The ultimate goal of Understanding Government is simple:  to convince Americans that government can work and that as citizens, they can be a part of making it work. 

American political discourse has been dominated for more than 30 years by a false argument about whether government is "the problem" and whether government is "too big" and "too involved in people’s everyday lives."  This argument seems to be reemerging in the present presidential election campaign, which initially promised to be an election about change. (more…)

A group of influential scientists has concluded that clearing fields and forests to grow more first-generation biofuels (corn, cane, switchgrass) will increase carbon emissions more than the continued use of fossil fuels.  Some of them have written President Bush to urge a change in U.S. policy.  As Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post reports, their research "could force policymakers in the United States and Europe to reevaluate incentives they have adopted to spur production of ethanol-based fuels."  But key to the debate is an upcoming EPA report that is likely to shape opinion in Congress and the Bush administration.  Read Eilperin here.