NationStates

Working together with the City Council of Europeia, we have drafted the following proposal and wish to gather opinions/views on it. Admittedly the title is a bit of a 'work in progress' so we are more than open to suggestions! But, without further ado:

Category: Environmental
Affects: All industries and governments
Strength: Mild

Description: A proposal to encourage nations to fund renewable energy research.

ARGUMENT:

AWARE that the use of fossil fuels and fossil fuel related products depletes the limited reserves upon planets

UNDERSTANDS that the burning of fossil fuels such as coal to produce electricity releases the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming as well as other noxious compounds that can later cause acid rain as well as other environmental issues,

CONCERNED that this rapid depletion would leave no way to produce energy for future generations,

KNOWS that there are other ways to generate electricity without using fossil fuels. These include, but is not limited to, solar, wind, geothermal, and hydro,

HEREBY:

1) Instructs World Assembly nations to devote sufficient funding in order to make a meaningful and good faith effort towards researching renewable energy
2) Encourages nations to enact policies on fossil-fuel burning power plants to commit a minimum 5% from their expenditure to further renewable energy research and to develop ways to better utilize alternative energy sources
3) Urges nations to take into account and implement results from the renewable energy research

IN ORDER to allow future generations to produce electricity without further polluting the atmosphere.

Co-Authored By individuality-ness

Thank you for your time!

List of changes:

Urges electricity-producing power plants -> Encourages nations to enact policies on electricity-producing power plants

Instructs World Assembly nations to devote at least 10% of their Government energy budget to fund renewable energy research ->
Instructs World Assembly nations to devote sufficient funding in order to make a meaningful and good faith effort towards researching renewable energy

Encourages nations to enact policies on fossil-fuel burning power plants to commit a minimum 5% from their expenditure to further renewable energy research and to develop ways to better utilize alternative energy sources ->
Encourages nations to enact policies on fossil-fuel burning power plants to commit a minimum 5% from their expenditure to further renewable energy research and to develop ways to better utilize alternative energy sources

Added clause 3

Well, for starters, Environmental regulations don't have "strength," they just have "industries affected." (Where's the Ambassador from Moronist Decisions when you need him...)

I can be a bit of a stickler on technicalities, and since this proposal really has to do with "funding renewable energy research," I'm not convinced it's an environmental regulation. What you've proposed doesn't directly "increase the quality of the world's environment, at the expense of industry." It could fit under a number of other categories, though. I'd argue that you've really proposed an "educational" resolution or an "Advancement of industry" of the "protective tariffs" type (protective tariffs are often used by governments to protect and encourage noncompetitive or undeveloped local industries, giving them time to become competitive). (Edit: I've been informed that a protective tariff deals with the price of imported and exported goods. As such, it probably isn't the right category for a resolution that seeks to establish research funding. The Cowardly Pacifist Delegation regrets this error).

If you want to keep it as an Environmental resolution, that's fine. But you may want to seek a legality ruling from the Secretariat, just to be sure.

I can promise you right now that lots of nations are going to object to the micromanagement of their national budget. Perhaps you can think of a way to fund renewable energy research without demanding a portion of our national energy budgets? Some nations would rather de-fund their Energy Departments altogether than let the WA dictate which industries they must favor.

Also, it's improper to have the WA urging particular industries to do something. Rather, the WA should "[i]encourage nations to enact policies[i] requiring their national power plants to devote at least... etc." We tell nations what to do; we let them pass the word on to their industries.

Hopefully, that's a start. I like where this is headed...

The "Strength" was taken from the "Submit a Proposal" preview-draft which did show a Strength of mild. Was literally a copy and paste of it and had me puzzled anyway

Originally it was titled that [or something very similar] but it went over the character limit meaning the title had to be re-jigged to the current "working title". Mmm I do see exactly what you mean regarding what 'type' of resolution this and am more than willing to listen to your and other opinions on this - one would guess it is either "environment" or "education" as you do point out. Though - how would one go about achieving this legality ruling? #newtothis

As for the likely objection of micromanagement of nation budgets, we were expecting this. If a nation does de-fund their Departments or doesn't have an Energy department all together - then would leave them exempt would it not? I guess the % could be lowered if people felt strongly on this.

