While the Obama administration continues to promote a security-first approach with Afghanistan, FCNL believes that a U.S. policy of political and economic support can promote a peaceful and stable transition in Afghanistan. In order for that to happen, the U.S. government has to deemphasize military policy and work with the Afghan government and civil society to sincerely address issues of corruption, violence and poverty.

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(See the original statement here.)

The Friends Committee on National Legislation has witnessed the conflict in Syria with grave concern. What beganas a powerful nonviolent movement in 2011 has since escalated into a full-blown protracted civil war. We opposeU.S. military intervention, and urge the U.S. government to support a comprehensive diplomatic settlement andgenerous humanitarian aid. FCNL advocates that the U.S. government take the following actions:

The U.S. has a long history of refusing to engage diplomatically with Syria, which has exacerbated regionaltensions. The U.S. needs to reverse course and fully utilize diplomatic approaches to conflict resolution.We are encouraged by the U.S.-Russia Syria Plan intended to secure a negotiated settlement among Syrianregime officials, internal factions and other regional actors to the conflict. It is critical that those diplomaticefforts include sustained communication with all who are party to the conflict.

In particular, the U.S. diplomatic agenda with Iran should be broadened beyond the nuclear issue to addressthe crisis in Syria. Iran has critical influence on the Syrian regime and they could play a role in getting Assadand various parts of the Syrian government to buy in to a transition. Until all key actors are included at thenegotiating table, the political tensions at play will only escalate.

Military intervention—whether through a U.S.-enforced no-fly-zone over Syria, U.S. troops on the ground, orarming of the opposition—would escalate the bloodshed. War is the ultimate human rights violation. Furthermilitarizing the conflict would destabilize an already volatile region.

As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pointed out, imposing a no-fly-zone is an act of war. Establishinga no-fly zone would begin with the U.S. bombing Syria’s anti-aircraft system. Given the widespread presenceof Syria’s anti-aircraft systems, this would further endanger vulnerable civilians.

The U.S. government should offer generous humanitarian assistance to help ease the suffering of Syriancivilians. It is essential that this aid be politically neutral, and it must be delivered to impartial humanitarianorganizations. Proposals from Senator John McCain and others to administer aid through the SyrianOpposition Coalition would be disastrous, as it politicizes the aid and further endangers civilians.

Since 1943, FCNL remains steadfastly committed to a world free of war and the threat of war. We will continue to lobby Congress and the administration to help end the unimaginable human suffering in Syria, and for more effective and principled U.S. policies in the Middle East based on equity and justice for all.

Today marks the 100th day of the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay prison. For more than a decade, people have been held without charge or trial. Now, at least 100 of the 166 men who remain in Guantanamo are depriving themselves of food to draw attention to their plight. Twenty-one of them are being painfully force-fed and five are hospitalized. Here in Washington, DC activists are gathering for a major protest at the White House. You can take action today to close Guantanamo.

While the majority of people in Guantanamo have already been cleared for release, they remain imprisoned year after year because of their citizenship and ongoing political gamesmanship in the U.S. Not only is indefinite detention at Guantanamo a gross violation of human rights and dignity, it's also expensive, costing U.S. taxpayers $800,000 per detainee per year.

One detainee, Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, recently told his moving story in a New York Times op-ed. Om Abdurahman, the mother of another detainee, writes:

My son Abdulrahman Al Shubati … has been cleared for release since as far back as January 2007 … Abdulrahman left Yemen to teach in Pakistan and never returned. I found out he was being held at Guantanamo through a newspaper. … To image my son in such a loveless place, refusing nourishment to protest his detention; to think of him being painfully force fed - it breaks my heart every second of every day… My daughter in law, Abudlrahman's wife, was pregnant when he was taken. He has never met his daughter, who is now 12 years old.

In a letter sent to President Obama last week, FCNL's Executive Secretary Diane Randall joined other faith leaders in calling on the president to close Guantanamo. They wrote, "Guantanamo Bay is a place where our government tortured prisoners, and it continues to be a place where many are detained indefinitely without trial. We believe that our government has a moral obligation to close the prison at Guantanamo."

Due to mounting pressure over the strike, the president has recently begun to speak out again, saying "I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe. It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us, in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counter-terrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed." But he has not yet acted. This year, the Department of State shut down the office responsible for closing the prison. And reports indicate that the military has requested almost $196 million to upgrade facilities at Guantanamo.

There is a safe, secure, and just alternative to Guantanamo: each detained person could either be charged and fairly tried in U.S. federal court, or be released to a country that will respect his human rights.

Over the next few weeks, the markup and renewal of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) offers a critical opportunity to lift some of the obstacles to closing Guantanamo.

Last year's NDAA placed restrictions on the transfer of people detained to other countries, as well as to to the United States -- whether for fair trial or release.

Please take a moment today to urge your members of Congress to speak out and vote to repeal the transfer restrictions.

For more background, see Amnesty International's brief on closing Guantanamo or their in-depth report: "Guantánamo: A Decade of Damage to Human Rights."

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Last December, as senator after senator cast their vote on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, advocates were stunned. What had gone wrong?

The United States has traditionally been a leader in protecting the rights of people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act, which FCNL lobbied for, passed with 92 Senate votes in 1990. Much of what the U.N. convention does is extend disability protections already available to people in the United States to those in other countries. It will protect the rights of U.S. citizens—including the many disabled veterans who are stationed overseas—when they are traveling abroad, as well as improving the welfare of the global community.

