statement that “A Romney administration will be forthright in confronting the Russian government over its authoritarian practices.” Indeed, America needs a strong leader to stand up for its position in the world, however confronting Russia on internal issues may not only offend most Russians, even in the opposition – it could hurt the entire goal of this platform. Having the American government play an active role in the changes happening inside Russia could be detrimental to US-Russian relations. Many Russians believe that changes within their own country should be driven from the Russian society. Any outside interference would hurt the legitimacy of the Russian opposition and cause the Russian elite to become even more suspicious, and perhaps even hostile, to the intentions of American foreign policy.
U.S.-Russian war causes extinction – most probable
Bostrom ‘2 [Nick Bostrom, professor of philosophy - Oxford University, March, 2002, Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards, Journal of Evolution and Technology, p. http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html]
A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear war was a possibility with both a substantial probability and with consequences that might have been persistent enough to qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization.[4]  Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would not destroy or thwart humankind’s potential permanently. Such a war might however be a local terminal risk for the cities most likely to be targeted. Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are mere preludes to the existential risks that we will encounter in the 21st century.

 
Counterplan
CP Text: President Barack Obama should issue an executive order mandating the procurement of vehicle integrated solar on federal vehicle purchases in the United States.

XOs have the force of law and can effectively implement policy
Mayer 1 [Kenneth, Professor of Political Science @ University of Wisconsin – Madison, With the Stroke of a Pen]

These chronicles of presidential decisiveness and unilateral action are at odds with the prevailing scholarly view of presidential power. Among political scientists the conventional wisdom is that the president is weak, hobbled by the separation of powers and the short reach of his formal legal authority. Presidential power, far from being a matter of prerogative or legal rule, “is the power to persuade,” wrote Richard Neustadt in the single most influential statement about the office in the past fifty years.6 Yet throughout U.S. history presidents have relied on their executive authority to make unilateral policy without interference from either Congress or the courts. In this book, I investigate how presidents have used a tool of executive power—the executive order—to wield their inherent legal authority. Executive orders are, loosely speaking, presidential directives that require or authorize some action within the executive branch (though they often extend far beyond the government).They are presidential edicts, legal instruments that create or modify laws, procedures, and policy by fiat. Working from their position as chief executive and commander in chief, presidents have used executive orders to make momentous policy choices, creating and abolishing executive branch agencies, reorganizing administrative and regulatory processes, determining how legislation is implemented, and taking whatever action is permitted within the boundaries of their constitutional or statutory authority. Even within the confines of their executive powers, presidents have been able to “legislate” in the sense of making policy that goes well beyond simple administrative activity. Y ale Law School professor E. Donald Elliot has argued that many of the thousands of executive orders “plainly ‘make law’ in every sense,”7 and Louis Fisher finds that despite the fact that the Constitution unambiguously.

 
Solvency 

Even with financial incentives, solar power won’t be viable for 30 years
Volcovici 12 (Valerie, 5/1, US solar subsidies consistent with coal, oil: report http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/01/usa-solar-subsidies-idUSL1E8G15RD20120501) 

Each traditional energy source has been developed with "significant government engagement," the report said, citing market control measures for oil and making pipelines available for natural gas distribution.  It added that like oil, gas and coal, solar energy will need to go through a 30-year period of innovation and early adoption before it can "leap" to full market adoption, or reach at least one percent market share. 

Production subsidies are irrelevant for solar – low demand and high cost
Fahey 9 (Jonathan, Forbes, 3/16, Storm Clouds, http://www.mlb.ilstu.edu/cgi-bin/redirect.cgi?http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rga&AN=504262934&site=ehost-live&scope=site)

Solar boosters think U.S. tax subsidies and government mandates for renewable energy will keep the industry shining. Recent legislation extended tax credits for solar projects for eight years, for example. California requires that 20% of its power come from  renewable sources by 2020. But skeptics abound. "People are grossly overestimating what the U.S. is going to do," says Gordon Johnson of Hapoalim Securities. The need for tax breaks, which typically fund solar projects in the U.S., has evaporated along with corporate profits. Johnson notes that utilities Duke and Xcel have scaled back or postponed previously announced solar projects because of lower demand and high costs. He finds it extremely improbable that residential or commercial buyers would, in this economy, lay out cash for a solar system that won't pay off for a decade.

Global transition to renewables now – massive tech and investment increases
United Nations Environment Programme, 12¶
(June 13, “UNEP says global transition to renewable energy accelerating,” http://www.evwind.es/2012/06/13/unep-says-global-transition-to-renewable-energy-accelerating/, d/a 7-31-12, ads)
Record investments, technological advancement, supportive policies and increased political goodwill have powered a dramatic transition to cleaner sources of fuel in many countries globally.¶ According to UNEP’s Global Renewables Status Report 2012 released on Monday, investments in clean energy hit 257 billion U. S. dollars by December 2011.¶ "Renewable energy markets and policy frameworks have evolved rapidly in recent years. Renewable energy sources have grown to supply an estimated 16-17 percent of global final energy consumption in 2010," said the report.¶ It was compiled by the UNEP and Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).¶ The flagship report shed light on renewable energy market trends, investments and policy development globally by relying on updated data provided by a network of 400 researchers.¶ Experts stressed that this report dovetails with global aspirations to accelerate the transition to cleaner and greener energy sources.¶ "There may be multiple reasons driving investments in renewables, from climate, energy security and the urgency to electrify rural and urban areas in the developing world as one pathway towards eradicating poverty-whatever the drivers the strong and sustained growth in renewable energy sector is a major factor that is assisting many economies towards a transition to a low carbon, resource efficient green economy," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said.¶ 

