Soon-to-be-President Barack Obama has appointed animal advocate Cass Sunstein to head the relatively obscure, yet powerful Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

The regulatory czar, as the position is generally called, is responsible for every regulatory agency in the country, such as the EPA, and will oversee all administration rules.

Sunstein is best known for his balanced views between government regulations and cost-benefit analysis and for his theory of behavioral economics and he is widely considered to be a great choice for the office. However, a new controversy is arising over his views on animal rights and animal welfare.

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Over a hundred conservation, wildlife, and animal welfare groups have sent a letter to incoming Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging him to rethink the often cruel practice of “lethal control” of wildlife by the USDA. The coalition contends that animals are killed through such means as shooting from airplanes and helicopters, poisoning, gassing dens, bludgeoning after capture, and strangling in wire snares.

In 2007, the USDA spent $100 million of taxpayer money to kill 2.4 million wild animals, including 90,262 coyotes, 2,277 gray foxes, 2,412 red foxes, 2,090 bobcats, 1,133 cats, 552 dogs, 577 badgers, and 340 gray wolves.

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President-elect Barack Obama has rounded off his energy and environment Cabinet, to almost entirely positive remarks from conservation and environmental groups. Drawing from diverse backgrounds, Obama has picked a team that seems to reinforce his promises to reach across aisles while making huge strides towards protecting the earth.

The line-up:

• Secretary of Interior: Ken Salazar (Democratic Senator from Colorado)
• Secretary of Agriculture: Tom Vilsack (Former Democratic Governor of Iowa)
• Secretary of Energy: Stephen Chu (Nobel Prize winning physicist)
• EPA Administrator: Lisa Jackson (Former New Jersey environmental protection commissioner)

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As part of Prime Minister Gordan’s reshuffle, a new department was created that is likely to boost growth in the renewable energy industry, while addressing climate change.

The UK is a country that is particularly vulnerable to the affects of climate change and has identified it as an issue of vital national importance. The EU’s goal to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 may help mitigate this predicament, but requires significant action.

Energy and climate change had been addressed across two departments, the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) . As an attempt to bridge the gap between energy strategy and climate change policy, the UK has created a new department, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

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Let me start with the obvious: these are some wild times. Since this whole financial mess began to unfold, we’ve learned a lot about what’s possible. Although I knew how much we’ve borrowed to pay for the Iraq war, I never really understood that we could just up and borrow upwards of a trillion dollars in one fell swoop. Ever since I became aware of the possibility, I’ve been telling people that Obama should hit back. “$700B? Why not borrow a trillion and solve our energy dependence, and fix health care to boot?” Of course, that was before the bailout bill failed in the House.

As we face the potential for a new depression, along with the potential stresses caused by global climate change, possibly the greatest immediate need we have is for people to show us Americans the difference between what we know the present looks like and what we know is possible.

Faced with a national hopelessness during the (first?) Great Depression, FDR was masterful at connecting our greatest problems to our greatest opportunities in speeches like his 1933 inaugural address:

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accompanied in part by direct recruiting by the government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our national resources.

Barack Obama has been almost FDR-like at inspiring people to believe at a gut level that in the face of a new depression, a national renewal is possible. However, it’s people on the ground like Van Jones who light the way for exactly how it could happen.

Which is why I’m advocating a campaign to draft Jones into the (hopefully) coming Obama Cabinet, ideally as the new “Secretary of Prosperity.” Hillary Clinton proposed a ‘Poverty Czar’ earlier this year, but I think that’s terrible framing; someone in that position should be creating solutions, not ruling over problems. Ever since I’ve talked about the potential to draft someone like Jones into a bold new position, people have told me that a Secretary of Prosperity could never happen. My response?

Who cares? Just adding Van’s perspective to the conversation about the need to take bold leadership of the great problems of our time would be a great accomplishment.

Over the last couple years, I’ve watched Jones relentlessly turn years of experience pursuing social justice and shared prosperity into a credible case for the win-win-win green collar economy of the future. I’m a huge fan of solving problems that occur in patterns by addressing their underlying roots, and that’s what his ‘green collar’ approach does.

Let’s look at the variables. We have a society with quickening energy and economic insecurity, and flagging international leadership. We have inner cities and rural communities in need of jobs. We have a capital base in need of sustainable returns. And we don’t take no for an answer when we rally around a national imperative. All we need is for someone to take the lead and inspire us to connect the dots.

The “Green Collar Economy” may sound like a grandiose, unachievable vision, especially in a financial situation where capital for any purpose is and will be increasingly hard to come by.  But Jones knows how to put these issues in perspective:

There’s no way to get changes big enough to solve these problems without creating pathways out of poverty for millions of new green-collar workers. The renewable economy is more labor-intensive, less capital-intensive; therefore, there should be a net increase in jobs (1).

BONUS CHALLENGE

Jones’ new book is a start, but I’d also like to issue an open challenge to Netizens to start a grassroots campaign to ‘Draft Van.’ I will give the DraftVan.org domain to anyone who wants to take the project on, and have started a Facebook group for people who might be interested to congregate and brainstorm. Do America a favor and get this post out there as widely as possible in the hopes that someone who’s looking for a way to make a difference will take up my challenge. Let’s bring the renewable economy into the national conversation. Trust me, most people don’t even realize that it’s possible.

More background on Van

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