Given this background, many disability rights activists were confident that at least 67 senators—two-thirds of that body, the minimum needed under the Constitution to ratify a treaty—would vote in favor of the U.N. convention.

They were wrong. Thirty-eight senators walked passed their former colleague Bob Dole, who had come in his wheelchair to the Senate floor to urge support, and voted “no” on this treaty.

The story of why this treaty failed and the lessons that can be learned have ramifications beyond the disability community. All of us working for U.S. ratification of international agreements need to pay attention to the fate of this treaty. If 67 senators can’t be convinced to vote for a convention on the rights of the disabled, winning support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Law of the Sea Treaty, and other more controversial treaties will be nearly impossible.

A History of Opposition

The argument that treaties are a threat to U.S. sovereignty has been around for a long time. In the aftermath of World War I, the Senate twice failed to approve the treaty that established the League of Nations because of concerns that the League would undermine the ability of the U.S. to govern itself.

In the last few years, powerful conservative organizations have taken the lead in arguing that international agreements undermine U.S. law and sovereignty. In the case of the Arms Trade and the Law of the Sea Treaties, the Heritage Foundation organized letters opposing ratification by at least 34 senators—the number needed in the upper chamber to block a two-third majority—effectively preventing them from coming up for a vote.

Writing about the disability treaty, the Heritage Foundation’s Amy Payne argued, “International treaties sound like a good idea, especially when they claim to protect vulnerable people. The problem is, America already does more than any other country to ensure equal rights for its people—and the United Nations just wants the power to interfere in American law.” As with any treaty, the U.S. has to comply with the requirements of a treaty that our country signs. But the cost of opting out of international agreements and systems is much higher.

How the Disability Treaty Lost

Opposition to the disability treaty was strategic, and it effectively mobilized grassroots action.

Opponents knew they did not have to win over the whole Senate. They just needed to convince 34 senators to oppose the treaty. Focusing on likely winnable votes, they identified constituencies that were important to those senators and developed fear-based campaigns to communicate with those groups.

One influential group that opponents focused on was parents who home-school their children. Through a mixture of facts and mischaracterizations, the Heritage Foundation and others portrayed the disability treaty as a threat to these parents’ decisions about their children’s education. For example, former senator and one-time presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who has a daughter with disabilities, suggested that the treaty would require home-schooling parents to send their children with disabilities to classrooms.

While the treaty would not require this change, these kinds of statements helped elevate opposition to the disability treaty to a high priority issue for this small but influential constituency. At the same time, few people or groups who supported the disability treaty had it at the top of their priority list. FCNL supported the treaty, but we did not lobby for it until it was clear that the very idea of international agreement was in trouble. The impression that senators received was that a vote for this treaty would be politically costly in communities that mattered to their re-election prospects, while a vote against the treaty would not greatly hurt them with influential communities.

The Heritage Foundation reinforced the idea that a “yes” vote would have serious consequences by announcing that it would include the disability treaty vote in its public voting record. Several lobbyists said that this decision was a key factor in turning an uncontroversial treaty into a politically costly vote.

Lessons from the Disability Treaty

What can we learn from the Senate’s rejection of this treaty?

The principles behind the disability treaty enjoyed broad support in Congress. And the treaty itself had champions from both major political parties. But effective grassroots campaigning focused on specific constituencies can have an impact on individual senators, particularly if those constituencies are highly motivated. And in today’s interconnected and wired world, misunderstandings spread quickly and can be hard to contain.

This same scenario played out last year with another treaty that FCNL has long supported, the Law of the Sea Treaty. It also has attracted broad bipartisan support from a diverse coalition of groups that includes the Navy League of the United States, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute and other groups. But this support was not sufficient to win approval in the Senate last year.

To be successful, treaty supporters need to reframe the debate about treaties to focus on what will be gained by cooperation and collaboration with other countries. We need senators to know that they have organized, dedicated constituencies that think these kinds of agreements are a good idea and that not supporting these treaties has consequences. And we need to be vigilant, not assuming that generally supported ideas will have a smooth path into law.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he will bring the disability treaty up for another vote in 2013. As advocates rally to show senators their support and address the misinformation about the treaty, a community of people beyond the disability rights movement will need to become advocates for this convention. Members of the arms control community will be watching closely as well for opportunities to learn from these advocates’ experiences.

In this Newsletter

FCNL and our allies faced many of the same obstacles we’ve outlined in this newsletter in our 2010 campaign to ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia—and we won. The story of how that treaty came into force gives hope that smart strategies and focused lobbying can change minds and win votes.

A Shift in Strategy

At the beginning of 2010, FCNL didn’t expect to spend the year working to secure Senate ratification of the New START treaty, which reduces the number of deployed nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Russia and re-establishes a structure for mutual accountability.

Ratification seemed like it would happen without much fanfare. The New START wasn’t, strictly speaking, new; it was simply the renegotiation of an existing treaty. President Obama was deeply invested in getting the necessary 67 votes for the treaty in the Senate. Ratification was supported by Republicans and Democrats, including former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and Colin Powell.

The arms control community was focused beyond the New START, gearing up for work on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. But as David Culp, FCNL’s lobbyist on nuclear issues, began to talk with Senate offices about the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, he realized that the New START was in trouble.

In private conversations, Senate staff told FCNL that their bosses were not yet willing to support the New START. Much of the concern came from senators facing pressure from their constituents at home not to engage in these kinds of agreements. FCNL Takes the Lead

As focus shifted to ensuring the New START’s ratification, FCNL emerged as a leader in defining a strategy to concentrate efforts on a few senators. Many senators had already expressed either strong commitment or strong opposition to the treaty, so David reasoned that the arms control community could best use their resources to focus intently on the senators who were on the fence or who were particularly influential with their peers. Other lobbying organizations and the administration agreed to this strategy, and the community came together to build a movement for ratification. Many organizations hired new staff members to assist during the ratification process—and there were plenty of ways for them to help.