Warming
No Warming—AT: “Skeptics”

Warming is not real – tons of qualified scientists agree, there names are blemished but there science is correct
Ball 7—climatology professor
Tim, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, Climatology Professor, http://www.iceagenow.com/Global_Warming_the_Greatest_Deception.htm
Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and that for 32 years I was a Professor of Climatology at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.  Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification.  No sensible person seeks conflict, especially with governments, but if we don't pursue the truth, we are lost as individuals and as a society. That is why I insist on saying that there is no evidence that we are, or could ever cause global climate change. And, recently, Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. So how has the world come to believe that something is wrong?  Let me stress I am not denying the (global warming) phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.  Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.  No doubt passive acceptance yields less stress, fewer personal attacks and makes career progress easier. What I have experienced in my personal life during the last years makes me understand why most people choose not to speak out; job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent.  In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?  I am not alone in this journey against the prevalent myth. Several well-known names have also raised their voices. Michael Crichton, the scientist, writer and filmmaker is one of them. In his latest book, "State of Fear" he takes time to explain, often in surprising detail, the flawed science behind Global Warming and other imagined environmental crises.  Another cry in the wilderness is Richard Lindzen's. He is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology - especially atmospheric waves. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has held positions at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. Linzen frequently speaks out against the notion that significant Global Warming is caused by humans. Yet nobody seems to listen. 

Even if warming exist they Can’t solve warming
Hamilton 10 – Professor of Public Ethics @ ANU
Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics in Australia, 2010, “Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change,” pg 27-28
The conclusion that, even if we act promptly and resolutely, the world is on a path to reach 650 ppm is almost too frightening to accept. That level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will be associated with warming of about 4°C by the end of the century, well above the temperature associated with tipping points that would trigger further warming.58 So it seems that even with the most optimistic set of assumptions—the ending of deforestation, a halving of emissions associated with food production, global emissions peaking in 2020 and then falling by 3 per cent a year for a few decades—we have no chance of preventing emissions rising well above a number of critical tipping points that will spark uncontrollable climate change. The Earth's climate would enter a chaotic era lasting thousands of years before natural processes eventually establish some sort of equilibrium. Whether human beings would still be a force on the planet, or even survive, is a moot point. One thing seems certain: there will be far fewer of us. These conclusions arc alarming, co say the least, but they are not alarmist. Rather than choosing or interpreting numbers to make the situation appear worse than it could be, following Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows 1 have chosen numbers that err on the conservative side, which is to say numbers that reflect a more buoyant assessment of the possibilities. A more neutral assessment of how the global community is likely to respond would give an even bleaker assessment of our future. For example, the analysis excludes non-CO2, emissions from aviation and shipping. Including them makes the task significantly harder, particularly as aviation emissions have been growing rapidly and are expected to continue to do so as there is no foreseeable alternative to severely restricting the number of flights.v' And any realistic assessment of the prospects for international agreement would have global emissions peaking closer to 2030 rather than 2020. The last chance to reverse the trajectory of global emissions by 2020 was forfeited at the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009. As a consequence, a global response proportionate to the problem was deferred for several years.

Claims of scientific consensus are false—opposing views don’t get published because the peer review process is flawed and politically motivated
Spencer 10—former head climate scientist @ NASA
(Roy, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama and former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA. He now leads the US science team for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS on NASA’s Aqua Satellite “The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists,” pg XVI)
The primary goal of climate research is no longer the advancement of knowledge; it is instead the protection and dissemination of the IPCC party line. The peer review process for getting research proposals funded and scientific papers published is no longer objective, but is instead short-circuited by zealots adhering to their faith that humans now control the fate of Earth's climate. Scientific papers that claim all kinds of supposedly dire consequences of anthropogenic climate change are uncritically accepted and rushed to publication, while any papers that cast doubt on the premise of a human-controlled climate system are rejected. The global warming issue has accumulated so much political and financial baggage that it will now be extremely difficult to budge the "scientific consensus" away from what a handful of bureaucrats and politically savvy scientists have decided the scientific consensus should be. As I described in my first book Climate Confusion, scientists are just as prone to bias as anyone else, and when it comes to global warming it seems that everyone has biases and vested interests.  

