Bipartisan Pol Ctr BPC

death panel lie mccaughy --> fred t --> bachmann --> palin

http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Incorporated-World-Post-Truth-Politics/dp/0307279596

srcwtch embargoed:

• 1 The following was removed from the main page of this article by CMD Staff for further review:
• 2 Critical Assessment
• 3 Hawkish on... Iran
• 4 Principals and Staff 2012
• 5 Contact
• 6 Resources and articles
  • 6.1 Related Sourcewatch articles
• 7 External Resources
  • 7.1 References
  • 7.2 End Page Excerpt

The following was removed from the main page of this article by CMD Staff for further review:

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is according to itself:

BPC was formed to develop and promote solutions that would attract the public support and political momentum to achieve real progress. The BPC acts as an incubator for policy efforts that engage top political figures, advocates, academics and business leaders in the art of principled compromise. In addition to advancing specific proposals, the BPC also is broadcasting a different type of policy discourse that seeks to unite the constructive center in the pursuit of common goals.^[1]

BPC was formerly named the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP), but the organization changed spots in 2002 (when the organization sought to position itself to lobby on a wider range of issues, especially foreign policy.

The proliferation of important titles like “Senior, Executive, President, etc.” should alert one to the fact that this is a lobbying organization with a secondary role of providing a sinecure to out-of-office government officials.

Critical Assessment

Justin Raimondo, the AntiWar columnist writes:

If the Israelis have launched a covert operation in this country designed to push us into war – not the first time such an effort has been made by a foreign power, and no doubt not the last – one can hardly blame them. They, after all, are simply doing what all nation-states everywhere do: pursuing their own national interests. One could certainly argue that Israel’s interests would not be served by such a war, but, really, that’s not my shtick, as they say: I’m concerned with what’s in America’s interests – which is what really puts me on the other side of the barricades from Makovsky and Rubin.

Covert operations invariably involve deception: front groups that aren’t what they appear to be, hidden interests that masquerade under false pretexts, and ostensibly "respectable" individuals who serve purposes other than those announced. This is what the Bipartisan Policy Center is all about.^[2]

Hawkish on... Iran

One of the means for BPC to propagate its views is to place Opeds in the major newspapers. Philip Giraldi, the former CIA officer, comments on BPC:

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is surely one of the more bizarre pro-Israel think tanks doing business in Washington. Its sage advice pops up here and there, most recently in The Wall Street Journal, where it advocated giving Israel tanker aircraft so its warplanes can fly to Iran, bomb the hell out of that country’s nuclear facilities, and make it safely back. The BPC’s National Security Project is headed by Charles Robb,a former senator and governor from Virginia and living proof that you can fool most people more than once. Robb argues that enabling a devastating Israeli attack on Iran would create a credible deterrent to Tehran’s misbehavior and maintains that his judgment is derived from a “fact-driven consensus.”

...

The BPC claims to be bipartisan because it includes both Democrats and Republicans, but that does not mean that it is objective. More than three years ago it produced a “task force” report on the Iranian threat called “Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development.” It concluded that Iran has no right to enrich nuclear fuel for any purpose and predicted that Tehran would have sufficient highly enriched uranium in a year’s time to build a bomb. It advocated talking to Tehran to give it a chance to surrender on all key issues before attacking it, and it urged newly elected but not yet inaugurated President Barack Obama to build up forces for the assault. The task force recommended that the U.S. military should, after bombing Iran into submission, remain in the area, vigilant and ready to react to any attempt at retaliation by Tehran.^[3]

And about the nature and origins of BPC, Giraldi concludes:

The BPC has plush offices on Eye Street in Washington, a sizable staff, and a number of important people on its masthead. It might be churlish to ask where its money comes from, but I would hate to embarrass someone as self-important as former senator and governor Charles Robb. The fact is that groups like BPC do a major disservice to the people of the United States because they promote themselves as nonpartisan and free of any particular political agenda when they are anything but. Their claimed objectivity is clearly a fiction, as they have been calling for military action against Iran for years, citing nonexistent threats and even speculating on the state of a nuclear program that does not exist. Their failure to include anyone who actually knows anything about Iran on their team and their choice to exclude anyone who might oppose a new war or be disinclined to think that all Muslims are potential traitors should tell us everything we need to know. It is a sad commentary on the state of the United States that ignorant, blowhard warmongers such as the BPC receive money, political support, and press coverage while groups that want to restore sanity and balance to American foreign policy are forced to scramble to raise nickels and dimes. ^[3]

Principals and Staff 2012

BPC: Former Principals and Staff

Contact

Web: www.bipartisanpolicy.org

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch articles

• The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Foundation and global warming
• The Joyce Foundation and global warming
• Strategic Public Diplomacy Project

External Resources

• Justin Raimondo, The Worms in the Apple, Antiwar.com, 18 September 2009 ^[10]

References

1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ About, Bipartisan Policy Center, accessed February 3, 2009.
2. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Justin Raimondo, The Worms in the Apple, Antiwar.com, 18 September 2009.
3. ↑ ^Jump ^up ^to:3.0 3.1 Philip Giraldi, Bipartisan Support for World War III, AntiWar,
4. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
5. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
6. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
7. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
8. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
9. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
10. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Contains extensive discussion of some of the principals in this organization. (Accessed: 16 February 2012)

End Page Excerpt

Categories: 

• United States
• Iran War Drummer

==

OLYMPIA SNOWE: You know, I had been fighting  to try to bring up issues that I thought were important to address, and basically the Senate had been shut down.

MUSIC: Fine Prince, “Log Lady, Instrumental” (fromLookout)

That’s Olympia Snowe, from Maine.

SNOWE: Yes, I served in the state legislature in both the State House and the State Senate prior to my 34 years in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate where I served 16 in the U.S. House of Representatives and 18 years in the U.S. Senate.

Over that time, the tenor of Congress changed a great deal.

SNOWE: In fact, the last Congress I served in, in 2012 — it was the least productive Congress in modern history.