To some senators, the political consequences of a “yes” vote on the New START seemed too high. We knew that lobbying in Washington would not be enough to persuade senators. They needed to hear directly from people in their state.

FCNL helped hire organizers in a handful of states to reach out in person to key constituencies. Working with these and other grassroots activists, we led efforts to organize faith communities to support the New START. Part of the early work involved identifying the concerns of individual senators and who could help address those concerns. We encouraged supporters to organize lobby visits and write letters to the editor, and we helped high-profile constituents write and place op-eds in local newspapers.

We also encouraged supporters to reach out to individuals and groups that they don’t usually work with, including retired members of the military. Our goal was to demonstrate to senators that the New START had strong support from many different communities, including people not usually associated with peace and arms control.

Victory! Now on to the Future

This strategic, relentless work paid off. In December 2010, in the last days of the 111th Congress, the Senate ratified the New START by a vote of 71 to 26.

The campaign to ratify this treaty provides a blueprint for future campaigns to ratify treaties. Despite the strong opposition of powerful groups and individuals, focused persuasion of individual senators can make the difference between victory and defeat.

While the New START treaty is an important step toward a world free of nuclear weapons, the U.S. needs to continue to lead an international consensus around nuclear arms control. As this work in 2010 shows, constituents have never been more important in building a world free of nuclear weapons. From the New START treaty to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and beyond, you have a key role to play in showing your senators that nuclear weapons are not the answer—and that they have support for taking a public stand on this issue.

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Step 1: Building Agreement

Treaties begin when more than one nation is concerned about addressing a joint problem. Delegates representing heads of state gather to negotiate the treaty text. The U.S. Constitution gives the Executive branch the power to negotiate treaties.

If the U.S. expresses substantial reservations at this stage, it may prevent agreement from being reached on a draft. While the U.S. delegation represents the administration, members of Congress often weigh in—and they can be swayed by constituent action.

Negotiations around an Arms Trade Treaty show the U.S.’s influence. In mid-2012, representatives from many nations gathered to draft a treaty to regulate the international trade in conventional weapons. The U.S. government used the threat of withdrawing from the treaty to successfully demand changes to ensure the legislation would not affect domestic gun laws. With those changes in place, the U.S. voted for the treaty, but ratification by the Senate is unlikely because the treaty is opposed by the National Rifle Association.

Step 2: Signing the Treaty

Once agreement on a final draft is reached, the treaty becomes open for signatures. Heads of state for each participating country may sign on. Signing a treaty means that the leader of the country commits to seek ratification and to avoid actions contrary to the treaty.

The Mine Ban Treaty, which prohibits the use or possession of anti-personnel landmines, has been signed by 161 countries but not yet by the United States. While the U.S. does not manufacture new landmines, it maintains a stockpile of millions of landmines that would have to be destroyed if the U.S. agreed to the treaty. The Obama administration is currently concluding a three-year review to determine whether to sign the treaty.

Step 3: Ratification

Even after the president signs a treaty, it still must be ratified. Under our Constitution, a treaty is not binding to the United States until two-thirds of the Senate votes to approve a resolution of ratification and the instruments of ratification (official signed documents) are exchanged with the other countries.

Consideration of a resolution of ratification begins in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, making those senators especially influential. If the treaty is not approved by that committee, it is unlikely to win a vote on the Senate floor.

Building the support of two-third of the Senate—gaining 67 “yes” votes—can be challenging. Even treaties with bipartisan support have stalled or been defeated in the Senate.

The U.S. signed the Law of the Sea Treaty in 1994. The U.S. has been voluntarily complying with this critical tool for peacefully resolving conflicts on the high seas, but it has not yet ratified the treaty. Despite the support of an unlikely coalition of business leaders, Pentagon officials, peace advocates and environmentalists, in the summer of 2012 treaty supporters decided not to bring the treaty up for a vote because they did not think it would get enough votes to pass. Even without U.S. participation, enough countries have ratified this treaty so that it has entered into force.

Another treaty still awaiting U.S. ratification is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty—and by its terms this treaty will not enter into force unless the U.S. and several other nuclear-capable countries ratify it. The U.S. was the first country to sign the treaty in 1996, but it was voted down in the Senate in 1999. Advocates for a world free of nuclear weapons, including FCNL, are laying the groundwork for another Senate vote on ratification in the years ahead.

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Over the years, the United States has signed and ratified many treaties that have addressed significant problems faced by the world’s nations. The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that the George H.W. Bush administration negotiated with Russia reduced the number of deployed nuclear weapons in those two countries. The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to limit the spread of nuclear technology (1968) and the Chemical Weapons Convention to prevent the spread of chemical weapons (1991) also had full U.S. participation.

As new treaties have been proposed, however, those who are suspicious of international cooperation have focused their critiques not on what the U.S. gains by being part of these treaties but on what might be lost if the U.S. signs on. Anti-treaty groups have described the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, designed to help reduce international gun trafficking, as an attempt to change U.S. gun laws. They have characterized the Law of the Sea Treaty, to allow U.S. companies to be a part of an international body that regulates access to resources under the sea, as an attempt to undermine U.S. control of its territorial waters. Neither of these characterizations are accurate, but they have significantly influenced the debate about U.S. participation in these treaties.