No impact to ocean acidification and its not caused by anthropogenic warming
Eschenbach 10 

• • cites Robert Byrne, Ph.D from University of Rhode Island, Professor of Seawater Physical Chemistry at the University of South Florida
    Willis “The Electric Oceanic Acid Test” [http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/19/the-electric-oceanic-acid-test/#more-20792 SJE] June 19
    There is a recent and interesting study in GRL by Byrne et al., entitled “Direct observations of basin-wide acidification of the North Pacific Ocean“. This study reports on the change in ocean alkalinity over a 15 year period (1991-2006) along a transect of the North Pacific from Hawaii to Alaska. (A “transect” is a path along which one measures some variable or variables.) Here is the path of the transect: I love researching climate, because there’s always so much to learn. Here’s what I learned from the Byrne et al. paper.The first thing that I learned is that when you go from the tropics (Hawaii) to the North Pacific (Alaska), the water becomes less and less alkaline. Who knew? So even without any CO2, if you want to experience “acidification” of the ocean water, just go from Hawaii to Alaska … you didn’t notice the change from the “acidification”? You didn’t have your toenails dissolved by the increased acidity? Well, the sea creatures didn’t notice either. They flourish in both the more alkaline Hawaiian waters and the less alkaline Alaskan waters. So let’s take a look at how large the change is along the transect. Changes in alkalinity/acidity are measured in units called “pH”. A neutral solution has a pH of 7.0. Above a pH of 7.0, the solution is alkaline. A solution with a pH less than 7.0 is acidic. pH is a logarithmic scale, so a solution with a pH of 9.0 is ten times as alkaline as a solution with a pH of 8.0. Figure 2 shows the measured pH along the transect. The full size graphic is here. The second thing I learned from the study is that the pH of the ocean is very different in different locations. As one goes from Hawaii to Alaska the pH slowly decreases along the transect, dropping from 8.05 all the way down to 7.65. This is a change in pH of almost half a unit. And everywhere along the transect, the water at depth is much less alkaline, with a minimum value of about 7.25. The third thing I learned from the study is how little humans have changed the pH of the ocean. Figure 3 shows their graph of the anthropogenic pH changes along the transect. The full-sized graphic is here: The area of the greatest anthropogenic change over the fifteen years of the study, as one might imagine, is at the surface. The maximum anthropogenic change over the entire transect was -0.03 pH in fifteen years. The average anthropogenic change over the top 150 metre depth was -0.023. From there down to 800 metres the average anthropogenic change was -0.011 in fifteen years. This means that for the top 800 metres of the ocean, where the majority of the oceanic life exists, the human induced change in pH was -0.013 over 15 years. This was also about the amount of pH change in the waters around Hawaii. Now, remember that the difference in pH between the surface water in Hawaii and Alaskan is 0.50 pH units. That means that at the current rate of change, the surface water in Hawaii will be as alkaline as the current Alaskan surface water in … well … um … lessee, divide by eleventeen, carry the quadratic residual … I get a figure of 566 years. But of course, that is assuming that there would not be any mixing of the water during that half-millennium. The ocean is a huge place, containing a vast amount of carbon. The atmosphere contains about 750 gigatonnes of carbon in the form of CO2. The ocean contains about fifty times that amount. It is slowly mixed by wind, wave, and currents. As a result, the human carbon contribution will not stay in the upper layers as shown in the graphs above. It will be mixed into the deeper layers. Some will go into the sediments. Some will precipitate out of solution. So even in 500 years, Hawaiian waters are very unlikely to have the alkalinity of Alaskan waters. The final thing I learned from this study is that creatures in the ocean live happily in a wide range of alkalinities, from a high of over 8.0 down to almost neutral. As a result, the idea that a slight change in alkalinity will somehow knock the ocean dead doesn’t make any sense. By geological standards, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is currently quite low. It has been several times higher in the past, with the inevitable changes in the oceanic pH … and despite that, the life in the ocean continued to flourish. My conclusion? To mis-quote Mark Twain, “The reports of the ocean’s death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Chinese emissions prevents gains from US cuts
Lynas 7
Mark, Environmental Activist, Educational focus on Politics and History, Six Degrees, pg. 194
Because of its sheer size and population, China is on a collision course with the planet.  The country’s oil use has doubled in the last ten years, and if the Chinese by 2030 use oil at the same rate as Americans do now, China will need 100 million barrels of oil a day.   However, current world production is only around 80 million barrels per day, and is unlikely to rise much further before the “peak oil” point is reached.  There simply isn’t enough oil in the ground to bring Chinese consumption up to Western levels—the global resource buffer is already being hit.  Similarly for food: As the Chinese diet becomes increasingly rich in meat and dairy products, more grain is needed.  By 2030, if Chinese consumers are to become as voracious as Americans, they will use the equivalent of two-thirds of today’s entire global harvest.  If Chinese car ownership were to reach current U.S. levels of three cars for every four people, China’s automobile fleet would number more than one billion by 2030, substantially more than the entire current world fleet of 800 million. In almost every sector of resource use, China’s ascension to Western consumption standards will clearly demand far more than the Earth can provide.  Indeed, if every Chinese were to live like an American, it would double the human environmental impact on the planet, an impact that has already moved far beyond sustainable levels.  Even forgetting about climate change, China’s get rich quick dream would quickly become a global nightmare.  
Defo makes warming inevitable
Walker and King 8 Director of the School of Environment @Oxford
Gabrielle, PhD in Chemistry, Sir David, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, and a senior scientific adviser to UBS, The Hot Topic, pg. 106
Chopping down and burning tress contributes some eight billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year.  That’s a huge amount, more than 16 percent of total human greenhouse gas emissions—more than comes from either agriculture or transportation.  And yet it’s largely uncessary.  Destroying forests is one of the maddest form of interefering with the climate that humans have yet devised.  Most of the carbon dioxide from deforestation comes from the burning of tropical forests, especially with the Amazon rain forest.  Reasons for cutting it down range from logging of individual hardwood trees to shlash-and-burn for subsistence agriculture, to clearing land for large-scale agricultural plantions of palm oil.  Even logging of individual trees often creates mass destruction.   Bulldozers blast through the remaining trees to get to their prize: felling on individual trees often brings down their neighbors as they are bound together with woody lianas; the holes thus created in the leaf canapoy let in the hot tropical sunlight, whid dries out the forest and allows for the outbreak of accidental fire; and loggers usually build roads, which encourage the influx of subsistence slash-and-burn farmers. 