Snowe was a moderate Republican, a coalition-builder, happy to work across the aisle. In fact, her support for some Democratic positions — on reproductive rights, on ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, her votes for Democratic judicial nominees – this all came to anger her Republican colleagues, especially the new breed of hardliners. Over time, Snowe saw her brand of centrism essentially disappear.

SNOWE: And in fact, three political scientists conducted a study and said that we are experiencing the worst polarization since the end of Reconstruction, 1879. If you think about it, that is pretty serious. In an analysis up through 2013 that showed in 1982, there were 58 senators that came between the most conservative Democrats and the most liberal Republicans. Today — at least up to 2013, and I doubt that that has changed — for the fourth time in a row,  fifth time ever, zero senators come into that category. In the House of Representatives in 1982, there were 344 members of the House of Representatives that came between the most conservative Democrats and the most liberal Republicans. Today, there are only four in that category. So it tells you there is no Democrat who is more conservative than a Republican; there is no Republican more liberal than a Democrat.

This polarization became spectacularly manifest during the debt crises of 2011 and 2013, when Congress threatened to shut down the Federal government, and actually did so in 2013.

SNOWE:  I mean, I was stunned that we would be at a point in the United States Congress that we were prepared to take the country to the financial and political brink to make a political point.

Snowe had been planning to run for re-election to the Senate. Everything was in place. She was just 65 years old. She had the money and the organization. In her previous election she’d won nearly 75 percent of the vote. But, she decided that she didn’t fit in this Congress any more.

SNOWE: So they abandoned legislating and policymaking and just devolved into a series of gotcha votes, “my way or the highway,” and the all-or-nothing proposition that was really the road to nowhere. And I decided that I would take my fight on the outside because I realized that the change was not going to occur from within.

Snowe joined the Bipartisan Policy Center, which addresses, as she calls it, “congressional dysfunction and political paralysis.” She wrote a book called *Fighting for Common Ground: How We Can Fix the Stalemate in Congress*. Many of her solutions have to do with re-creating a bipartisan Congress: less filibustering and grandstanding, more regular meetings between majority and minority leadership, more regular meetings between Congress and the President. Because that’s how it was in Snowe’s early years in Washington.

But over time, moderates were purged from both parties, and partisan battles became more intense, more destructive. So what’s to be done about that? And, since it’s election season, we might as well ask a bigger question: what’s to be done about all the other rotten things in American politics? Today on Freakonomics Radio,we ask politicians and scholars, donkeys and elephants and everyone in between: what’s the one political or electoral practice that deserves to die?

==

hmmn blog?

The Worms in the Apple

Who's really behind that "bipartisan" call to attack Iran?

by Justin Raimondo, September 18, 2009

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As the war drums start beating in Washington over the Iranian nuclear "crisis," Bloomberg reports the following:

"The U.S. should begin preparing crippling sanctions on Iran and publicly make clear that a military strike is possible should the Iranian government press ahead with its nuclear effort, a bipartisan policy group said. ‘If biting sanctions do not persuade the Islamic Republic to demonstrate sincerity in negotiations and give up its enrichment activities, the White House will have to begin serious consideration of the option of a U.S.-led military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities,’ said the study from the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington."

Yes, it’s a "policy center" that’s "bipartisan" – just a group of disinterested centrist policy wonks, responsible and "mainstream" to a fault, who have no real ideological agenda or axe to grind. Right?

Wrong!

Who or what is the "Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC)," and what is the source of their foreign policy expertise? Formerly the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP), the group was a left-of-center alliance of big liberal foundations and their collaborators in the "environmentalist" movement, academia, and government. Their agenda: draconian restrictions on energy production. You would think that the energy industry would stay far away from this group, but no: included among this gaggle of radical environmentalists and anti-business academics were top executives or former executives with Ford, Exelon, and ConocoPhillips — corporations big enough to survive and even prosper under the new "environmentalist" regime, since BPC-backed regulations would cripple their competitors.

In any case, NCEP morphed into the Bipartisan Policy Center in 2002, with money from Big Oil (Chevron) and four major left-of-center foundations. It has been largely concerned with promoting environmentalism, and goody-two-shoes "good governance" programs, especially those that require expansion of federal government power. Its foray into the foreign policy realm is relatively recent, but here the vaguely leftist tone is abandoned, and no wonder: its top foreign policy "expert" is one Michael Makovsky, a former staffer at the notorious Office of Special Plans – yes, the same Bush era outfit that manipulated phony "intelligence" and packaged it as talking points to sell the Iraq war to a gullible Congress, a, and a half-asleep American public. 

The Bloomberg piece attributes the BPC’s report on Iran to former Democratic Senator Chuck Robb, of Virginia, Republican Dan Coats, former Senator from Indiana, and retired Gen. Charles Walk, former deputy commander of the US European command. But as Jim Lobe, of IPS News Service, points out (here and here), the real authors were Makovsky and Michael Rubin, whose ideological orientation may indeed be "bipartisan" – after all, the neocons infest both parties – but who very definitely have an ideological axe to grind.  

Makovsky is supposed to be some sort of expert on the oil industry, which is the capacity he served in for the Office of Special Plans – an odd job for someone whose doctorate is in history, and has no experience working in the energy industry. His older brother, David, is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy – the "thinktank" wing of AIPAC, the leading pro-Israel lobby in the US. He once worked for Sen. John Danforth, after which he moved to Israel, where he intended to pursue a career as an Israeli diplomat (without, however, giving up his US citizenship), after serving in the Israeli military.  

Other details about his background are … interesting. A USA Today article published in 1995 quotes a Michael Makovsky who lived at a settlement in the West Bank, and was a friend of Yigal Amir – the right-wing extremist who murdered Yitzhak Rabin. According to this report, Makovsky’s extremist allegiances aren’t limited to paling around with assassins. He was reportedly a member, in his student days at least, of the neo-fascist "Betar" organization, which has a military structure (members wear uniforms, and engage in "drills") and calls for a "Greater Israel." 

