Washington, DC on the eve of war. This would prove to be a momentous trip in so many ways!

I've created a web site to archive all issues of this journal. You can find the entire series, along with photographs (and probably some documents before we're done) at http://www.dennisdeery.com/wrlp.

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Dennis Deery
dennis@irose.com
 

This trip began in a different fashion from our earlier trips, with members of our group traveling from three different airports to rendezvous in Washington, DC on a Saturday. We arrived to a city grid locked by a large anti-war protest. Our first meeting of the week was a gathering at the Capitol City Brewing Company for dinner Saturday evening. We had a chance to catch up with each other, and to lay plans for our free day on Sunday.

After dinner, we went on a bus tour of the monuments of DC. This night-time tour took us to some beautiful sites, including the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials. I had prepared in advance for this tour by purchasing some 3200-speed black-and-white film. I was thrilled to return home with two rolls of photos, even after mistakenly running this sensitive film through x-ray machines at two different security checkpoints - a fact of life in modern-day DC.

"More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Our bus tour also took us to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, my first visit to this newer memorial. Given the timing of our trip, I was struck by the incredible weight of many of the quotes carved into the red granite walls of the memorial. (You can read them all here.) The coming war weighed heavy on all of us I think as we were reminded of the difficult times in our past. We were treated to what I thought was a hopeful display as we watched a group of schoolchildren, probably fifth- or sixth-graders, walking through the memorial with their teachers. At each of the inscriptions, the teachers had the children stop and read the quotes aloud. Reminded about accomplishments such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, I couldn't help but think how I, and probably most of us, have completely given up on the idea that government can do great things.

On Sunday, we had the day to spend as we wished. A small group of us headed for Arlington National Cemetery first thing in the morning. It was a perfectly beautiful spring day, and we spent several hours wandering around, past the graves of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, the Challenger and Columbia astronauts, and thousands more. We visited the Tomb of the Unknowns and watched the changing of the guard and a wreath-laying ceremony.

Next we headed for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the Mall. Along the way we saw preparations underway for the St. Patrick's day parade. I spent only a short time at the museum before meeting up with an old friend who lives not far from DC. We spent the afternoon catching up over beers at an Irish pub near the zoo. As usually happens when I see Naveed, we ended up talking politics and world affairs, oddly enough covering a number of topics that would be discussed throughout our week in the capital.

Our work began in earnest with a dinner meeting Sunday evening to prepare for the week. After dinner we got an introduction to some of the basic issues in energy policy and a review of our week's schedule.

Monday would be an academic day as we met with three college professors and researchers who would discuss the federal policy process in general and energy policy with us. Richard Forshee from the Center for Food and Nutrition Policy spoke with us about how federal policy is developed. Next up was Wilfred Kohl, a professor and researcher at the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns-Hopkins University. Dr. Kohl spoke with us about the United States' domestic energy policy, or really the lack of a policy, which was a theme we were to hear often over the next several days. Finally, we heard from Robert Ebel, the director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Dr. Ebel discussed our nation's energy policy as it relates to our foreign policy. Dr. Ebel's remarks were particularly timely considering the situation in Iraq, especially as we learned about his recent work consulting with the State Department on post-war Iraq policy. I was impressed by all our speakers throughout this week, and was especially amazed that people still made time to meet with us even though there was a lot going on in Washington regarding energy policy during the week of our seminar.

Monday evening, St. Patrick's Day, we were on our own again for dinner in Georgetown. As befits a good Irishman, I joined a group of 17 classmates in heading to a Turkish restaurant. Proving that a big part of the Rural Leadership Program is the impressive network of our classmates, we were joined for dinner by a producer for the British Broadcasting Company who is a cousin of one of our classmates. The staff of the restaurant treated us like family, introducing us to all kinds of Turkish appetizers and entrees, and even trotting out glasses of Raki, a traditional Turkish liquor that tastes like black licorice. After gorging ourselves, we had a long walk back to the bus stop, and a really enjoyable bus ride back to the neighborhood of our hotel.

Tuesday was the day to learn more about the life of the staffers who make Washington work. We started off with a talk from Ben Winburn, a Democratic staffer for the Committee on Resources for the House of Representatives. We learned quite a bit about the role of committees in developing policy - basically all legislation that moves through the government starts in committees.

