Climate Changers: White House Aide Phil Schiliro
Part of a series profiling key players in environmental politics. Read more>> Who he is: Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs What does that title mean? When senators or representatives want to relay a message to the president, they call Phil. When the president wants to relay a message to Congress, he calls Phil. Essentially, Schiliro’s a go-between, but a really, really important one. Green cred: Schiliro attended Hofstra University and Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. As a congressional and executive branch staffer for his entire working life, he has handled many different issues, green or otherwise. He spent more than two decades working for Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat with a strong environmental record. Because his job is to push his boss’ agenda, not his own, Schiliro is rarely able to express his personal opinions publicly. Still, looking closely, we can find some environmental rumblings. In 1974, while he was a senior in high school on Long Island, Schiliro rallied students from his environmental studies class to stop a local company from polluting a stream behind his parents’ house. Two decades later, when he ran unsuccessfully for a congressional seat in Long Island, he drew attention to links between breast cancer and pollution. In the coming months, he will help Obama usher a climate change bill through Congress. How he gets things done: Schiliro’s role can range from good-humored encouragement to persistent lobbying, depending on the occasion and whom he’s working with. When Waxman, his longtime boss, was set to chair a hearing on an earlier version of the climate bill, Schiliro emailed him with the message: "Words for the day: patience and good humor." On another occasion, when Obama was searching for a Republican to support the health care reform bill, Schiliro staked out an elevator in the Capitol Building at midnight, waiting to buttonhole Republican Olympia Snowe as she returned from a late-night Senate vote. Schiliro usually finds a way to get what his bosses need out of people — although the climate bill could be one of his toughest challenges yet. What’s it like to grab a sandwich with him? Phil makes you feel like the only person in his universe for that 45 minutes. While many high-level government staffers enjoy talking about themselves — their importance, their knowledge, their annoyances — Phil turns the tables and asks about you. Soon you’re 20 minutes into a conversation about your own deepest hopes and dreams. How’d he do that? You suddenly remember all the questions you wanted to ask him. Then he makes a joke, deflects the attention away from himself, and launches you into another 20 minutes about your hopes and dreams. (Full disclosure: the writer did indeed share a sandwich with Schiliro while reporting for a different publication.) He’ll often use the same approach with lawmakers. Once he knows what they hope to achieve, he finds ways to accomplish those goals while also advancing the administration’s agenda. Why he’s effective: People in Washington call him quiet and even-keeled, but also tough and persuasive, with a tendency toward self-deprecating wit. "A born diplomat," says Waxman. On Capitol Hill, he is seen as the good-cop counterpart to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s bad cop. Schiliro often serves as the voice of the White House at closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill, explaining the president’s intentions, gathering supporters, and answering questions. Where to find him: Schiliro is the unidentified aide in the background of most photos taken of important people in Washington. OK, maybe not most photos, but a helluva lot of them. Just this May, as Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was ushered around Capitol Hill, for example, Schiliro was there .