Michael Rubin’s extreme views are at least a match for Makovsky’s. Ru

==

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is a Washington, D.C.-based policy group founded in 2002 to promote bipartisan solutions to “the key challenges facing the nation,” focusing on both domestic and foreign policies. Founders included former senators Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, and George Mitchell.[[1]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn1)

Despite having bipartisan credentials as well as a broad slate of domestic and foreign policy projects, BPC has developed a reputation as a key inside-the-beltway supporter of hawkish security and defense policies, particularly with respect to Iran.

img

BPC has also increasingly aligned itself with groups that are opposed to negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. In November 2014, BPC co-hosted an event with the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) ahead of the then looming deadline for negotiations between Iran and the P5+1. The event featured speakers such as FDD executive director Mark Dubowitz, Eric Edelman of FPI, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), and Iran-hawk Ray Takeyh, all of whom pushed for greater congressional involvement in the negotiations.[[2]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn2)

Commenting on the event, Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service wrote: ”How was it that the foreign policy project of a ‘bipartisan’ organization—founded by two relatively liberal former Democratic Majority Leaders and two relatively moderate former Republican Majority Leaders—was effectively captured and held captive for no less than seven years by hard-core neoconservatives determined to sabotage a top foreign-policy priority of a sitting Democratic president?”[[3]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn3)

A November 2014 BPC’s National Security project report on Iran’s nuclear program claimed that Iran “continues to test the boundaries of the current diplomatic process” and that a list of purported “minor infractions serves both to set a precedent and to probe the international community’s willingness to punish transgressions.”[[4]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn4) According to a December 2014 State Department briefing, Iran has kept all of its commitments under the interim-nuclear deal reached in November 2013 and extended until July 2015.[[5]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn5)

In December 2012, Dennis Ross, Charles Robb, and Michael Makovsky—members of BPC’s “Iran Task Force”—published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal apparently attempting to make an economic case for launching a U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons carries various risks, but inaction has its costs, too—especially to the price of oil and, in turn, to the U.S. economy,” they wrote. Arguing that a nuclear-armed Iran would be more likely to enter into conflict with Saudi Arabia or Israel, the trio predicted significant increases in the cost of fuel and an economic slowdown leading to the loss of 1.5 million American jobs. “As American and other policy makers contemplate what it will take to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions,” they concluded, “they must not dwell exclusively on the potential short-term impacts of economic pressure or military action. Over the medium and long term, the economic costs of a nuclear Iran may be no less real and far more enduring.”[[6]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn6)

*National Interest* writer John Allen Gay took the trio to task for skirting the actual costs of a U.S. strike on Iran. “They claim that those advocating ‘inaction’… are shortsightedly considering the high price of war now while neglecting the costs of instability later,” he wrote. “But is ‘action’—meaning war—really such a farsighted and strategic measure? Is there a price to be paid for peace that won’t come due with an attack? Robb, Ross and Makovsky do not address this, yet this is the most crucial question of all.” Gay noted the shared assessment of many experts that an attack on Iran would likely fail to destroy Iran’s nuclear program permanently and could simply solidify the regime’s desire to acquire a weapon, as well as encourage it to take “more dastardly and aggressive forms of retaliation” in the future, perhaps backed by Russia or China. “Living with an Iranian bomb brings new and serious risks,” he concluded. “Yet military action might not reduce any of them, and it will certainly come at a steep price of its own. ‘Inaction’ is expensive. It is just not clear that any of the proposed alternatives are cheaper.”[[7]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn7)

Staff and Programs

In 2013, BPC had roughly $24 million in revenues and hd a staff of some 100 people working in several key program areas, including economic policy, energy, and national security.[[8]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn8)

As of 2014, BPC’s president was Jason Grumet, a cofounder of the center whose résumé includes directing the National Commission on Energy Policy. BPC’s senior vice president was Julie Anderson, a former manager of the Climate Change Campaign for the Union of Concerned Scientists and a special assistant for legislative affairs for President Bill Clinton. Other notable principals at the time included John C. Fortier, a former research fellow at theAmerican Enterprise Institute who led BPC’s Democracy Project, and Chuck Wald, retired four-star general who chaired BPC’s board of directors. Other board members included former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine; Dennis Archer, former mayor of Detroit; Walter Isaacson, director of the Aspen Institute; and former U.S. Senator Charles Robb.

Although BPC has a 501(c)3 non-profit status, it has an affiliated lobbying arm called the Bipartisan Policy Center Advocacy Network, which according to BPC engages “in advocacy and strategic outreach and education to bolster the legislative center and support efforts that bring Republicans and Democrats together on the difficult issues facing the country.”[[9]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn9)

BPC runs five major programs, including Economic Policy, Energy & Infrastructure, Governance, Health, and National Security Programs. Nestled within its national security division is its special “Foreign Policy Project,” which is headed by Robb and Wald, along with former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, former ambassador Eric Edelman, former undersecretary of state Paula Dobriansky, among others.[[10]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn10) BPC also has a “Homeland Security Project,” which is headed by former 9/11 commission co-chairs Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, and has a numerous panelists, including former Rep. Chris Carney and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III.[[11]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn11)

Iran

Although it provides policy recommendations on everything from housing and energy to governance and health, BPC is particularly well known for its advocacy on security and defense polices, the issue area overseen for many years by the well-connected neoconservative figure Michael Makovsky, a veteran of the controversial Bush-era Office of Special Plans who has long-standing ties to Israeli politics. Makovsky is a former visiting fellow at the Claremont Institute and his brother, David Makovsky, is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a spin off of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In April 2013, Makovsky left BPC to become CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a neoconservative-aligned advocacy group that works to build military-to-military ties between the United States and Israel.