As for the removal and replacing of 'Urging' - it has been done! Please see the original draft and, also, thank you for the comments!

Delegate Vinage wrote:I do see exactly what you mean regarding what 'type' of resolution this and am more than willing to listen to your and other opinions on this - one would guess it is either "environment" or "education" as you do point out. Though - how would one go about achieving this legality ruling? #newtothis

I'd wait for more learned ambassadors than myself to comment, then make a decision whether or not to submit a GHR. Like I said, I can be a stickler on technicalities - sometimes to the point of absurdity. There's a chance (probably a good one) that I'm off my rocker and you've selected the appropriate category. No need to bother the Secretariat for a legality ruling if the others think your on solid ground.

Delegate Vinage wrote:As for the likely objection of micromanagement of nation budgets, we were expecting this. If a nation does de-fund their Departments or doesn't have an Energy department all together - then would leave them exempt would it not?

You're absolutely right, of course. What I really meant to get at is that those folks will oppose the passage of this resolution. I was just wondering if you had kicked around any other mechanisms to accomplish the change you're after without demanding that nations set aside a specific percentage of their Energy Budget. If not, that's okay. Just be ready for all hell when the Nat. Sovs. catch wind of it. Then again, this is the kind of resolution they'd resist anyway. So nuts to them...

We're not entirely sure this is good for all of the varied levels of technological ability. Some nations have probably moved from fusion to making energy from black holes, so will prefer not to devote their budget to so called 'renewable' resources.

I'll ignore the preambulatory stuff as it doesn't really matter.

Delegate Vinage wrote:1) Instructs World Assembly nations to devote at least 10% of their Government energy budget to fund renewable energy research

I dislike setting fixed percentages on things, as this is of the energy budget thats slightly more acceptable, but a tenth of the energy budget to research of this? Does that need to be mandated, really?

2) Encourages nations to enact policies on electricity-producing power plants to devote at least 5% of their expenditure to further research and develop ways to better utilize alternative energy sources

Is that 5% of total budget or 5% of the energy budget?
Edit: Hmm that seems like, based on the thread on the Europeian forums, that you mean of the national budget. Thats kinda ridiculous. (OOC: The United States spent, about, if you ignore its mandatory spending which is less than 1%, about 2% of its budget on *all* of energy, assuming my math is right. Here you want to spend 5% on simply research of alternative sources, with implementation being separate and the *rest* of the energy spending still unaccounted for.)

From a legality perspective, I don't see the mods okaying this sort of proposal in any category other than Environmental since it is clearly aiming for an Environmental impact. I've tried/encouraged others to do similar things in other categories before (i.e. trying to justify a gun control proposal in International Security), but they've been shot down. You can certainly try to gear it towards Education & Creativity (or perhaps Free Trade?), but ... I doubt you'll have much luck evading a category violation in such an effort.

I wouldn't mind a clause encouraging nations to - perhaps - offer tax credits to businesses that utilize renewable energy in their business endeavors, in order to encourage the utilization of such new developments.

Also, as a general rule, setting set percentages on expenditures within a given resolution is often a death knell for a proposal. Granted, this proposal is a step ahead of most by stipulating only a percent of a given part of the budget, but you will always have nations who yell and scream about trying to dictate to their national governments. You may be better off setting percentages for pollution decreases or ... something along those lines, if you set any such standards at all. (I'll warn you in advance, such detailed proposals are often considered to be "micro-management" by the NatSov crowd.)

Yours,
Nikolas Eberhart
Ambassador from the Doctoral Monkey Feet of Mousebumples
WA Delegate for Monkey Island

Minor point: Environmental category has no strength, last I checked.

I would suggest that the instruction to fund renewable energy research can be broadened to fund both renewable energy as well as increased energy efficiency. If a nation is already completely powered through, say, solar power, then do they really need more research on renewable energy?

You might also want to consider defining what is meant by "renewable energy". For example: is nuclear energy considered to be renewable?

We strongly recommend changing the fixed percentage to "to effectively fund" or some such. Fixed percentages are usually not very useful, and overt funding (beyond the human resources (aka scientists and technicians) available) would be a waste of cash.