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Patriots Act
Ten years ago, Robin Eckstein was a college student in Appleton, Wisconsin, struggling to pay her bills with bartending and waitressing jobs. Her credit card debt was mounting. Out of the blue, a National Guard recruiter e-mailed her, offering a free college education in exchange for her military service. She enlisted, and reported for active duty in October 2000. Three years later, she was driving supply trucks across the Iraqi desert. Eckstein, 33, has been out of the U.S. Army for three years now, but on this frigid Tuesday morning in late March, she finds herself pulling transport duty once more, this time driving a big, blue biodiesel-fueled bus across the state of Ohio, from Columbus to Cincinnati. She is ferrying veterans like herself: Matt Victoriano, an ex-Marine; Rafael Noboa Rivera, a former Army sergeant; and Nick Anderson, a former Army specialist. The foursome is making its way through the Midwest as part of Operation Free, a campaign to promote clean energy organized by a progressive leadership institute called the Truman National Security Project. Operation Free, now in its second year, includes dozens of vets who have logged more than 25,000 miles traveling across 23 states, stopping at union halls, factories, statehouses, and radio stations and making appearances on nightly news programs. At each stop the veterans get off the bus and share their stories, eyewitness accounts of the ways in which America’s dependence on oil affects not only which wars we fight but also our ability to wage war. In their own words, the vets say what many people have said before: America must become energy-independent, invest in renewables, and commit to a future that eradicates the threat of climate change — not because it’s the feel-good thing to do but because this nation’s security may depend on it. These vets’ views have become increasingly mainstream, even among national defense experts. James Woolsey, director of central intelligence under President Clinton, is outspoken about the connection between the dollars the United States pays to satisfy its oil addiction and the ordnance lobbed at our troops. "Except for our own Civil War, this is the only war that we have fought where we are paying for both sides," Woolsey has said. "We are paying for these terrorists with our SUVs." And in late April, 33 retired generals and admirals signed an open letter to the leaders of the Senate, stating that "America’s billion-dollar-a-day dependence on oil makes us vulnerable to unstable and unfriendly regimes." They called on President Obama and Congress to "enact strong, comprehensive climate and energy legislation to reduce carbon pollution and lead the world in clean energy technology." Robin Eckstein is tall and blond, stylish in her black suit. As she drives the bus down I-71, she tells me in her flat Wisconsin accent what a typical day in Iraq was like. As an Army specialist, a notch higher in rank than private first class, she rolled out of camp every morning in a slow-moving convoy of trucks carrying water and fuel to troops dispersed throughout the desert. Exposed to harsh weather and frequent sniper fire, her detail was one of the most dangerous in the service. "We were the weakest link," she says. "If one of us gets taken out, you don’t know how far the dominoes are going to fall." Without fuel to power up their Humvees, helicopters, and tanks, troops can do little other than sit and wait. Even now, she says, she cannot help but think of thirsty soldiers waiting for fuel in the middle of the desert. Off the bus, several days and several states later, I meet with Aaron Scheinberg, who tells a similar tale in Cambridge, Massachusetts, not far from the Harvard campus, where the 29-year-old former Army captain is a graduate student. "There were times in Iraq when we couldn’t go anywhere," Scheinberg says. "We couldn’t have medical helicopters escort us because we ran out of fuel. Other times soldiers were killed bringing fuel to our base." Just starting a tank’s engine — from a cold start to the moment you’re ready to roll — consumes seven gallons of fuel. Running at a top speed of about 45 miles an hour, the average Abrams tank gets a paltry 0.6 mile to the gallon, he explains. Scheinberg is the New Jersey coordinator for Operation Free, and when he’s not taking classes at the Kennedy School of Government, he’s driving to his home state, volunteering his time and energy to speak at events much like those Eckstein and her crew attend. Scheinberg is one of a half dozen veterans on campus who take time away from their coursework in business, government, and international relations to talk with the media and the public about their shared conviction that clean energy goes hand in hand with the United States’ ability to maintain its competitive edge in the world. Drew Sloan, 30, is in his second year at Harvard Business School, and when we meet up near campus, I notice a faint scar on his right cheek. In 2004, when he was serving in Afghanistan, he was part of a two-vehicle convoy zipping along a riverbed when his Humvee was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Sloan woke up four days later in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., recalling nothing of the attack that blew in his vehicle’s windshield and shattered most of the bones in his face. In October of that year, he was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He then turned down a medical discharge to go to Iraq, where he earned a second Bronze Star. In late 2009, Operation Free asked Sloan to testify before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. In his written testimony and in person, he argued that climate change and its attendant extreme weather events would only exacerbate geopolitical instability. As sea level rises, he said, millions of people who live in coastal nations such as Bangladesh may have to flee across borders and become climate refugees. If that happens, who would quell the unrest? "The U.S. military is the