BPC formerly operated a “Task Force on Iran,” which was co-chaired by former Sen. Charles Robb and current BPC chair Chuck Wald. Most members of this task force, including Wald, have moved on to join the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs' Gemunder Center Iran Task Force, a group whose briefings on Iran recommend increasing "pressure" on the country while negotiations are still on-going.[[12]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn12)

In June 2012, Robb and BPC Foreign Policy Project Advisor Stephen Rademaker testified before the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) “to explain the Iranian nuclear threat and the option of using credible, visible preparations for military action to stop Iran’s nuclear development as a last resort,” according to the a BPC press release.[[13]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn13)

From 2006 until his departure in 2013, Makovsky was the center’s main public face promoting U.S. military action against Iran. He led various BPC teams in publishing reports about Iran’s nuclear program, often penning articles for neoconservative outlets like the *_{Weekly Standard}_*and promoting policy suggestions directly to legislators—including a May 2012 letter to Rep.Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the hawkish chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, claiming that “a nuclear Iran represents the most pressing threat to the national security of the United States.” The letter presaged Robb and Rademaker’s June 2012 HASC testimony by arguing that sanctions and diplomacy must be coupled with “visible credible preparations for a military option.”[[14]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn14)

In a March 2012 Standard article published during the lead-up to President Barack Obama’s appearance at the annual AIPAC convention, Makovsky argued that the United States should work to prevent Iran from developing the “capability” to build nuclear weapons—in contrast to preventing the acquisition of the weapons themselves. Makovsky did not elaborate on how exactly the United States could go about implementing such a policy.[[15]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn15)

However, a February 2012 BPC policy paper, which mentioned Makovsky’s role as a staff director, suggested a plan of action aimed at making U.S. and Israeli threats to Iran appear more “credible.”[[16]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn16) The report, titled “Meeting the Challenge: Stopping the Clock,” argued that the United States should “increase its naval deployments to the Gulf, scale up the frequency and size of its military exercises there, and augment the offensive strike capabilities of its Gulf Arab allies.”[[17]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn17)

The 2012 policy paper was just the latest in a series of BPC papers dating back several years promoting confrontational approaches to relations with Iran.[[18]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn18) In 2008, for example, a Makovsky-led BPC team that produced the report “Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development,” whose lead drafter was _{American Enterprise Institute}_ fellow_{Michael Rubin}_, an outspoken proponent of militarist U.S. policies in the Middle East. Other participants included _{Henry Sokolski}_; Obama Middle East adviser _{Dennis Ross}_; Pentagon official Ashton Carter: Stephen Rademaker, and Kenneth Weinstein, CEO of the _{Hudson Institute}_.[[19]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn19)

The report argued that despite Iran’s assurances to the contrary, its nuclear program aims to develop nuclear weapons and is thus a threat to “U.S. and global security, regional stability, and the international nonproliferation regime,”[[20]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn20) a conclusion that contrasted sharply with the CIA’s November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which found that Iran had put its efforts to develop nuclear warheads on hold.[[21]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn21) The report stated, “As a new president prepares to occupy the Oval Office, the Islamic Republic’s defiance of its Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards obligations and United Nations Security Council resolutions will be among the greatest foreign policy and national security challenges confronting the nation.” In contrast to many realist assessments of the situation, the report contended that “Cold War deterrence” is not persuasive in the context of Iran’s program, due in large measure to the “Islamic Republic’s extremist ideology.” Thus, even a peaceful uranium enrichment program would place the entire Middle East region “under a cloud of ambiguity given uncertain Iranian capacities and intentions.”[[22]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn22)

The report advised that the new U.S. president bolster the country’s military presence in the Middle East, which would include “pre-positioning additional U.S. and allied forces, deploying additional aircraft carrier battle groups and minesweepers, emplacing other war material in the region, including additional missile defense batteries, upgrading both regional facilities and allied militaries, and expanding strategic partnerships with countries such as Azerbaijan and Georgia in order to maintain operational pressure from all directions.” In addition, the new administration should suspend bilateral cooperation with Russia on nuclear issues to pressure it to stop providing assistance to Iran’s nuclear, missile, and weapons programs. And, if the new administration agrees to hold direct talks with Tehran without insisting that the country first cease enrichment activities, it should set a pre-determined compliance deadline and be prepared to apply increasingly harsh repercussions if the deadlines are not met, leading ultimately to U.S. military strikes that would “have to target not only Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but also its conventional military infrastructure in order to suppress an Iranian response.”[[23]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn23)

Calling the report a “roadmap to war,” Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service wrote, “In other words, if Tehran is not eventually prepared to permanently abandon its enrichment of uranium on its own soil—a position that is certain to be rejected by Iran ab initio—war becomes inevitable, and all intermediate steps, even including direct talks if the new president chooses to pursue them, will amount to going through the motions (presumably to gather international support for when push comes to shove).… What is a top Obama advisor [Dennis Ross] doing signing on to it?”[[24]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn24)

In October 2008, a month after the BPC report on Iran was released, Makovsky was a featured speaker at a Hudson Institute conference titled “U.S.-Israeli Relations at a Crossroads? Challenges to the Special Relationship.” The conference hosted a range of speakers, including Daniel Levy from the liberal New America Foundation, as well as several neoconservative-aligned ideologues, like _{Elliott Abrams}_, _{David Wurmser}_, _{Douglas Feith}_, and Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.[[25]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn25)

Defense Spending

Another key item on BPC’s agenda is defense spending, where the center has at times charted a moderate course. In November 2010, for instance, the BPC “Debt Reduction Task Force”—co-chaired by former Sen. Pete Domenici and President Clinton's former budget director, Alice Rivlin—released a report that provided a set of recommendations for reducing the federal deficit that included making defense cutbacks. Itcalled for a five-year freeze on defense spending, canceling various weapons systems, and reducing the number of soldiers and marines by 275,000 (nearly 10 percent off total active-duty personnel and reservists).[[26]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn26)

The suggestions contrasted sharply with those pushed by other hawkish policy outfits, noted Jim Lobe at the time, including “three defense contractor-backed think tanks—the neoconservative _{American Enterprise Institute}_ and the _{Foreign Policy Initiative}_ and the far-right _{Heritage Foundation}_,” who jointly published a report at roughly the same time as the BPC’s Debt Reduction Task Forcereport warning that defense cuts threatened the nation’s security.[[27]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn27)