Next up we heard from the personal staff of two Wisconsin Congressmen: Darin Schroeder from Representative Ron Kind's office, and Mary Francis Repko from Senator Russ Feingold's office. Both of these folks have worked in the federal government for about 10 years, Ms. Repko in Senator Feingold's office the entire time. This is quite an accomplishment in positions where the average tenure of a staffer is about two years due to workload, low pay and stress. This point was brought home when Ms. Repko told us that she had given up going to the gym because she was constantly being lobbied there - she now attends church each day because it's the only place she's found where lobbyists will leave her alone. The staffers are responsible to a large extent for learning the details of any issues facing their boss, then presenting the issues to their boss in condensed form, often along with policy recommendations. That struck me as a very interesting job, but the idea of constant 12 hour days and 24-hours on-call didn't sound very attractive - especially considering the paltry salaries paid to most staffers in this incredibly expensive city.

We were also given a great deal of information about how to communicate effectively with our elected representatives. As any of you know if you've dealt with your federal representatives, most of your interaction will be with staffers rather than the representative directly. As the people who deal with piles of incoming mail and constantly ringing phones, Ms. Repko and Mr. Schroeder were able to give us a lot of good information about how to get your message heard.

Our last classroom talk of the day gave us a chance to hear from the other side. Mark Whitenton, a vice-president with the National Association of Manufacturers, an industry lobbying group, talked with us about how advocacy groups work on policy issues. Here again we got a lot of good information about how to effectively spread your message to affect the policy process. Mr. Whitenton brought up the issue of integrity with us, something that would come up several times during the week. All the lobbyists and staffers we spoke with talked about the necessity of providing accurate information when discussing policy issues. Everyone agreed that anyone providing inaccurate or incorrect information when discussing issues would quickly be blackballed and lose their ability to even make appointments with staffers and other offices. This emphasis on truth and integrity has always struck me as kind of odd (but reassuring) in a town with a reputation such as DC has.

Tuesday afternoon would be spent on several assignments we had been given. First up for me was a visit in the office of our representative, Ron Kind. Since Mr. Kind was out of town, we spent an hour talking with Darin Schroeder, Mr. Kind's press secretary. It was a great opportunity to discuss some of the issues facing our congressional district, as well as our country, in a small-group setting.

The rest of the afternoon was dedicated to two tasks - attending a House or Senate hearing, and locating some protesters to interview. We started off by squeezing into a packed House hearing on defense readiness. This hearing, with the vice-Chiefs of Staff (the number two man in each branch of the military service) testifying, was absolutely loaded with brass. We sat through 40 minutes of mind-numbing opening statements before questioning began. The questioning quickly got interesting as one representative asked the staff to explain why their defense appropriations request for the upcoming fiscal year was, in several categories, smaller than the current year, given the upcoming war with Iraq. This line of questioning seemed to cause a lot of chatter among the support staff in the row of chairs behind the witnesses, a row ahead of us. After some delay, the chiefs explained that the policy branch of the Pentagon (i.e. Donald Rumsfeld and co.) had made a decision to request all war funding through a supplemental request, rather than as part of their regular budget request. It seemed clear to me (with biases intact) that the military was somewhat uncomfortable with this decision that had probably been made for political reasons. I personally watched with dismay when President Bush submitted his supplemental budget request to Congress just one week later, when they clearly had no more or less data on the war costs than had been available at the time of the regular budget submittal.

On Tuesday afternoon we got another demonstration of the connections possible through our classmates, as the sister-in-law of one of our classmates, an Associated Press reporter, gave us a tour of the Supreme Court building. Because the court wasn't in session, we didn't get to see a lot of the building, but it was interesting to see the chambers where so many incredible decisions have been made.

Finally, headed for the subway to make a stop at the White House, we stumbled on our protesters. Several people were standing near the Capitol Hill subway stop handing out literature for the Lyndon Larouche presidential campaign. We spent an enjoyable half-hour talking with one of the Larouche campaign's paid organizers learning about this perennial presidential candidate. The simplistic beauty of the Rural Leadership Program really shone in this assignment. We've all seen protesters on the street (a lot, if you spend any time in Madison), but even though I'm a pretty curious person I don't think I've ever stopped to spend much time talking with people to learn more about their cause. Stated simply, WRLP in a large way just teaches us to stop and ask questions.