And, consensus of experts agree no impact to warming
Hsu ‘10
Jeremy, Live Science Staff, July 19, pg. http://www.livescience.com/culture/can-humans-survive-extinction-doomsday-100719.html
His views deviate sharply from those of most experts, who don't view climate change as the end for humans. Even the worst-case scenarios discussed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change don't foresee human extinction.  "The scenarios that the mainstream climate community are advancing are not end-of-humanity, catastrophic scenarios," said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate policy analyst at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  Humans have the technological tools to begin tackling climate change, if not quite enough yet to solve the problem, Pielke said. He added that doom-mongering did little to encourage people to take action.  "My view of politics is that the long-term, high-risk scenarios are really difficult to use to motivate short-term, incremental action," Pielke explained. "The rhetoric of fear and alarm that some people tend toward is counterproductive."  Searching for solutions  One technological solution to climate change already exists through carbon capture and storage, according to Wallace Broecker, a geochemist and renowned climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York City.  But Broecker remained skeptical that governments or industry would commit the resources needed to slow the rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, and predicted that more drastic geoengineering might become necessary to stabilize the planet.  "The rise in CO2 isn't going to kill many people, and it's not going to kill humanity," Broecker said. "But it's going to change the entire wild ecology of the planet, melt a lot of ice, acidify the ocean, change the availability of water and change crop yields, so we're essentially doing an experiment whose result remains uncertain." 

Warming doesn’t lead to extinction
Barrett 6 – Professor of International Policy @ Johns Hopkins
Scott, Professor and Director of International Policy, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 2006, “CATASTROPHE: The Problem of Averting Global Catastrophe,” Chicago Journal of International Law, Lexis
Less dramatic changes are more likely. Abrupt transformations in climate would probably cause few deaths. Many scientists have remarked that climate change would increase the spread of disease, 74 and seasonal weather changes are associated with outbreaks of many diseases, including meningococcal meningitis in sub-Saharan Africa and rotavirus in the US. Moreover, stronger El Nino events have been linked to the prevalence of cholera in Bangladesh, the spread of Rift Valley fever in East Africa, and malaria incidences on the Indian subcontinent. However, while the spread of disease is influenced by the weather, the connection between global climate change and the spread of disease has not yet been established. 75 One point is clear: as Rees notes, "Not even the most drastic conceivable climate shifts could directly destroy all humanity." 76

Solar is worse for the environment – inefficiency causes more emissions
Zycher, Pacific Research Institute Senior Fellow, 12¶
(Benjamin, Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics adjunct professor, associate in the Intelligence Community Associates Program of the Office of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State, former senior staff economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers, April 19, “Zycher testimony to joint House subcommittee hearing on subsidies for renewable energy,” http://www.aei.org/article/energy-and-the-environment/alternative-energy/zycher-testimony-to-joint-house-subcommittee-hearing-on-subsidies-for-renewable-energy/, d/a 8-1-12, ads)
A cleaner environment is worth it, you say? Not so fast. As counterintuitive as it may seem, increased reliance on wind and solar power will hurt the environment, not because of such phony issues as endangered cockroaches, used by the environmental left as a tool with which to obstruct the renewable energy projects that they claim to support. Instead, this damage will be real, in the form of greater air pollution. The conventional generators needed to back up the unreliable wind and solar production will have to be cycled up and down because the system operators will be required to take wind and solar generation when it is available. This means greater operating inefficiency and more emissions. That is precisely what a recent engineering study of the effects of renewables requirements found for Colorado and Texas.¶ So we have achieved the perfect leftist trifecta: higher costs, lower reliability, and more environmental degradation. Such plagues are hardly biblical, but neither are they trivial. Will Governor Brown finally be content? Obviously not, as he now wants higher taxes to feed a Sacramento monster utterly destructive in so many dimensions.

Grid

Solar storms will cause wind collapse
Huff 12
Ethan A. Huff, staff writer for Natural News Hacking expert David Chalk says 100 percent certainty of catastrophic failure of smart energy grid within three years
http://www.naturalnews.com/035755_power_grid_failure_blackouts.html#ixzz25hUgC5tu
Smart grid technology is also vulnerable to failure from solar storms and digital warfare, both of which could quickly take down the entire system in an instant, leaving millions, and potentially billions, of people in the dark without power. Smart grid technology also comes with its own unique health and privacy risks that are being ignored by its proponents as well. "Unless we wake up and realize what we're doing, there is 100 percent certainty of total catastrophic failure of the entire power infrastructure within three years," adds Chalk. "This could actually be worse than a nuclear war, because it would happen everywhere. How governments and utilities are blindly merging the power grid with the Internet, and effectively without any protection, is insanity at its finest."  