More recently, however, BPC has criticized defense cuts that could occur in 2013 as a result of sequestration, which entails automatic cuts to both military and domestic programs triggered by Congress’ inability to reach an agreement on the deficit. Echoing views pushed by conservative groups like the Lexington Institute and high-profile national security hawks like former Vice President Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney adviser Dov Zakheim, BPC published a report in June 2012 that claimed the defense cuts would jeopardize U.S. national security. Titled “Indefensible: The Sequester’s Mechanics and Adverse Effects on National and Economic Security,” the report stated:“At a time when the military is reorienting its missions to new strategic priorities and seeking to modernize its forces as two major land wars wind down, these across-the-board cuts will make it significantly more difficult to ensure readiness, procure new weapons systems, and invest in new technology to meet emerging threats.”[[28]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn28)

The report added: “Such cuts, blind to strategic priorities, will leave the U.S. military unable to implement effectively any credible national security strategy—whether President Obama’s or any other one—because arbitrary reductions will have taken the place of deliberative planning. Cuts made in this fashion will eliminate almost all of DoD’s discretion to preserve funding for the most important and efficient national security missions and capabilities.”[[29]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn29)

In contrast to this alarmist assessment, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report in July 2012 that downplayed the overall impact of the sequester, stating: “Accommodating those reductions … could be difficult for the department to manage because it would have to be done over only nine months. Even with that cut, however, DoD’s base budget in 2013 would still be larger than it was in 2006 (in 2013 dollars) and larger than the average base budget during the 1980s.”[[30]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn30)

Commenting on the contrast between the CBO assessment and the alarmist views expressed by Republican leaders, the defense industry, and the secretary of defense, defense industry expert Winslow Wheeler, told ThinkProgress: “The comments from many—but not all—Republicans, most defense manufacturers and the secretary of defense that they regard a budget well above Cold War averages to be a catastrophe is consciously constructed, misinforming hysteria.”[[31]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bipartisan_policy_center/#_edn31)

==

wi9ki bs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Policy_Center

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is a non-profit organization that "drives principled solutions through rigorous analysis, reasoned negotiation, and respectful dialogue". It considers itself a think tank characterized by "politically balanced policy making with strong, proactive advocacy and outreach". The Center was founded in 2007 by former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, and George J. Mitchell.^[1]

BPC currently has projects focused on economic policy, energy, health care and nutrition, housing, national security, and transportation. Actively promoting bipartisanship, BPC hosts events like "Bridge-Builder Breakfasts", political summits, and policy discussions to foster an ongoing conversation about how to overcome political divides.

Jason Grumet serves as president of BPC. Prior to helping found the organization in 2007, Grumet directed the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP).^[2] He was also an adviser on energy and the environment for the successful 2008 presidential campaign of then Senator Barack Obama.^[3]

Contents

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• :{1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{History:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{1.1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{2009:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{1.2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{2010:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{1.3:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{2011:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{1.4:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{2012:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Policy programs and projects:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{2.1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Economic Policy Program:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
    • :{2.1.1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Economic Policy Project (EPP):(style="display:table-cell"):}:
    • :{2.1.2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Restoring America's Future:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
    • :{2.1.3:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Housing commission:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{2.2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Energy and infrastructure program:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
    • :{2.2.1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Energy project:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
    • :{2.2.2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{National Transportation Policy Project (NTPP):(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{2.3:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Governance program:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
    • :{2.3.1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Democracy project:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{2.4:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Health program:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
    • :{2.4.1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Health project:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
    • :{2.4.2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Prevention Initiative:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{2.5:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{National Security Program:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
    • :{2.5.1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Foreign Policy Project:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
    • :{2.5.2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Homeland Security Project:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{3:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Annual Political Summit:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{4:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Senior Fellows:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{5:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Governors' Council:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{6:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{See also:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{7:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{References:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{8:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{External links:(style="display:table-cell"):}:

History

While BPC was formally launched in March 2007, the organization’s roots trace back to 2002, when the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP), predecessor to BPC's current Energy Project, was founded.^[4]

2009

On June 17, 2009, BPC's "Leaders' Project on the State of American Health Care" (now an inactive project) released a report, Crossing Our Lines: Working Together to Reform the U.S. Health System'] The report, which came at the height of the health care reform debate in the United States, laid out plans to help states establish insurance exchanges and lower costs. Former Senate Majority Leaders and BPC Co-Founders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, and Bob Dole crafted the report.^[5]

2010

On February 16, 2010, BPC hosted "Cyber ShockWave", a simulated cyber attack on the United States. The simulation, which was moderated by Wolf Blitzer and broadcast as a special on CNN, provided a look at how the government would respond to a large-scale cyber crisis affecting much of the nation. The simulation was created by former CIA Director General Michael Hayden (general) and BPC's National Security Preparedness Group, led by the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, Governor Thomas Kean and Congressman Lee H. Hamilton.

Former senior administration officials and national security experts participating in the event included: Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff as National Security Advisor; Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte as Secretary of State; White House Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend as Secretary of Homeland Security; Director of Central Intelligence John E. McLaughlin as Director of National Intelligence; Senator Bennett Johnston as Secretary of Energy; Director of the National Economic Council Stephen Friedman (PFIAB) as Secretary of Treasury; Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick as Attorney General, White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart as Counselor to the President; General Counsel of the National Security Agency Stewart Baker as Cyber Coordinator; and Deputy Commander U.S. European Command Charles F. Wald as Secretary of Defense.^[6] BPC released a report summarizing the findings and recommendations from the simulation.^[7]

On June 16, 2010, in conjunction with the United States Association of Former Members of Congress, BPC hosted a day-long conference entitled, "Breaking the Stalemate: Renewing a Bipartisan Dialogue", at the National Archives. Participants included Senator Ron Wyden, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, BPC Senior Fellow and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, former Speaker of the House Tom Foley, former Minority Leader Bob Michel, and former Representative Martin Frost.