Not sure if we support this or not, but these are our comments for now.

Robert Smithers
Counselor (Legislative Affairs Office, Mission to the GA)
Secretary to the Fourth Desk of the Directorate of International Mayhem.

Cowardly Pacifists wrote:I'd wait for more learned ambassadors than myself to comment, then make a decision whether or not to submit a GHR.

[OOC]
Fact is, the class of "other learned ambassadors" includes the subclass "WA moderators", who will usually respond to questions of legality in the same thread. GHR use isn't necessary unless an illegal proposal has already been submitted.

Kryozerkia wrote:Environmental - A resolution to increase the quality of the world's environment, at the expense of industry.

Precisely what it sounds like. Any Environmental resolution will cause a hit to your industries while improving the environment. Any proposal written for this category should preferably talk about industry having to somehow pay for environmental improvements. Of course, this could be abstracted by saying that the government taxes industry more to implement an environmental plan of some kind.

Lifted from the WA rules thread. I'd expand on Kryozerkia's last sentence to say that "the government regulates industry more to implement an environmental plan of some kind." Presuming that government funded research is actually handled by private industry under grants and contracts, this would strike me as clearly Environmental / All Business.

Mahaj wrote:Edit: Hmm that seems like, based on the thread on the Europeian forums, that you mean of the national budget. Thats kinda ridiculous. (OOC: The United States spent, about, if you ignore its mandatory spending which is less than 1%, about 2% of its budget on *all* of energy, assuming my math is right. Here you want to spend 5% on simply research of alternative sources, with implementation being separate and the *rest* of the energy spending still unaccounted for.)

No. We do not mean of the national budged. We considered that, then we scrapped that as being far too large and restrictive, and switched it to being only 10% of your ENERGY BUDGET, if the nation even has one.

The issues nations answer when they come up - which affect the same things WA resolutions do - do not deal with things like getting energy from black holes. Regardless of how someone roleplays their nation, if the issues are dealing with things like this in modern tech level terms, than so can the WA.

We strongly recommend changing the fixed percentage to "to effectively fund" or some such. Fixed percentages are usually not very useful, and overt funding (beyond the human resources (aka scientists and technicians) available) would be a waste of cash.

But the language of "to effectively fund" is extremely vague and produces no real meaning. What constitutes "effective funding"? $10? $10,000? $10,000,000,000?

New Kyrkberg wrote:But the language of "to effectively fund" is extremely vague and produces no real meaning. What constitutes "effective funding"? $10? $10,000? $10,000,000,000?

I think it's relative. I mean, if a nation (such as mine) is extremely large with 18.5 billion people .... We've got a pretty big budget. Of course, per the graphs, we don't have an energy budget, so this proposal wouldn't make us spend money on anything. (And, for the record, we do have a pretty good national environment.) Effective funding is fungible, yes, but it will require all WA member nations to spend some funds on such things to what is considered by the WA gnomes of compliance to be an effective level.

If that's insufficient, you could go with a clause along the lines of "provide sufficient funding so as to accomplish end goal XYZ." The sufficient funding then has a stated purpose and a stated aim. Then "sufficient funding" is less ... fungible and much clearer.

Yours,
Nikolas Eberhart
Ambassador from the Doctoral Monkey Feet of Mousebumples
WA Delegate for Monkey Island

Would it be better if it were changed from

1) Instructs World Assembly nations to devote at least 10% of their Government energy budget to fund renewable energy research

to this?

1) Instructs World Assembly nations to devote sufficient funding to renewable energy research

This would encourage all WA nations to fund renewable energy, even if the nation does not have a specific energy budget in place. It also gets rid of the specified percentage that has been the concern of some of the ambassadors.

If not, that's okay. Just be ready for all hell when the Nat. Sovs. catch wind of it. Then again, this is the kind of resolution they'd resist anyway. So nuts to them...

In all fairness... we seem to share the same view on this. You can't win everybody over but we can at least minimise the issues of Nat. Sovs.

@Debate on % or Writing

I agree with the amendment suggested by the co-writer Individuality-ness. However, I ask, if there isn't a direct commitment, or promise of a commitment then does that not make the proposal powerless?