only institution that can take on a massive humanitarian crisis," Sloan tells me. "Whenever anyone attacks the science of climate change, they ridicule the data as being uncertain," Sloan says. "Veterans know you can’t wait for 100 percent certainty. If you wait until everything is clear and laid out, you’re probably no longer alive. Or if you are still alive, you’ve definitely lost because someone else has seized the advantage. Veterans know how to deal with ambiguity and still make decisions." His testimony hews closely to the U.S. military’s own recently adopted positions on climate change. In the February 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), a summary of Department of Defense strategies and priorities, the department discussed climate change for the first time in the report’s history. "Assessments conducted by the intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world," reads the document, "contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments." In an effort to reduce its own carbon emissions, Defense Department officials laid out a series of goals that might surprise most Americans. For example, the Air Force will increase its alternative fuel load to 50 percent by 2016; the Army is converting nontactical vehicles to hybrids and electrics stateside; and the Navy is exploring biofuels for its carriers. The last night I’m with the bus in Cincinnati, Noboa, Anderson, and Eckstein are talking to a group of about 100 people gathered at a labor hall for a green energy and jobs rally. Some people wear hard hats that read, "2 million green energy jobs now!" Others sport T-shirts that say, "Make our energy clean. Make it American." The vets have been on the road since 6:00 a.m. They held a morning press conference, shook dozens of hands, briefed aides to Ohio governor Ted Strickland, and spent a few harried hours trying to fix a broken brake light along the way. Eckstein is exhausted when she steps up to the podium, but somehow manages to draw on the crowd’s energy. She speaks with conviction as she recalls details from the QDR, telling the crowd that the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency are serious about taking action. "These are not organizations known for hugging polar bears," she says. The line gets a laugh from the crowd, but a bearded man in his fifties isn’t buying it. He finds it laughable to extol the green leadership of the U.S. military. The military is creating a human and environmental disaster in Iraq, he says. He advocates dismantling the armed forces and using that money to rehabilitate the Midwest’s factories and invest in projects that promote a "humane" green economy. "The military is not a leader," he says. "The military is the obstacle!" For a moment, it looks as if the riders of the big, blue bus have crashed headlong into the idealism of the old left. But Eckstein responds respectfully. "Thank you for your passion," she says. "It’s not that I don’t care about the human toll, because — trust me — I do, and I know my fellow veterans do. But if this is the approach we have to take so that certain other individuals will get it, is it not a good approach? Certain individuals, when they hear the words ‘climate change,’ they shut down. For whatever reason, when they hear veterans speak on it, they actually listen," she says. "They get it, they understand it, and they’re willing to change. That’s what we want. We all want change." She is taken aback by the applause, and blushes as she takes the next question. Later, as the hall empties out, the man who challenged her is among the first to approach Eckstein to shake her hand. After the crowd disperses, Eckstein and the other vets troop back out to the bus. Tomorrow they will hit the road again. When they get to the next stop — Pittsburgh — they’ll try to help people see, once more, what they have seen. Joseph D’Agnese is coauthor of Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence (Quirk).
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Patriots Act
NRDC: The Right Stuff
PETE ALTMAN Climate campaign director in NRDC’s Washington office U.S. military veterans and environmentalists don’t seem like natural political allies. When did you realize there was common ground? A couple of years ago, NRDC was looking to interview people who had found jobs in clean energy industries for one of our Web sites, cleanenergystories.org. As I was reading some of the vets’ stories, I realized how much pride they take in the fact that what they are doing now — helping to build a clean energy economy — is good for national security as well as the environment. They know that they are still serving this country, even after returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. How should we work together? Fundamentally, we can help by making sure their voices are heard. We work to create opportunities to connect them with policy makers and to publicize their unique points of view. This is important because these veterans can reach very different audiences, some that we never could. A clean energy economy can help working Americans on many levels — jobs and national security, for starters — but people get stuck when they hear "environmentalist" and don’t hear the message. When a veteran gets up and says we need to move forward with a clean energy and climate bill instead of giving money to groups and countries that support terrorism, that gets people’s attention. Are your joint efforts paying off? National security experts, veterans groups, and environmentalists increasingly agree on the solution: putting a price on carbon to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. My goal is for us to work together to raise these issues, first, to help pass climate legislation and, then, during the midterm elections. For more about debates among environmentalists on the siting of renewable energy projects, For more about debates among environmentalists on the siting of renewable energy projects, visit onearth.org/article/waldqa
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