Most of our readers probably believe that some form of international cooperation is a good idea. How can we talk with others in our communities about these agreements and why they are important? Such conversations are necessary to shift the balance of public opinion and, ultimately, your senators’ votes.

What’s the Big Picture?

We begin the conversation from our core values and faith. We believe that the admonition to love our neighbor as ourself extends to our cooperation with other nations. Moreover, we know that developing cooperative arrangements with other countries through treaties can help make a safer world.

Today, we are linked with the rest of the world in ways that could barely have been imagined a generation ago. The Internet has made it possible to communicate instantly with people living on the other side of the planet. Advancements in science and medicine can be quickly shared.

This interdependence also means that many of the problems facing our country today—climate change, illegal arms trafficking, the threat of nuclear terrorism, and more—cannot be solved by any one country acting alone. These problems can only be tackled by the international community acting together.

Specific Talking Points

In discussing international cooperation, the experts who pulled together the study “The U.S. in the World: Talking Global Issues with Americans” identified several characteristics of treaties that can help start a deeper conversation:

Effectiveness. Treaties are formed because they work. Decades of experience have shown that the international community takes treaties seriously and they can be useful tools to support our shared values.

Farsightedness. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and the international community recognizes that it’s easier to solve problems before they turn into crises.

Comprehensiveness. Treaties connect the dots between similar laws and standards around the world to improve life for everyone. They also look at all the available tools to address a problem and analyze patterns to reduce the risk of future conflicts.

Sharing the burden. The U.S. doesn’t need to “go it alone” to tackle the big issues when the international community is willing and able to work with us on issues as diverse as the arms trade and climate change.

Consistency between our words and actions. Our country’s ability to serve its own interests is compromised when we don’t practice what we preach. For example, it’s difficult for the U.S. to tell other nations not to develop and test nuclear weapons when we have not yet ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

You can read the complete study at fcnl.org/usintheworld.

What About the Tough Questions?

Some questions regarding treaties come up over and over again. Here are some suggested ways to talk about those issues that might resonate with people from across the religious and political spectrum.

Are International Treaties a Threat to U.S. Sovereignty?

Rather than imposing international standards onto the United States, many treaties that the U.S. signs require other countries to observe standards that the U.S. already follows. The Arms Trade Treaty, for example, would require other countries to abide by the same standards that we already have.

It is true, however, that sometimes U.S. laws need changes to meet our treaty obligations.

The question that our leaders must consider is whether these changes are in our national interest. Some people view almost any need to align U.S. laws with the requirements of a treaty as an unacceptable infringement of the international community on U.S. sovereignty.

Others, including FCNL, see that the benefit that the U.S. gains from being part of these international agreements can outweigh the cost of adjusting U.S. law. When nuclear materials are secured worldwide, for example, the U.S. is safer than it would be if it had to rely on its own laws. It does the U.S. little good to secure its own nuclear materials when violent extremists could simply get the same materials in Russia or another country.

Are Treaties a Threat to U.S. Security?

The term “security” is sometimes treated as synonymous with “military power.” Yet creating long-term security often requires addressing the root causes of conflict. Building up human security throughout the world—making sure people have access to food, water and shelter, and encouraging policies that help people live with dignity—is critical to prevent violence.

Ideological Differences and Worldviews

In thinking about these discussions, it’s important to identify the real areas of disagreement. Often, it's not the specifics of what one treaty will do that is the issue, it’s a worldview that regards international cooperation with deep suspicion. Is the United States the “essential nation” in the world today that has the responsibility to guarantee world peace? Or do we live in an increasingly interconnected world where other nations need the United States and we need the other nations to work together to create a safer world?

In this interdependent world with growing threats that reach across borders, global teamwork has never been more important. We need to start a different conversation that recognizes the scope of these global challenges.

In this Newsletter

Does cooperation with the rest of the world strengthen U.S. security? A majority of people in the U.S. agree that it does.

Yet last year a powerful minority in the Senate blocked ratification of two treaties, both of which had broad support, that would have brought the U.S. closer to the rest of the world. One was a U.N. treaty to protect the rights of people with disabilities. The other, the Law of the Sea, would regulate the use of resources from the ocean.

Supporters of these treaties will try again. But right now, our FCNL lobbyists do not see the votes in Congress to ratify these and other pending treaties. These include the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to end the testing of nuclear weapons, the Arms Trade Treaty to keep guns out of the hands of violent extremist groups or governments and the Mine Ban Treaty to end the use of landmines.

Constituent action can change this dynamic. You can help by working with FCNL. As the successful Senate vote to ratify the New START Treaty demonstrated, focused lobbying in Washington paired with thoughtful, patient conversation and advocacy around the country can help to break down misconceptions about the impact of a treaty and win votes.

It's About More than Treaties

Fundamentally, however, it’s challenging to ratify international treaties because of disagreement about what the U.S. role in a changing world should be. Should the United States invest most of its time and treasure in a bigger military and higher walls around our borders, or focus on greater cooperation with other nations to address our common concerns?

In our view, military power and isolation may offer some protection for people within our national borders for a short period of time, but this protection comes with serious long-term costs to our country and world.

Our country’s security is now tied more closely than ever to the security of the other nations. Political and economic power are at least as important as military power. Threats to common security come from transnational organizations, diseases, scarcity or climate as often as from sovereign nations. In this context, the countries of the world need to work together.

Advocating for True Security

Friends have a long tradition of support for international engagement. They have advocated for cross-border conversations and collaboration and promoted the creation of institutions such as the United Nations and the World Court.