I mean Nat. Sovs. will disagree with it regardless if it forces someone to spend a minimum 10% and pro-Climate nations will see the replacement as being too vague.

Moronist Decisions wrote:We strongly recommend changing the fixed percentage to "to effectively fund" or some such. Fixed percentages are usually not very useful, and overt funding (beyond the human resources (aka scientists and technicians) available) would be a waste of cash.

And typically illegal due to Game Mechanics.

Individuality-ness wrote:Would it be better if it were changed from

1) Instructs World Assembly nations to devote at least 10% of their Government energy budget to fund renewable energy research

to this?

1) Instructs World Assembly nations to devote sufficient funding to renewable energy research

This would encourage all WA nations to fund renewable energy, even if the nation does not have a specific energy budget in place. It also gets rid of the specified percentage that has been the concern of some of the ambassadors.

Perhaps...

Requires nations to make a meaningful and good faith effort towards funding renewable energy research,

Combining the alterations made by Individuality-ness & Mahaj:

Instructs World Assembly nations to devote sufficient funding to make a meaningful and good faith effort towards renewable energy research

With all due respect, we think that this is not as well worded as it can be. In particular, we note that all this requires is funding - it doesn't require actual effort to disburse or manage these funds. Another problem with this is that I am not sure this actually manages to improve the environment at the expense of industry; I don't know if the secretariat may have a comment on that.

Instructs World Assembly nations to devote sufficient funding in order to make a meaningful and good faith effort towards researching renewable energy

Please note proposed changes in bold. In regards to the expense of industry a previous mod as expressed their point of view on this matter: http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=8413542#p8413542

Secondly, I feel that both 1. & 2. involves industry enough for this to count as an Environmental proposal - if you do disagree then what would you instead suggest?

Delegate Vinage wrote:Please note proposed changes in bold. In regards to the expense of industry a previous mod as expressed their point of view on this matter: http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=8413542#p8413542

Please don't take my comment to mean that it automatically FITS in that category. You may have to make changes to make it work. It's entirely possible to write a proposal that doesn't fit ANY category (even when it's obvious where it ought to be) and is therefore illegal.

I apologise if one felt that I was interpretative/forcing your statement to mean something else.

How would one go about achieving this ruling then?

Don't worry so much about legality in these early stages. Continue to accept feedback from players and make appropriate adjustments to your proposal. If you can't get people in here to agree with your idea, you can be SURE that the voters won't like it either.

The WA takes its time to consider new legislation. It might take you a week or a month to get this revised and ready. Ask us again then.

Thank you, again, for your assistance on this. I've made adjustments to section Hereby 2) to highlight a particular industry which will be impacted by this resolution in order to secure an Environmental category.

May one ask for the floor's opinion on these changes and adjustments?

Delegate Vinage wrote:Thank you, again, for your assistance on this. I've made adjustments to section Hereby 2) to highlight a particular industry which will be impacted by this resolution in order to secure an Environmental category.

May one ask for the floor's opinion on these changes and adjustments?

If "all industries" are affected (per the Area of Effect) ... why is only one industry targeted within the proposal text? (The 3, more specific, Industry Affected options are Automobile Manufacturing, Uranium Mining, and Woodchipping, if you don't want to go with All Industries.)

Mousebumples wrote:

Delegate Vinage wrote:Thank you, again, for your assistance on this. I've made adjustments to section Hereby 2) to highlight a particular industry which will be impacted by this resolution in order to secure an Environmental category.

May one ask for the floor's opinion on these changes and adjustments?

If "all industries" are affected (per the Area of Effect) ... why is only one industry targeted within the proposal text? (The 3, more specific, Industry Affected options are Automobile Manufacturing, Uranium Mining, and Woodchipping, if you don't want to go with All Industries.)

Because I had no idea which of those 3 that this would come under >_>

What would be your recommendation?

Assuming it means that private sector participation is involved, All Businesses is probably fine in our non-official opinion.

Presuming that government funded research is actually handled by private industry under grants and contracts

I would also add in an URGES clause for nations to take account and implement the results of this research.