After a brief stop to see the White House (a first for one of my classmates), we headed back to the hotel and then out for pizza with the entire group to share stories from the day. We got to hear about a wide variety of hearings and protest groups. Some of our class even got into the Senate energy bill hearing, where drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was under consideration. I was pleased to hear later in the evening that drilling for oil in the ANWR had gone down in defeat for the time being.

Wednesday was our chance to sample the life of a Congressional staffer. Our group was broken up into four smaller groups, each of which was assigned a question. I was in a group with the question "What role should American foreign policy play in assuring access to a reliable, reasonably priced supply of petroleum?" Each group was given appointments with four people or organizations with knowledge about our issue. We were to spend the day interviewing these people, then we would be responsible for making a presentation to our "Senator" (the seminar chairs) on Thursday. Our group met with:

• A researcher from the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, a part of the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think-tank.
• Two researchers with the American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying group for the petroleum industry.
• The administrator of the Energy Information Administration, a non-partisan research arm of the Department of Energy, an appointee of President Bush.
• A lobbyist, the founder of Goldwyn International Strategies, a former assistant Secretary of Energy and advisor to the United States' United Nations ambassador.

Spending the entire day interviewing people like this on energy policy was akin to stuffing a fire hose in your mouth and turning it on. It was a fantastic challenge, and I really enjoyed cramming so much information into one day. It was very much a reminder of my time working on the collision-avoidance project, running around town meeting lots of new people and struggling to quickly become knowledgeable about a strange topic. The readings we had been given before the trip were definitely a lifesaver in this venture, as we didn't have to go into these meetings completely ignorant. Still, by the end of the day I think we were all convinced that Congressional staffers work for their money! We quickly learned that while most of the information we got was accurate, each person would present only enough information to represent their point of view, so the real challenge in this process was to gather information from all the viewpoints.

The other three groups spent the day interviewing similarly impressive people on various energy issues. Some of the people who spent time with the other groups were a vice-president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a staffer from the Natural Resources Defense Council, a deputy-assistant Secretary of Energy, the director of research for Greenpeace, and the senior climate change negotiator for the U.S. State Department.

After dinner Wednesday night, we had time to prepare for our Thursday-morning presentations. When our group finished work, I headed out for a stroll through the neighborhood. It was an average evening in DC, until I walked past the ABC News building and noticed the stream of people headed into the building. I returned to the hotel just in time to join several classmates in watching President Bush's announcement of the start of war in Iraq.

Our group, like the nation, has a wide range of strong feelings on the war, which would lead to some of the most intense discussions since we'd begun the program together. Though it was certainly no surprise, I still was incredibly saddened by the announcement. We sat in the hotel watching the same news reports that everyone back home was watching, and I began to think it was foolish to sit in the hotel in this city with the world changing so much outside. Before I had completed this thought, my roomie for this trip came up to me and said "Want to go for a walk?" When I asked where to, he replied "The White House." We headed out with one other classmate, a newspaper editor from northern Wisconsin. When we arrived at the White House, we found that Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, had been closed, extending the safety perimeter around the building. Around 35 protesters were gathered on the sidewalk, chanting and waving signs but generally behaving. We hung around and watched for a while, observing more security than probably any of us had ever seen - nine police cars in one park alone. Standing on the north side of the White House, we decided to head to the south side, near the Mall, to see what was going on. We arrived there to find no activity, other than more security. We stood in the quiet for several minutes, watching as a police officer drove up and wrote what I assume were descriptions of us in his notebook, before eventually being asked to move along by another police officer. It was an eerily disturbing feeling, standing on a public sidewalk, doing nothing, and being subject to such close scrutiny.

