President Obama asked a group of nuclear scientists and others to put their heads together and come up with a solution to nuclear waste storage. Guess what? They decided what they didn’t want — no Yucca mountain in Nevada — but couldn’t come up with recommendations for what they do want — either one central storage facility, or many, no reprocessing of nuclear waste (as they have in France) or some reprocessing.
Can’t blame the scientists, though. If you look at other presidential commissions to solve other problems, it isn’t worth provising solutions to this commander when he’s going to ignore the results and even criticize the outcome. Remember Simpson-Bowles anyone? Obama had the opportunity in December to take that commission’s bipartisan recommendations on debt, deficits and tax reform and really do something. More importantly, had he taken up the commission’s recommendations last winter, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now over the debt ceiling. Obama is even hearing this complaint from fellow Democrats: “I wish President Obama had embraced Simpson-Bowles — the “grand bargain” he has recently sought from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) — a long time ago,” writes Lanny Davis. And here’s Obama cheerleader Ezra Klein: “I think it’s clear that the Obama administration made a mistake when it let the fiscal commission fizzle.”
After criticizing the very idea of setting up a commission as “Washington-speak for ‘we’ll get back to you later,” Obama has come down with a severe case of commission-fever.
“Obama began appointing commissions and task forces as soon as he arrived at the White House. His first was assigned to study interrogation and transfer policies for suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“The president has since created commissions to study the Gulf oil spill, the national debt, nuclear energy, bioethics, Hispanic education, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”
Maybe the next commission could study something really useful, like how we got such an ineffective leader?