Plan never solves-eurozone tanks the worldwide economy
Velde, 9/20
Storm Clouds Darken Over Global Economy Published: Thursday, 20 Sep 2012 | 7:13 AM ET By: Antonia van de Velde
Central banks’ recent aggressive policy actions will not be enough to spur economic growth in the remainder of 2012 and in 2013, economists say, with the euro zone debt crisis expected to rumble on, growth in Asia seen slowing further, and a recovery in the United States expected to be disappointing.¶ Euro zone business activity dropped in September to its lowest since January 2010, data released on Thursday showed.¶ In China, activity for mainland factories inched a bit higher in September from August but still stretched into an 11th straight month of contraction.¶ “The further fall in the flash euro zone composite purchasing managers’ index (PMI) in September is another reminder that the ECB’s new asset purchase program is not an answer to all of the region’s problems,” Ben May, european economist at Capital Economics said.

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
1NC shell

The United States is the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands

U.S. Department of State 12 
~[Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual, Volume 7, June 29, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86755.pdf

7 FAM 1112 WHAT IS BIRTH "IN THE UNITED STATES"?
(CT:CON-314; 08-21-2009)
a. INA 101(a)(38) (8 U.S.C. 1101 (a)(38)) provides that "the term „United States,‟ when used in a geographical sense, means the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands of the United States."

B. Aff happens offshore it’s  not in the United States

1.  Bright line – either it’s in the United States or it’s not – list proves
   2. Predictable Limits – holding them to the US is key to limiting the ground they can access and allowing fair ground and predictable argumentation
   3. Education – key to debating about core issues on the topic –framer’s intent goes neg
   D. Topicality is a voter for fairness and education.

 
1NC shell

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.
AND
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=us%26vol=291%26invol=502
Notwithstanding the admitted power to correct existing economic ills by appropriate regulation of business,
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maladjustments by legislation touching prices? We think there is no such principle.

B.  VIOLATION – The plan removes regulations on offshore wind power – not a restriction – they just make it so it doesn’t have to go through as many agencies

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.
 
1NC Shell

The United States Congress should require the executive branch to condition the implementation of giving exclusive permitting authority to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for the production of offshore wind power in the United States on all relevant parties entering into a binding process of negotiated rulemaking for no more than a year.
Counterplan solves the affirmative, current attempts to increase energy production are doomed to failure because they don’t take into account industry and labor opposition—wich will spin the aff as an environmental policy and gut it
Teague and Navin in 7
Peter Teague and Jeff Navin, Director of the Environment Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation and former environmental advisor to Senator Barbara Boxer, Managing Director of American Environics Strategies and former Research Director for Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, June 26, 2007, "Global Warming in an Age of Energy Anxiety", The American Prospect, http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=global_warming_in_an_age_of_energy_anxiety, BB
With a regulatory-only approach, we will end with a debate between environmentalists
AND
. Voters are still waiting for action on health care and global warming. 

Avoids political backlash
Harter 82
Philip, A.B. Kenyon College (1964); M.A. (Mathematics) Michigan (1966); J.D. Michigan (1969), 71 Geo. L.J. 1
The report of the consensus also should be furnished to Congress and to the White
AND
might appear that the agency is changing the results of the negotiations capriciously.

 
1NC Shell

Immigration reform will pass and political capital is the key

Kludt, 1/3
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/report-obama-to-make-push-for-immigration-reform-http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/report-obama-to-make-push-for-immigration-reform¶ TPM LiveWire¶ Report: Obama To Make Push For Immigration Reform This Month¶ Tom Kludt 7:11 AM EST, Thursday January 3, 2013 ¶
President Barack Obama is prepared to use his political capital to pursue immigration reform this
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, without worrying about a majority of the majority," the aide said.¶ 

Energy policy is always a loss – laundry list of issues

McEntee 12 (Christine, 8/15, Executive Director and CEO, American Geophysical Union, Science, Politics and Public Opinion, http://energy.nationaljournal.com/2012/08/finding-the-sweet-spot-biparti.php)
As convenient as it would be to say that a single change could alleviate the
AND
energy disaster to get sufficient voter support for significant legislation on these issues.

Comprehensive reform key to heg and econ—

Gittelson ’9 (Citation: 23 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics %26
AND
experience in dealing with the immigration issues that are challenging our country today. 

To begin, the myth that CIR is bad for our national security assumes that
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can say that CIR could enhance our physical security through an economic stimulus. 

Extinction

Mead 2009 (Walter Russell Mead, _Kissinger senior fellow for _foreign_policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. The New Republic, "Only Makes You Stronger," February 42009. http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8%26p=2 AD 6/30/09)
If current market turmoil seriously damaged the performance and prospects of India and China,
AND
the world economy back on track, we may still have to fight.