What can you do? In this newsletter, you’ll learn which international treaties the Senate is likely to consider in the next two years and find ideas about how to talk about these treaties with people who are wary of international engagement. Treaties are an important tool for peacemaking. They provide an organized and binding process to regulate how nations will relate to each other. It is critical for the United States to be an active participant in the process of writing and approving treaties.

A way to gauge progress in this area will be to see if the Senate can ratify the disabilities treaty, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) plans to bring back up this year. Advocates of international agreements, including FCNL, will be paying close attention to this effort.

“It is what now emboldens the hawks on the warpath to Syria, Iran and North Korea,” they add.

As Congress debates the federal budget, they are deciding how many low-income families will lose monthly housing assistance; how many women and children will face cutbacks in food support; how local governments will maintain bridges, sewers and roads; and how much money to pour into perpetuating a nuclear arsenal that is both immoral and unnecessary.

Rep. Ed Markey (MA) and 40 other representatives have proposed the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures (SANE) Act, which would cut at least a $100 billion from spending on nuclear weapons over the next 10 years. Find out if your representative has cosponsored this legislation. Then write her or him a letter urging support of this important bill or appreciation for signing on as a cosponsor.

This proposal, H.R. 1506, would nearly halve the number of nuclear-armed submarines in the U.S. arsenal, cancel plans for the F-35 fighter jet and the $10 billion B61 nuclear bomb refurbishment project, stop construction of a uranium processing facility in Oak Ridge, TN to make materials for new nuclear weapons, and more.

The SANE Act would save money, cut back on outdated U.S. nuclear weapons, and make our country safer. Ask your representative to add his or her name as a supporter of this proposal today.

Thank you,

Diane Randall
Executive Secretary

P.S. If you'd like more information, check out the nuclear disarmament section of our website.

Under current law, the federal budget includes a $1 trillion cut to Pentagon spending over the next ten years. However, this victory could be undone any day. Some members of Congress are still looking for ways to reallocate more money to the Pentagon and reduce the size of these cuts. We have reason to celebrate, as Congress has accepted that Pentagon spending will be cut at least $500 billion in the next decade, but the debate still rages over whether to keep, reduce or entirely eliminate the other $500 billion in cuts.

How Did We Get Here

Budget Control Act of 2011

In August 2011, in exchange for an increase in the debt limit, Congress passed this legislation which included $1.2 trillion in discretionary spending cuts over the next ten years, from 2013-2021. The cuts were evenly split between pentagon spending, with war spending exempt, and domestic discretionary spending, which includes programs like the National Park Service and Low-Income Housing Vouchers. The Budget Control Act (BCA) also set up a Supercommittee, a bipartisan group of members of congress brought together to craft an alternative to $1.2 trillion in cuts. The Supercommittee failed to reach a compromise, and thus triggered the automatic across-the-board cuts known as sequestration.

American Tax Relief Act of 2012

With no time to spare, Congress passed the American Tax Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA) on January 1, 2013. This bill created $620 billion of new revenue over ten years, mainly by raising taxes for individuals with incomes over $400,000 (and households over $450,000). The deal also extended unemployment insurance for one year and postponed sequestration until March 1. Although this “fiscal cliff deal” dealt with some immediate issues, it failed to permanently address other issues, like sequestration.

Sequestration

Sequestration, or the automatic across the board cuts, created under the BCA began on March 1, 2013. This indiscriminate mechanism automatically cuts all discretionary spending by $1.2 trillion over the next ten years, split evenly between pentagon and domestic spending. Many low-income programs are exempt, but some critical human services are not, and Medicare spending is cut by 2 percent.

Continuing Resolution

Because Congress has not passed a budget in four years, federal programs have been funded by temporary spending measures, or Continuing Resolutions (CR). Congress passed a CR for FY13 that was signed into law on March 26, 2013, the day before the latest CR was set to expire and three weeks after sequestration went into effect.

House Budget

The House of Representatives passed the budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) on March 21, 2013. This budget repealed sequestration for the Department of Defense, while drastically cutting vital domestic human needs programs.

Senate Budget

The Senate passed a budget authored by Sen. Patty Murray (WA) on March 23, 2013. It was the first budget to pass the Senate in four years. Senator Murray’s budget replaces sequestration in its entirety and cuts $240 billion from defense.

President’s Fiscal Year 2014 Budget

President Obama released his FY14 budget on April 10, 2013, almost 2 months late. This $1.8 trillion dollar package replaced sequestration in its entirety through a combination of revenue increases and spending cuts.

What’s Next?

The concessions made in President Obama’s budget (mainly on entitlement reform and Pentagon spending) set the stage for the next round of debates on the budget. There is potential for a grand bargain scenario, a 10 year bipartisan agreement that would ideally replace sequestration and reduce the deficit through a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases.

On the hill, we are hearing that entitlement reform coupled with changes in the tax code will be a major part of any such grand bargain scenario. Chances of the House and Senate going to conference on their budget resolutions seem slim, although recently, Senate democrats have been pushing for a return to regular order and a conference on the budget. The approaching debt ceiling deadline, once considered to be the biggest incentive for a bargain, may not prove as such. With default now pushed back from May to October, the likelihood of the debt ceiling limit forcing a grand or mini bargain seems slim. Democrats generally support a clean bill raising the debt limit, while Republicans will argue for further spending reductions to be attached to the debt limit legislation.