On November 17, 2010, BPC's "Debt Reduction Task Force" released its report, Restoring America's Future, in an effort to influence the debate over the national debt.^[8]The Task Force, led by former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici and former White House Budget Director and Federal Reserve Vice Chair Alice Rivlin, was a bipartisan group of former White House and Cabinet officials, Senate and House members, governors and mayors, and business and labor leaders.^[9]Their report was released two weeks prior to that of President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

2011

On May 11, 2011, former President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe spoke at BPC during an event to release a new report, Stabilizing Fragile States, by BPC's National Security Project. He highlighted his administration's efforts to reform the country's security services to combat extremist groups and gain the trust of the citizenry.^[10]

On May 23, 2011, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer called for a balanced approach to deficit reduction in a speech at BPC. Hoyer said that both the White House'sNational Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and BPC's Debt Reduction Task Force "place a high priority on fairness, and strike a...more even balance between cutting spending and raising revenue."^[11]

On October 26, 2011, BPC launched the Housing Commission, a bipartisan effort led by Kit Bond, Henry Cisneros, Mel Martinez, and George J. Mitchell. The Commission will draft recommendations to reform the nation’s housing policy, including views on the most effective role of the federal government in helping to shape the nation’s future housing landscape.

In October 2011, an 18-member panel convened by the Center issued a report urging immediate researching and testing of geoengineering ideas in case "the climatesystem reaches a 'tipping point' and swift remedial action is required" regarding climate change mitigation of global warming.^[12]

2012

On March 21, 2012, BPC hosted "A Century of Service" at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. The event was a tribute to BPC founders and former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker and Bob Dole. Speakers included Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senators Pat Roberts and Lamar Alexander. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a BPC founder, and former Leaders Trent Lott and Bill Frist, both BPC Senior Fellows, also made remarks. To highlight the accomplishments and contributions of the honorees, BPC unveiled two short films that offer a glimpse into the respective careers of Baker and Dole.^[13]

Policy programs and projects

Economic Policy Program

Economic Policy Project (EPP)

In April 2011, the Economic Policy Project (EPP) released a federal budget enforcement mechanism called "Save-as-you-Go" or SAVEGO. The plan is modeled on various legislative efforts of the 1980s and 1990s, including PAYGO, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act, and the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990.

In June 2011, amid ongoing negotiations on a debt reduction deal between the US Congress and the White House, EPP released their Debt Limit Analysis, which provided a look at the consequences of a delay in raising the debt ceiling and the economic uncertainty that would ensue if the United States Department of the Treasury was forced to prioritize spending. BPC's analysis revealed that at some point in early August 2011, unless the debt ceiling was raised, the federal government would have been unable to meet all of its spending obligations. After that date, federal spending would have been reduced by as much as 44% for the remainder of August.^[14] Many media outlets, including USA Today, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NPR, The Los Angeles Times, and MSNBC, cited the analysis in news and opinion articles.^{[15][16][17][18][19][20]}

Restoring America's Future

The Debt Reduction Task Force (DRTF) is co-chaired by former Senator Pete V. Domenici and former OMB and CBO Director Dr. Alice Rivlin. The task force staff is led by Senior Director Steve Bell, former staff director of the Senate Budget Committee under Pete Domenici.

DTRF's November 2010 report analyzed the entire federal budget in detail and presented specific policy changes to stabilize the nation's projected debt, which were formally presented to Congress through a variety of hearings and meetings. The report received widespread attention and established BPC as one of the major voices in the national debate over America’s fiscal future.

The Debt Reduction Task Force released its report Restoring America's Future report on November 17, 2010. The group was led by Co-Chairs Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin. The Task Force's members were Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition, former Michigan Governor James Blanchard, former Chief of Staff to Bob Dole and Secretary of the Senate Sheila Burke, Leonard Burman of the Urban Institute and the Tax Policy Center, Deloitte Vice Chairman Robert N. Campbell III, former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, former United States Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, former staff director of the Senate Budget Committee G. William Hoagland, former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, Karen Kerrigan of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Donald B. Marron Jr. of the Tax Policy Center, former president of the American Federation of Teachers Edward J. McElroy, Joe Minarik of the Committee for Economic Development, former National Urban League president and former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, former AARP CEO William D. Novelli, and former Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams.

The plan reduces and stabilizes the debt at 60 percent of the economy, freezes discretionary spending, ends tax deductions, and raises new taxes. Federal tax revenue would rise to 23.1 percent of GDP by 2035 and the tax code would be simplified to two brackets, with rates of 15 and 27 percent. Defense spending would shrink to 2.4 percent of GDP and spending on health and Social Security programs would be held at 15.4 percent of GDP in 2035.^[21] The plan maintains the traditional Medicareprogram and introduces a market-based premium support alternative.^[22]

Housing commission

The housing finance system played a significant role in the recent U.S. financial crisis and the resulting economic recession. This fragile infrastructure, along with continuing market affordability challenges, impedes a robust economic recovery. The Housing Commission, launched in October 2011, aims to reform the nation’s housing policy by reexamining the role of the federal government in helping to shape the nation’s future housing landscape. Led by former U.S. Secretaries of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Henry Cisneros and Mel Martinez, also a former U.S. Senator, former U.S. Senator Kit Bond and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and BPC Co-Founder George Mitchell, the Commission plans to put forth a package of policy recommendations for consideration by the administration and Congress in early 2013.^[23]

Energy and infrastructure program

Energy project

The Energy Project was launched in April 2011. The project is led by Co-Chairs Byron Dorgan, James L. Jones, Trent Lott, and William K. Reilly. Margot Anderson, previously of the United States Department of Energy, serves as project director. The Energy Project, which evolved from the structure of the National Commission on Energy Policy, focuses on energy security, supply, reliability, cost and sustainability. The project's membership includes energy industry CEOs, top NGO and labor officials, and senior former political figures from both major parties.^[24]

To date, the project has released reports on regulation ("Environmental Regulation and Electric System Reliability"), renewable subsidies ("Reassessing Renewable Energy Subsidies: Issue Brief"), and natural gas ("Task Force on Ensuring Stable Natural Gas Markets").