1NC Shell

Link and Impact - The aff use of satellite imagery constructs a system of globalism where the social order is allowed to be reproduced and centered into the unconscious—making the expansion of capitalism and the obliteration of the 3rd and 4th world always already inevitable. This is the root cause of violence

Kato 93
Masahide, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. "Nuclear Globalism: Traversing Rockets, Satellites, and Nuclear War via the Strategic Gaze." Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 18, No. 3. Sage Publications, Inc. Summer 1993. Accessed June 28, 2012.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644779 .
As I have argued, the objectification of Earth from the absolute point of the
AND
recapture the classic teleological narrative of the linear "progression" of capitalism.

Alt: reject the technosubjective view of the aff. The First World must recognize its attack on the sovereignty of the Fourth World by removing the blockage of perception and discourse of social movements which is always already technosubjective. The First World must realize the "real" of the Fourth World.

Kato 93
Masahide, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. "Nuclear Globalism: Traversing Rockets, Satellites, and Nuclear War via the Strategic Gaze." Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 18, No. 3. Sage Publications, Inc. Summer 1993. Accessed June 29, 2012.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644779 .
The dialectic (if it can be still called such) should be conceived in
AND
come face to face with the "real" of the latter.5

 
Solvency

Low natural gas prices block commercialization of offshore wind power.

Bryce 10(Robert, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, "The Real Problems with Wind Energy," Counterpunch, 9/21, http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/09/21/the-real-problems-with-wind-energy/)
Those low gas prices make offshore wind appear even more uneconomic. The cost of
AND
of electricity in the US is about %240.10.~[21~]
In short, the fulminations of the wind power promoters about my Wall Street Journal article are entirely misdirected. Wind boosters want to believe that an evil conspiracy has been created to short-circuit the push for "green" energy. The real conspiracy they are fighting is one of basic physics and basic math.

Offshore wind farms are years away from effectiveness – they’ll encounter tons of short term problems

Zaidi7 ~[Kamaal R. Lawyer at Millrise Law Office, JD from U Tulsa Law, "WIND ENERGY AND ITS IMPACT ON FUTURE ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY PLANNING: POWERING RENEWABLE ENERGY IN CANADA AND ABROAD." Albany Law Environmental Outlook Journal, 11 Alb. L. Envtl. Outlook 198~]
~[*210~]  The Canadian government recognizes the importance of renewable energy and is investing
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geographical barriers, unfavorable climatic conditions, and negative impact on wildlife. 67

Turn - Offshore wind farms disrupt ocean habitats.

Eberhart6 ~[Robert, MFS Harvard, JD Candidate and Senior Notes Editor, NYU, New York University Environmental Law Journal, 14 N.Y.U. Envtl. L.J. 374, FEDERALISM AND THE SITING OF OFFSHORE WIND ENERGY FACILITIES, p. 400-1~]
 Commercial fisheries are common-pool resources with government regulation justified to avoid overexploitation
AND
but could hurt commercial fisheries if the artificial reefs support non-commercial competitors

Disruption of ocean habitats risks extinction.

Craig 3— Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, 2003, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155, Lexis
Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they
AND
- even if a few fishers go out of business as a result. 

Case – Grid

Wind risks unpredictable electricity grid failures.

Milloy8 (Steven, junk science expert, Fox News, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,379702,00.html)

Even if wind technology significantly improves, electrical transmission systems (how electricity gets from
AND
whims. Pickens wants to re-enslave us with 12th century technology.

Wind can’t provide stable power

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/windpower-overblown-part-1-http://www.masterresource.org/2010/09/windpower-overblown-part-1, Acc: 8/1/12, og)

Consequently, wind generation is relentlessly fluctuating, according to the whimsy of its power
AND
of this flux if the installed wind capacity were 5,000 MW.

Blackouts are inevitable- there is no way to stop them

Fairley 2003 (Peter, Spectrum magazine.  "The Unruly Power Grid" http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/4195)
The 14 August 2003 blackout may have been the largest in history, zapping more
AND
power system dynamics and control. "There is no doubt about that." 

New Tech solves- multiple responses available to grid collapse

Business Wire 2001 (Dec. 17.  "Innovative technologies can improve national security; optimal technologies software able to make nation’s power grid more secure" written by business editors/high-tech and energy writers. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2001_Dec_17/ai_80858553)
Optimal Technologies announced this week the ability to improve national security with breakthrough electric power
AND
crisis management," said Roland Schoettle, founder and CEO of Optimal Technologies. 

Your impact is empirically denied, terrorists don’t want to attack our cyber infrastructure, and cyber attacks can’t cause death

Green 02 (Joshua Green, editor of the Washington Monthly, "The Myth of Cyberterrorism" The Washington Monthly http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0211.green.html-http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0211.green.html, November 2002 eR)
It’s no surprise, then, that cyberterrorism now ranks alongside other weapons of mass
AND
as serious as other potential physical threats like car bombs or suicide bombers." 

Terrorism key to US presence in Central Asia
TERTRAIS 1 (Dr Dr. Bruno TERTRAIS "What are the Strategic and Geopolitical Consequences of the "War Against Terrorism"?"http://www.cicerofoundation.org/lectures/tertrais_dec01.html

Finally, I should add the acceleration of another long-term trend, which
AND
countries in the region become sanctuaries for Al-Qaida-like organizations.