Even though the House and Senate have not reconciled their budgets, in mid-May, the House will begin their appropriations process, the process through which Congress allocates money to different agencies. The House plans to mark-up appropriations at $967 billion, while the Senate is sticking to the larger amount of $1.058 trillion. This $91 billion discrepancy opens the opportunity for a wide spectrum of budget deals, from “good” to “bad,” and the negotiations continue.

That is why it is so important YOU stay engaged and encourage your member of congress to maintain support for a $1 trillion cut to the Pentagon.

For a printable PDF of this document, click here.

The defense industry has a presence in congressional districts across this country, so cuts affect every member. But every district in the U.S. has pressing infrastructure, education, health and environmental needs, and the return on the taxpayer’s dollar is much higher when invested on these areas.

Instead of concentrating money on capital intensive, military hardware purposed for destruction, and causing long term economic drain, our very limited and valuable economic resources should be invested in building the true strength and capacity of our economy, our nation, and her people.

During the heightened banking crisis in 2009, Rep. James Oberstar, then Chair of House Transportation Committee, called for a massive Eisenhower-level of investment in transportation infrastructure. He was right.

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the U.S. requires $3.6 trillion in infrastructure investment by 2020 to bring our grade D+ standards to safe standards.

This is exactly what we need: to put bridge-builders to work rather than funding technology and personnel to destroy bridges, and to take tank-making factories and repurpose them to build high-speed trains.

In prioritizing military spending, Congress is cutting the very programs that can actually strengthen our economy: Cutting federal assistance to the states, forcing them to lay off teachers, firefighters, and social workers; cutting opportunities for job creation, training, and placement programs; and eviscerating funding for children’s programs and assistance for seniors.

These actions make no economic sense.

Military spending generates fewer jobs per billion dollars spent than many other kinds of investments: For every 100 jobs created by Pentagon spending, the same investment would create 251 jobs in education, 169 jobs in health care, or 147 jobs in clean energy.

Conversely, every $1 billion cut in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program means 13,718 jobs lost. Many teachers, social workers, first responders, and other government workers have already lost their jobs from the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts since 2010.

Even if $1 trillion were to be cut from the military budget over the next 10 years, America would still be spending at the peak levels of the Vietnam War and the Cold War. It is time to gather our senses.

In order to facilitate economic growth and development in America, defense spending is the wrong bellwether. America's increasing number of military expeditions abroad, in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, has undermined the long-term stability of our economy at home. It has neither resulted in an economically vibrant, healthy, and well-educated nation, nor has it made us safer.

Both our progressive and conservative representatives should be joining forces, restraining waste and investing wisely. The key is to conserve, as a good housekeeper would, and invest in that which supports the family and home -- our nation and people.

It is time for our representatives and the Obama administration to seriously address the nature of the structural reforms that need to take place in order for our economy to get back on track.

We understand that the nation cannot spend its way out of this current economic crisis, in the same way that it cannot save or tax its way out.

Congress needs to address the cyclical nature of our debt-based monetary system, which perpetuates inflation and crashes, and reform it meaningfully while massively cutting wasteful spending and, instead, investing in necessary infrastructure improvements that will create millions of productive jobs – all of which will help improve America’s health, education and prosperity.

Usually, these warnings are spot on, even if they’re scary and hard to wrap your head around.

Last week, we hit a milestone that we knew was coming but which is still truly terrible. The New York Times headline read, “Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears.” It sounded innocuous enough—a little bit like the usual alarmism that’s correct but depressing—until you read further into the article.

Here are some of the salient bits:

Scientific monitors reported that the gas had reached an average daily level that surpassed 400 parts per million — just an odometer moment in one sense, but also a sobering reminder that decades of efforts to bring human-produced emissions under control are faltering.

The best available evidence suggests the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least three million years, before humans evolved, and scientists believe the rise portends large changes in the climate and the level of the sea.

To review: we’ve hit a point where the average daily level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is consistently above 400 parts per million.

The last time there was this much carbon in the air, humans did not yet exist. (Seriously, just think about that for a second!)

To say this is dangerous and unsustainable is to understate the situation in a significant way.

Understanding the magnitude of this new state of the atmosphere requires some context. 350.org explains the situation like this:

We just went over the 400, but what are the other two numbers?

But for a variety of reasons, it will be difficult or unwieldy to get back to 275 ppm. That’s where 350 comes in.

Scientists agree that we’re in a serious pickle. “It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” said Pieter P. Tans, who runs the monitoring program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that reported the new reading.

Ralph Keeling, who runs another monitoring program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said a continuing rise could be catastrophic. “It means we are quickly losing the possibility of keeping the climate below what people thought were possibly tolerable thresholds,” he said.

Is there anything to be done about this, besides my personal favorite strategy of moping?

Well, yes. Congress could pass significant legislation to address the effects of climate change.

A price on carbon would do this in the most serious and immediate way, but there are other options too.

Legislation helping communities cope with the local impacts of a changing climate can ease the transition until bigger scale legislation is possible. S. 761, the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill, is another good first step; as Sen. Shaheen likes to say, “the best greenhouse gas is the one we never emit in the first place.”

Some moping is allowed after this shocking and, frankly, depressing news, but not too much! Take this moment to write to your representatives or to your local newspaper and ask Congress to consider this their loudest wakeup call yet, and to begin serious work on legislation to price carbon, mitigate the effects of climate change, and on energy efficiency measures like S. 761.

Yes, this is seriously depressing news. But the joke's on us if we don't take this moment to continue pushing for action. Let's get going now so we don't ever see headlines about 450 or 500 parts per million.