In December 2012, the Energy Project plans to issue a report on Energy Opportunities for the President and New Congress.^[25]

The American Energy Innovation Council, launched in June 2010, is co-staffed by BPC and the ClimateWorks Foundation. AEIC is a group of business leaders who promote a more vigorous public and private sector commitment to energy technology innovation. The group, led by Chad Holliday, Norman R. Augustine, Ursula Burns,John Doerr, Bill Gates, Jeff Immelt, and Tim Solso, released a report, A Business Plan for America's Energy Future, outlining actionable steps to boost the nation's technology potential.^[26]

National Transportation Policy Project (NTPP)

NTPP was launched in February 2008 with the aim of bringing new approaches and fresh thinking to transportation issues. The project is led by former Detroit MayorDennis Archer, former Representative Sherwood Boehlert, former Senator Slade Gorton, and former Representative Martin Sabo.

The first phase of the project's work resulted in a report, Performance Driven: A New Vision for U.S. Transportation Policy, proposing a variety of ideas and recommendations for reforming transportation policy. The report addresses both a long-term vision for transportation policy as well as a number of ideas and reforms that can be incorporated in a future authorization bill.^[27] In the report, NTPP calls for adequate and targeted investment in transportation infrastructure, ensuring that any expenditure sets out to achieve maximum returns and benefits in terms of national economic, energy, safety, and environmental goals.

On June 23, 2010, NTPP released a report, Transitioning to Performance-Based Federal Surface Transportation Policy, based on insights gleaned from a BPC-sponsored workshop led by national experts, congressional staff, and administration officials. The project hosted briefings for the administration and members of Congress and their staff to educate them on the report's findings.^[28]

On January 21, 2011, NTPP members Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Martin Wachs called on the White House and Congress to change their approach to transportation policy saying that "the nation can no longer afford to support poorly targeted investments when the needs are so great and public resources are so constrained". The report Strengthening Connections Between Transportation Investments and Economic Growth, outlines three specific policy changes the White House and Congress can make to ensure that scarce public dollars are spent wisely and, at the same time, create employment opportunities in the short term and contribute to the nation’s economic recovery in the long term.

On June 16, 2011, NTPP released Performance Driven: Achieving Wiser Investment in Transportation, a report that lays out near-term actions that can be taken to restructure the nation's surface transportation program. The recommended framework would streamline and consolidate over 100 existing transportation programs into 10 core programs, make transportation spending more sustainable by authorizing a program at existing revenue levels, and begin the transition to a performance-based system that is better able to leverage non-federal resources. The focus of the plan is to reform, consolidate and scale back the existing federal transportation program and make it targeted toward a set of specific national goals, including economic growth, national connectivity, metropolitan accessibility, energy security and environmental protection, and safety.^[29]

Governance program

Democracy project

Launched in November 2010, the Democracy Project is a bipartisan initiative that analyzes and advocates for improvements to America's democratic institutions. Co-chaired by BPC Senior Fellow Dan Glickman, Dirk Kempthorne, and Steve Case, the Democracy Project focuses on two issue areas for reform: strengthening civil discourse in government, and Congressional redistricting or reapportionment. The project highlights potential infrastructure changes that promote a more efficient and effective government and issues recommendations with the aim of improving the national debate.^[30] The Democracy Project's Advisory Committee consists of government, business, civic, military, and academic leaders. John Fortier, a political scientist and former research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, serves as project director.

Health program

Health project

The Health Project, launched in January 2011, is headed by Co-Leaders Tom Daschle, Bill Frist, Ted Strickland, and Mike Rounds. Julie Barnes, former acting director of the Healthy Policy Program at the New America Foundation, is the director of the project. In response to the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, BPC turned to developing a bipartisan approach to help states meet their ongoing budgetary, demographic, and health reform challenges. The Health Project focuses on four major areas of health reform policy: insurance reform and exchange development, implementation and innovation; options for state flexibility in the management and financing of Medicaid programs; the coordination and most effective use of information technology as a critically important tool for success in every aspect of health care delivery and financing; and the issues confronting the health professional workforce and how best to respond to these challenges.^[31]

Prevention Initiative

The Prevention Initiative (formerly the Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative) was formed in March 2011 to help enhance physical activity and nutritional opportunities for all Americans. The Initiative brings together key experts, policy makers, and stakeholders to identify opportunities for action on these issues. Led by BPC Senior Fellow and former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, former Utah Governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, former Health and Human Services Secretary and University of Miami President Donna Shalala, and former Agriculture Secretary and UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman, the Initiative focuses on four priority areas: creating healthy institutions, training health professionals in nutrition and physical activity, demonstrating the value of prevention, and aligning federal food and farm policy.^[32]

In June 2012, the Initiative released its seminal report, Lots to Lose: How America’s Health and Obesity Crisis Threatens our Economic Future.^[33] Since then, the group has held events and published white papers on Training Doctors for Prevention-Oriented Care^[34],[35] and A Prevention Prescription for Improving Health and Health Care in America.^[36]

Lisel Loy directs the Prevention Initiative and Robin Schepper, former executive director of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative, serves as a Senior Advisor.

National Security Program

Foreign Policy Project

The Foreign Policy Project (FPP) develops policy recommendations for pressing foreign policy issues by collaborating with respected civilian and military experts from the right and the left. FPP initiatives range in focus from determining appropriate policy responses to specific international situations to considering more broadly the shape and direction of global politics in the 21st century. FPP monitors national security and diplomatic challenges facing the U.S. and conducts research and analysis to support the development of concrete proposals for new policy structures, tools, and systems that can help the U.S. achieve its immediate and long-term foreign policy goals. The project is headed by Co-Leaders Gregory G. Johnson, Charles Robb, and Charles Wald. Michael Makovsky, who worked as special assistant for Iraqi energy policy in the Washington office of the Coalition Provisional Authority, serves as FPP's project director.^[37]

The project is divided into four initiatives: the Iran Initiative, the Russia Initiative, the Stabilizing Fragile States Initiative and the Strategic Public Diplomacy Initiative.