Presence in Central Asia solves nuclear war
Starr 1(S. Frederick Starr, Chair of Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at John Hopkins University, 12/13/01, "The War Against Terrorism and U.S. Bilateral Relations with the Nations of Central Asia," Testimony before Senate Subcommittee on Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus, http://www.cacianalyst.org/Publications/Starr_Testimony.htm-http://www.cacianalyst.org/Publications/Starr_Testimony.htm
However, this does not mean that US actions are without risk to the Central
AND
on any one of them without imperiling the security of all the others. 

Case- Hegemony

No impact – reductions in our navy won’t decrease our deterrence

Marvin, 11 ~[Taylor, Prospect Journal of International Affairs UCSD, CUTTING US DEFENSE SPENDING IS NOT A THREAT TO AMERICAN SECURITY, http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/index.php/2011/09/cutting-us-defense-spending-is-not-a-threat-to-american-security/-http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/index.php/2011/09/cutting-us-defense-spending-is-not-a-threat-to-american-security/~]
However, US military spending far exceeds the level necessary to deter foreign aggression,
AND
on a global scale would remain far in excess of any potential rivals.

Hegemonic decline is inevitable – multiple reasons.

Layne 12 ~[Christopher Layne is professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A %26 M, January 27, 2012 (The National Interest, "The Almost Triumph of Offshore Balancing," http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/almost-triumph-offshore-balancing-6405-http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/almost-triumph-offshore-balancing-6405)~]

Although cloaked in the reassuring boilerplate about American military preeminence and global leadership, in
AND
during the next two decades will be its own decline and China’s rise.

Best data concludes hegemony doesn’t solve war

Fettweis 11 (Christopher J. Fettweis, Department of Political Science, Tulane University, 9/26/11, Free Riding or Restraint? Examining European Grand Strategy, Comparative Strategy, 30:316–332, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01495933.2011.605020)

Strategy Based on Faith, Not Evidence
It is perhaps worth noting that there is no evidence to support a direct relationship
AND
, one would not have expected an increase in global instability and violence.
The verdict from the past two decades is fairly plain: The world grew more
AND
analysis should be necessary to reach the conclusion that the two are unrelated.
 

Tournament:  | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

DA

Obama has the momentum for his 2nd term agenda now

Washington Post 12/8/12 ~By Peter Wallsten and Zachary A. Goldfarb ,December 08, 2012; Obama’s second-term agenda will be shadowed by budget woes; http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-08/politics/35701713_1_second-term-agenda-debt-limit-tax-hikes~~

Where Obama entered office four years ago planning to seize a moment of economic crisis
AND
. "The question is, what does a ’good agreement’ mean?"

Obama will push EPA regs in his 2^nd term agenda – docket is full with issues now – critical time in leadership

Plautz 12/10/12 ~By Jason Plautz, InsideClimate News-http://insideclimatenews.org/author/jason-plautz Dec 10, 2012; Who Will Lead for Obama on Carbon and Clean Energy Policy?; http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20121210/president-barack-obama-energy-secretary-steven-chu-epa-administrator-lisa-jackson-climate-change-clean-energy~~

As a stalemated Congress shies away from taking serious action on climate change, environmentalists
AND
hydraulic fracturing. It also could weigh in on the Keystone XL pipeline.

Obama’s window to get his agenda through is slim – challenges/fights in Congress will distract

Glantz 13 ~Dave Glantz, Director of Research Services, Market Connections, Inc ; Posted on January 2, 2013; Sequestration Deal: We Avoided Disaster, but Hardly a Victory; http://fedconnects.com/index.php/2013/01/sequestration-deal-we-avoided-disaster-but-hardly-a-victory/-http://fedconnects.com/index.php/2013/01/sequestration-deal-we-avoided-disaster-but-hardly-a-victory/~~

From a political perspective, President Obama has a limited amount of time and political
AND
could easily distract Obama from bringing his second term legislative agenda to fruition.

Lawmakers will hate the plan creates a fight

Mason and Dunham 11 (Jeff and Will, 3/13, Japan nuclear woes cast shadow over U.S. energy policy, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/13/us-nuclear-usa-idUSTRE72C2UW20110313)
Anxiety over Japan’s quake-crippled nuclear reactors has triggered calls from lawmakers and activists
AND
, which is now stored on site at reactor locations around the country.

EPA regulations are the only way to solve global warming and climate leadership

Parenti ’10 (Christian Parenti, a contributing editor at The Nation and a visiting scholar at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics, at the CUNY Grad Center, 4-20-10, "The Nation: The Case for EPA Action," http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126129216)
On April 1 the Environmental Protection Agency established rules restricting greenhouse gas emissions from cars
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when Obama took office he allowed the EPA to do its job again.  

The impact is extinction

Tickell 08 ~Oliver, "On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinction~
We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told
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The Earth’s carrying capacity would be hugely reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die. 