May 14, 2013

Top Story: Momentum Is Building on Climate Change
Take Action: Support Energy Efficiency, SANE Approach to Nuclear Weapons
In Our Network: What's New, Photo of the Week

Top Story: Momentum Is Building

Last week carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere surpassed 400 parts per million—the highest levels found on our planet in more than 5 million years. This sobering news intensifies the need for Congress to take action on policies that will reduce carbon use.

And momentum for action is building, for the first time in years. Bipartisan legislation to cut carbon dioxide emissions by making buildings more energy efficient cleared a major hurdle last week when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved it. This bill, introduced by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (NH) and Rob Portman (OH), is now headed for the Senate floor.

Now we need your help to keep this momentum going. If you haven’t written to your senators already, send them a message today and ask them to cosponsor S. 761, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act. If you have, call the congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121 and follow up your email with a call to your senators’ offices.

Find out more about the work that our lobbyists Jose Aguto and Hannah Solomon-Strauss have done to advance this proposal. And thank you to everyone who took part in our Spring Lobby Weekend, which helped push S. 761 forward.

Take Action

Support Energy Efficiency: Urge your senators to support the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act as it moves to the Senate floor.

A SANE Approach to Nuclear Weapons: Urge your representative to support this bill to cut spending on nuclear weapons by more than $100 billion over the next decade.

What's New

In the News:

• Matt Sledge of the Huffington Post covers Kate Gould’s analysis of Iran sanctions bill draft (5/13/2013)
• Adam Cohen in the Huffington Post: “Politics and Economy Should Be Focus of U.S.-Afghan Partnership” (5/13/2013)
• Cassidy Regan’s letter to the editor in the Washington Post: Taking Human Rights Seriously in Nigeria (5/13/2013)
• Kate Gould in the Huffington Post: “Iran Leak Reveals Senate Push for Regime Change” (5/10/2013)

On the Hill:

• Jim Cason: Military Considers Nuclear Weapons Cuts (5/14/13)
• What’s Going On with the Budget? (5/13/2013)
• Troop Talks While Pakistan Votes (5/13/2013)

Welcoming New Staff to FCNL!

We are pleased to welcome two new staff members who started at the beginning of May.

• Andrew Silva, Receptionist
• Dupe Cole, Business Associate

Letters and Statements

• FCNL Joins Faith Leaders to Call on Obama to Close Guantanamo (5/10/2013)
• FCNL Statement on Syria: The U.S. Can Help Save Lives by Supporting Diplomacy (5/13/2013)

Upcoming Events

• June 12-16, 2013 (Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM): David Culp, lobbyist on nuclear disarmament, will be attending Intermountain Yearly Meeting.
• June 14-19, 2013 (Wallingford, PA): Annie Boggess, program assistant for strategic advocacy, will attend the Young Adult Friends Conference at Pendle Hill.
• June 19-23, 2013 (McNabb, IL): Katherine Philipson, FCNL's network building associate, will be attending Illinois Yearly Meeting.

Photo of the Week

The FCNL family wishes Howard Garman a happy 4th birthday today! Howard is the son of communications director Alicia McBride and Sam Garman. The two of them met while working as interns at FCNL. Find out more about FCNL’s internship program.

Order your own War Is Not the Answer bumper stickers, posters and more online.

Something very cool, very important, and very heartening happened last week in the Senate. (How often do we get to say that?). If you’ve been following energy news from FCNL lately, you’ll know we’ve been spending our time lobbying on S. 761, the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill.

Last week, S. 761 was reported favorably by the energy committee and is on its way to the Senate floor. What this means is that all but three members of the energy committee approved of the bill and voted to send it for a vote by the whole body.

This is huge for several reasons. First, the sheer speed with which this has happened! Shaheen-Portman was introduced less than one month ago, and it has already been sent to the floor. (Rumor has it, S. 761 may make an appearance on the floor tomorrow, May 15). We hear that Shaheen and Portman, among others, are eager to get it passed by the Senate as soon as possible, and possibly as soon as the end of the month.

Second, of course, we’re thrilled by the strong bipartisan support that S. 761 has received. In addition to having bipartisan cosponsors (Sen. Shaheen is a Democrat and Sen. Portman is a Republican), the bill received a strongly bipartisan vote out of committee. Senators from states as politically disparate as Vermont and Tennessee, Washington and North Dakota all said “aye” to send the bill to the Senate floor. Given the gridlock we often see in the Senate, this may be the most important fact about the reporting of S. 761.

Third, S. 761 is being amended, and in a way that we’re happy to support. Senators Hoeven (ND) and Klobuchar (MN) are cosponsoring S. 717, which is presently an amendment to Shaheen-Portman. S. 717 would alter the provisions of S. 761 in a subtle way to allow non-profit groups to better capitalize on what S. 761 offers.

Currently, while S. 761 creates a terrific financing mechanism, it would still require a substantial amount of capital, upfront and on-hand, to begin retrofitting a building. While this is no problem for corporations, the government, and other large employers, it can prove an obstacle to non-profits—who, nearly by definition, do not have large amounts of capital on hand. S. 717 would allow non-profits easier access to these financing mechanisms.

As a non-profit, FCNL is supporting the campaign to amend S. 761 in this way. However, we’re still pushing hard for passage of the bill as a whole, and if it passes without being amended, we would not consider this a loss.

So what does this mean for Shaheen-Portman, for our work, and for your involvement? It means they’re all looking up.

Shaheen-Portman is headed in the right direction. Help us keep it going that way by taking action today!

The Pentagon is looking at ways to further reduce U.S. stockpiles of nuclear weapons and exploring at least at a theoretical level abandoning the doctrine that requires the US to have the ability to launch nuclear weapons from land, sea and air.