In June 2010, the Iran Initiative published its third report on Iran's theorized nuclear weapons program, Meeting the Challenge: When Time Runs Out. The report highlighted the immediate need for the U.S. to halt Iran's rapid progress toward nuclear weapons capability and laid out the dangers of alternative outcomes. It supported the U.S.‑led diplomatic outreach and sanctions against Iran, but recommended a more comprehensive triple-track approach involving the simultaneous pursuit of diplomacy, sanctions, and visible, credible preparations for U.S. military action.^[38]

The Russia Initiative is headed by Donald Evans, former United States secretary of commerce, and FPP Co-Leader Charles Robb. The initiative works to develop a cohesive U.S. strategy toward Russia that better advances U.S. security and economic interests while fostering better cooperation between the two countries. The project offers ways to construct an improved bilateral relationship in the energy, business, trade and investment sectors.^[39]

The Stabilizing Fragile States Initiative develops proposals for U.S. action to prevent failing states. The initiative is led by Paula Dobriansky, former under secretary of state for global affairs, and FPP Co-Leader Gregory Johnson. In March 2011, responding to growing unrest in the region, the initiative released Fragility and Extremism in Yemen, a case study that detailed the underlying causes of increasing insecurity and radicalism in Yemen, and showed why the United States should build security and governing capacities and encourage civic resilience in fragile states.^[40]

The Strategic Public Diplomacy Initiative is an effort to develop a framework for a modern public diplomacy strategy that is technologically savvy, leverages the potential of the private sector, and is tightly coordinated with U.S. national security goals. Led by James K. Glassman, former under secretary of state for public diplomacy, and BPC Senior Fellow Dan Glickman, the initiative will look at how the U.S. should conduct public diplomacy around the globe, specifically toward countries with Muslim majorities, while leveraging new media opportunities.^[41]

Homeland Security Project

The Homeland Security Project (HSP), co-chaired by Congressman Lee H. Hamilton and Governor Thomas Kean, is the successor to the 9/11 Commission. Its mission is to be a bipartisan voice on homeland and national security issues. "With the terrorist threat to the U.S. more complex and diverse than at any time in the last decade, HSP works to foster public discourse, provide expert analysis, and develop proactive policy solutions on how best to respond."^[42] The project will continue to monitor the implementation of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations and develop solutions to respond to both emerging and evolving threats.

On April 6, 2010, HSP hosted a day-long conference, "The State of Intelligence Reform", marking the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Speakers, who included then-Representative Jane Harman, former CIA Director General Michael Hayden, and then-DNI Dennis C. Blair, assessed the progress that has been made in reforming the intelligence community since 9/11. On October 6, 2010, HSP held a follow-on event that focused on reform of the domestic intelligence agencies. The conference brought together FBI Director Robert Mueller, Representative Mike Rogers (Michigan politician), former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and others for a dialogue about how to ensure the U.S. intelligence agencies have the best information available to aid them in the fight against terrorism.^[43]

Assessing the Terrorist Threat, authored by project members Peter Bergen and Bruce Hoffman, explores the development of homegrown networks and the increasingly diverse and decentralized nature of terrorism. The report was released by project co-chairs Hamilton and Kean at a major press conference on September 10, 2010.Preventing Violent Radicalization in America, a follow-up to Assessing the Terrorist Threat, was released on June 23, 2011. The report, written by Peter R. Neumann ofThe International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King's College London, provides guidance on ongoing efforts aimed at developing a coherent approach towards domestic counter-radicalization.^[44]

In the wake of the attempted Christmas Day 2010 bombing attempt (Northwest Airlines Flight 253), Hamilton and Kean provided testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Homeland Security about ongoing reform efforts in the intelligence community.^[45][46]

On August 31, 2011, HSP released their Tenth Anniversary Report Card: The Status of the 9/11 Commission Recommendations. During a press conference to report their findings, Commission Co-Chairs Kean and Hamilton, along with Commission members Fred Fielding, Senator Slade Gorton, Secretary John Lehman and Governor James R. Thompson, cited nine of the 41 Commission recommendations that have not been sufficiently implemented in the decade since the attacks.^[47]

Annual Political Summit

Since 2009, BPC has brought together Democratic and Republican political strategists for its annual political summit at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. Hosted byJames Carville and Mary Matalin, the summit creates a forum to exchange ideas on how the two parties can effectively work together to tackle the problems facing the nation.^[48][49]

The 2010 summit kicked off with the release of the first independent post-election poll to gauge voters' attitudes and the challenges facing the next Congress. The bipartisan survey, conducted by Republicans Ed Gillespie and Whit Ayres and Democrat Stan Greenberg, highlighted voters frustration with the current partisan tone in Washington, D.C. and the important role independents played in driving the election’s outcome.

In 2011, co-hosts Carville and Matalin welcomed a cast of newsmakers and politicos, including John Avlon, Greenberg, Karen Hughes, Walter Isaacson, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Melissa Harris-Perry, Richard Wolffe, BPC Senior Fellows Senators Bob Bennett, Trent Lott, Secretary Dan Glickman and many more.

Senior Fellows

• Bob Bennett (politician), former U.S. Senator from Utah
• Pete Domenici, former U.S. Senator from New Mexico
• Byron Dorgan, former U.S. Senator from North Dakota
• Bill Frist, former U.S. Senator from Tennessee and Senate Majority Leader
• Dan Glickman, former United States Secretary of Agriculture
• James L. Jones, former National Security Advisor and Supreme Allied Commander Europe
• Trent Lott, former U.S. Senator from Mississippi and Senate Majority Leader
• Olympia Snowe, former U.S. Senator from Maine
• Tommy Thompson, former U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary and four-term Governor of Wisconsin

Governors' Council

• Phil Bredesen, former Governor of Tennessee
• Jim Douglas, former Governor of Vermont
• Brad Henry, former Governor of Oklahoma
• Linda Lingle, former Governor of Hawaii
• Sonny Perdue, former Governor of Georgia
• Mike Rounds, former Governor of South Dakota
• Ted Strickland, former Governor of Ohio

See also

• Tipping point (climatology)