We headed back to the north side of the White House to discover that the protesters were gone. Our reporter classmate flagged down a police officer on the sidewalk, and we learned that the police had moved the protesters along, just as we had been moved along I guess. We asked about other activity in the city, and the officer told us that there were a few scattered protests, but everything was pretty quiet. Even though it was getting late, our troupe agreed that we weren't ready to call it a night, so we headed for the Mall and the Lincoln Memorial. By this point there was nearly no one on the street besides the countless homeless that populate DC. We had the great advantage of seeing the world through a reporter's eyes that evening, watching as our classmate scribbled notes about the sights we were seeing. She wrote a great article for her paper (complete with one of my not-so-great photos) that you can read here.

We reached the Lincoln Memorial after a walk past the Vietnam War Memorial, another incredibly powerful place to be this night. Our conversation was quiet, wide-ranging, thoughtful, with lots of long silences for our own thoughts. For the first time all week I felt very far from home, a feeling I think our whole group shared. In so many ways the WRLP seminars form a kind of bubble that we climb into for four days or a week, insulated to some extent from the outside world while we dig deeply into one issue. This was the case even in DC - I think our friends and family were probably more aware of the day-to-day news than we were, because we had little opportunity to watch the news. It was an odd feeling to be right in the middle of probably the biggest policy change in my lifetime, but to be so out of touch.

Finally it was time to call it a night. After four-plus miles of walking, we decided it was time to hail a cab to return to the hotel. On the way, we had the cab driver take us around the Capitol, which also had an extended security perimeter. Around 1:00 A.M., the city was as quiet as I've ever seen it. We checked in briefly with the TV news, then headed to bed.

Thursday morning, we all struggled to prepare ourselves for business-as-usual with events swirling around us. Our group started the morning of presentations with our summary of the foreign policy issues. We were followed by groups discussing the issues of energy supply, energy demand, and global warming. We all learned a lot about the various issues, but also about how the various interest groups shape the policy debate.

With the presentations done, we essentially concluded the part of the seminar dealing with energy policy. We had heard from nearly everyone that the United States lacks a coherent energy policy. Our energy policy is governed, as is so much of our policy, by crisis management. As one of our speakers stated it, "When we have another oil shortage, then we'll have an energy policy." Everyone agreed that leadership was lacking on this issue, and no one seemed to have a good plan on how to rectify that problem. We discussed at length the difficulty of developing long-range policies for dealing with difficult issues when our politicians are focused on the next election cycle. In energy as in every other issue, the issue is wrapped up with electoral politics, is wrapped up with campaign financing, is wrapped up with party issues - the interconnectedness of it all works against us finding a good solution.

Thursday afternoon, we visited the State Department to talk with the Director for Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Island affairs in preparation for our international trip to Australia. We learned about the diplomatic relationship between our country and Australia, and the issues currently being dealt with, such as negotiating trade agreements.

From the State Department we headed out into a torrential downpour to the Corcoran Gallery of Art for a brief tour. While not quite to my taste, we saw some really incredible works of art. Then it was off to dinner before heading to the Arena Stage to see the play "Book of Days." Our group of cheeseheads was right at home watching this murder mystery taking place in a cheese-making Missouri town.

Before calling it a night we stopped at the Brickskeller Inn, a bar near Dupont Circle with a selection of 800 beers. It was hard to believe this was our last night in DC - the week had absolutely flown by. I sampled what I believe was probably the most expensive beer I've ever had, $11 for a Belgian cherry beer that was oh-so-tasty.

Friday morning we had a brief discussion of Australia with one of our seminar chairs who has been down under. We then headed to the Australian Embassy for a meeting with the Australian ambassador and several staff members. They were most generous with their time, giving us a great introduction to their country. I think we all left the discussion feeling energized and looking forward to our trip to Oz next spring.

And finally it was off to the airport for the trip home. We took one last subway trip to National Airport, then said scattered goodbyes as our group splintered to fly back to the three airports we'd departed from. While we were all sad to see it end, we all knew that we'd run out of steam, so it was time to go home and recharge.

Our next seminar is July 22-25 in Madison. The topic of the seminar is technology, with a special concentration on health care and biotechnology. One of the highlights of this seminar will be a talk with James Thompson, a University of Wisconsin researcher widely credited as one of the inventors of stem-cell research.

For more information about the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program, check out their web site at http://www.uwex.edu/ces/wrlp/.