This was the headline my colleague David Culp came back with from a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee last week and I think that's good news. It's also evidence that as budget cuts begin to take effect the Pentagon is having to take a look at the huge amounts of money our country wastes on nuclear weapons.

Eliminate the Triad?

"Reducing one of the legs of a triad would be something that would be really big. So it would be a reasonable option to look at," explained Madelyn Creedon, an Assistant Secretary of Defense. The triad is the nuclear doctrine that states the US must have the ability to launch nuclear weapons from air, land and sea. Under Congressional pressure, Creedon acknowledged that such changes would require a revision of current US nuclear weapons policy.

These comments drew strong protests from some members of the Armed Services Committee who sought assurances that eliminating the triad would not become US policy. So far, Pentagon officials are suggesting that eliminating the triad is an intellectual exercise, not something they are actively working on. But my question is why aren't they working on that possibility and why isn't Congress cheering?

As the Washington Post reported this week, there's something very troubling about Congress trying to block the Pentagon from even considering ways of changing the US nuclear weapons forces in a changing world. In addition to protesting the discussion of eliminating one leg of the triad, the House leadership now says it will hold back money to implement the new START treaty with Russia until the Obama administration states it will not seek additional reductions in deployed nuclear weapons without Congressional authorization.

Now of course the FCNL community has been calling for the total elimination of nuclear weapons for decades and that position has gained strong support within the broader faith community. But whether members of Congress support or oppose reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the US arsenal, I would think Congressional leaders would want to encourage a broad debate that is already taking place within the US military.

In the FCNL community, our opposition to nuclear weapons comes first from a faith perspective. We also share the belief -- now articulated by former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz -- that eliminating the US nuclear weapons program would be good public policy.

The United States is set to spend more than $600 billion over the next decade on nuclear weapons and related spending. You don't have to represent a Quaker peace lobby to argue that In this time of fiscal constraint and changing threats, it doesn't make sense to spend billions of dollars on weapons systems that are unnecessary.

The good news is that although some members of the House Armed Services Committee are trying to block any reductions in nuclear weapons expenditures, Rep. Ed Markey has introduced legislation that could lead to at least a $100 billion cut in spending on nuclear weapons over the next ten years. Please ask your representative to support this legislation and work for its passage.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation obtained what it says is a summary of the draft legislation on Iran sanctions, passed along by a congressional staffer within the last two weeks. And the details, the Quaker group told The Huffington Post, are worrying.

"This legislation would set U.S. policy toward Iran as regime change, so if passed, this would be the strongest signal yet that the U.S. is not interested in behavior-changing and reaching a nuclear deal," said Kate Gould, the group's lead lobbyist on Middle East policy. "That would create the path for a disastrous war."

The office of Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who is leading the legislative effort, did not respond to requests for comment on the document, but its contents mirror those of a draft bill described by Bloomberg News in April. The draft summary says the bill would require the Treasury Department to certify that Iran "is transitioning to a free and democratically elected government" before it lifts sanctions on the country.

That would put the Obama administration in the difficult political position of sanctioning Iran's human rights record before it can cut a deal on the country's nuclear program, Gould said.

"It is widely assumed that if and when there finally is a deal, the U.S. would have to lift sanctions, and this would straightjacket the administration," she said.

Gould also noted that the U.S. previously set regime change as a goal for another Middle Eastern country -- Iraq, in 1998. Passing a similar bill now for Iran, she said, would have the additional effect of validating the rhetoric of hardliners within the Islamic Republic.

Along with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Kirk introduced a bill on Wednesday that would restrict Iran's access to foreign exchange reserves. Manchin's office also did not return a request for comment.

Gould said she believes Kirk and others will still introduce the larger sanctions package later and separated out the foreign exchange piece because it has broad bipartisan support and can pass out of Congress quickly.

"He's still shopping [the larger bill] around, dotting his I's and crossing his T's," said Jamal Abdi, policy director for National Iranian American Council, which opposes stricter sanctions.

In addition to the regime change language, the draft summary also "prohibits U.S. contributions to any multilateral organization [other than the World Bank and the IMF] if the governing board of the organization includes ... a country that faces U.S. sanctions."

That could force the U.S. to withdraw its financial support for organizations like the U.N. Refugee Agency and UNICEF, the children's humanitarian relief fund.

FCNL believes that the United States should implement a policy of positive engagement with Afghanistan beyond 2014, but that a military-first relationship enshrined in a Bilateral Strategic Agreement would neglect Afghanistan’s political and economic transitions. These critical flashpoints in Afghan society should be the centerpiece of relations moving forward. Pakistan is among the regional governments that must come together in any lasting Afghan peace. FCNL hopes that Pakistan’s newly elected leadership will use its historic mandate to move towards peace with India and a more constructive role in Afghanistan’s affairs.

While it’s important for the United States to cut off assistance to specific individuals and units known to commit violations, continuing to provide lethal aid to their governments year after year — despite chronic abuses, virtual impunity and minimal efforts forward — is dangerous and ineffective. And as the United States simultaneously works to support good governance, the mixed messages don’t go unnoticed by impacted communities.

With partnerships in the name of counterterrorism growing in Africa and elsewhere, more long-term accountability and conditioning of U.S. military aid is needed. Members of Congress and others should demand meaningful evaluations of U.S. security assistance’s efficacy and impact in all countries, before it’s too late.

Cassidy Regan, Washington

The writer is the Kenya Project Associate for the Friends Committee on National Legislation’s Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict Program.