Tournament: UNT | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge: 

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The affirmatives engagement with economic means to promote nuclear power is an attempt to control and dominant the global economy – their desire for nuclear energy is based on the need for global governance

Welsh Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff 2000 Ian Mobilizing Modernity: The Nuclear Moment p 21
The contribution of the nuclear moment to globalisation has also been widely neglected within the
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more a reflection of the USA~’s ability to underwrite very attractive financial packages.

their use of technostrategic discourse causes a flight to dangerous nuclear escapism

Cohn (Senior Research Fellow, Center for Psychological Studies) 87 ~~~Carol, "Slick~’ems, Glick~’ems, Christmas Trees, and Cookie Cutters: Nuclear Language," Bulleting of the Atomic Scientists, June~~~

Technostrategic language articulates only the perspective of the users of nuclear weapons, not the
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competent, wily, powerful purveyor of nuclear threats and nuclear explosive power.

And - this is the epitome of US imperialism – the affirmatives insistence on US leadership will be used to justify violent conflict against those who we declare incapable of handling nuclear technology – Iraq and Iran prove the impact is infinite war

Montague 07 (Peter Montague, Why is Uncle Sam so Committed to Nuclear Power?, Oct. 4, 2007, ~~http://www.celsias.com/2007/10/04/why-is-uncle-sam-so-committed-to-reviving-nuclear-power/-http://www.celsias.com/2007/10/04/why-is-uncle-sam-so-committed-to-reviving-nuclear-power/~~~~)
So why is Uncle Sam hell-bent on reviving nuclear power? I don~’t
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perhaps best be understood as part of that ongoing effort at oil recovery.

This desire to advance our nuclear energy industry creates radioactive wastelands – the impacts effect those on the periphery most – rhetoric of clean nuclear technology is tainted by the larger colonialist military-industrial complex

Kuletz lecturer in American studies at the University of Canterbury 1998 Valerie, The Tainted Desert p 15
The United States has paid a high price for "winning" the Cold War
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region populated by communities with far less prestige, privilege, and power.

Their exclusion of the impact of nuclear power on indigenous people is not a mistake – it is an active obliteration of history – this active amnesia blocks efforts to prevent extermination

Kato Department of Political Science U of Hawaii 1993 Masahide Alternatives v18 p 339
In delineating the notion of "nuclear war," both of these discourses share an
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extermination process of the periphery is blocked from constituting itself as historical fact. 

Alt: reject the technosubjective view of the aff. The First World must recognize its attack on the sovereignty of the Fourth World by removing the blockage of perception and discourse of social movements which is always already technosubjective. The First World must realize the "real" of the Fourth World.

Kato 93
Masahide, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. "Nuclear Globalism: Traversing Rockets, Satellites, and Nuclear War via the Strategic Gaze." Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 18, No. 3. Sage Publications, Inc. Summer 1993. Accessed June 29, 2012.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644779 .
The dialectic (if it can be still called such) should be conceived in
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come face to face with the "real" of the latter.5
 

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Link - The aff use of satellite imagery constructs a system of globalism where the social order is allowed to be reproduced and centered into the unconscious—making the expansion of capitalism and the obliteration of the 3rd and 4th world always already inevitable.

Kato 93
Masahide, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. "Nuclear Globalism: Traversing Rockets, Satellites, and Nuclear War via the Strategic Gaze." Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 18, No. 3. Sage Publications, Inc. Summer 1993. Accessed June 28, 2012.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644779 .
As I have argued, the objectification of Earth from the absolute point of the
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recapture the classic teleological narrative of the linear "progression" of capitalism.

 This fiction of extinction is made possible by the strategic gaze, which creates a dislocation of the subject by the technosubject, a practice inherent in capital, and delocalizing the issue of nuclear violence. The aff’s reduction of nuclear violence to the single instant of extinction always already ignores the real, continuous process of nuclear violence in preparation for the catastrophe.====
Kato 93
Masahide, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. "Nuclear Globalism: Traversing Rockets, Satellites, and Nuclear War via the Strategic Gaze." Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 18, No. 3. Sage Publications, Inc. Summer 1993. Accessed June 28, 2012.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644779 .
Nuclear criticism finds the likelihood of "extinction" as the most fundamental aspect of
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the core of the ideology of globalism cum technosubjectivity manifested in nuclear criticism.

Viewing nature as a threat dichotomizes humanity and nature rendering our policies rooted in an ideology of dominance
Dalby, Prof. of Geography and Political Economy at Carleton Univ., 2K2
(Simon, Environmental Security)
The related assumption that nature is a hostile force requiring political organizations and later technical
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ideological power.  In Kaplan’s terms it is rendered as "nature unchecked."

The affirmative’s managerialist approach to nature is based on science’s belief in its own certainty.  However, this certainty is an illusion since the revealing of all truth is necessarily a concealing of truth.  And it produces a world in which only humans have value and the entire planet is an exploitable reserve.  The impact is continued environmental destruction.
McWhorter, Prof of Philosophy and Women, Gender %26 Sexuality studies @ Univ. of Richmond, 92
(Ladelle, "Guilt as Management Technology: A Call to Heideggerian Reflection" Heidegger and the Earth, pg. 5-7)
The noted physicist Stephen Hawking, in his popular book A Brief History of Time
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threatens our very being, the configurations of subjective existence in our age.