Action Point with Cynthia Black 03-02-2008: The Reference Shelf

Today's article and item links:

• POLITICS: NATIONAL: CAMPAIGN 2008: Amid McCain's new status, old scandals stir:

  As William K. Black watches John McCain move toward the Republican presidential nomination, he thinks of a day 21 years ago that he considers one of the most troubling of his life. Black, a senior federal savings and loan regulator at the time, attended a meeting at which he felt McCain and four other senators pressured federal regulators to back off from investigating the troubled Lincoln Savings and Loan.

  "I remain very upset that what they did caused such damage," said Black, now a professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, recalling how Lincoln's bankruptcy cost the government $3 billion. Moreover, he said he believes McCain intervened partly because his wife had invested money with Lincoln chairman Charles Keating, a campaign contributor who let the McCains use his home in the Bahamas.

  AND Primer: Obama vs. Clinton on the Top 10 Economic Policy Issues:

  As a practical matter of readability, Clinton's document is a clear 12-page report, with nonduplicative points and slightly less detail. Obama's is a 48–page thesis in which several key ideas appear multiple times with slightly different descriptions each time. But that's stylistic choice. On the economic substance, Clinton beats Obama 5-to-3 and ties on 2 topics.

• ENVIRONMENT: Global warming inspires enterprising solutions: "It's a gold rush," says Peter Fusaro, head of consulting firm Global Change Associates.

  The CO2-busting industry is exploding as federal legislation to cap the emissions of utilities and other industries grows more likely, offering the prospect of huge profits. Nearly 400 start-ups are operating 600 carbon-mitigation projects in the USA, with the number of companies set to triple the next two years, says consulting firm Point Carbon.

• NATIONAL SECURITY (USA): Ports report urges better evaluation of nuke detectors:

  The government needs to develop a better way to evaluate the effectiveness of technology to detect nuclear and radiological material at U.S. ports, according to a report commissioned by the Homeland Security Department.

• MUST READ: The New Permanent Campaign from David Sirota:

  Today's permanent campaign aims to ensure that the recent surge in Democratic voter turnout becomes the foundation of a lasting political infrastructure for progressives, rather than a momentary boomlet of presidential election euphoria. That means "creating mechanisms for people to remain engaged in politics between elections," as Thomas Bates says.