The Evening CSIS August 3 2015

Good Evening,

Welcome to The Evening CSIS—my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day plus HIGHLY RECOMMENDED content from around the world. To subscribe, please click here and if you want to view this in your browser, click here.

Gulf Allies Get Back on Iran
Gulf Arab states today backed the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran following Secretary of State John Kerry’s and US promises of better intelligence-sharing and faster arms transfers, as the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon reports from Doha.

Dive Deeper: CSIS has published a great deal of content on the Iran nuclear agreement in recent days including:

“The Iran Sanctions Cheat Sheet” infographic.

CSIS’s Anthony Cordesman’s analysis that the “US and its allies need to act now to deal with the Iranian missile threat in ways that are likely to be largely independent of the Iran nuclear agreement.”

And, CSIS’s Juan Zarate’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the subject of sanctions against Iran last week, where Zarate points out several key flaws with the agreement in terms of sanctions.

Plus, CSIS’s Jon Alterman’s testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, where he points out in a nuanced testimony that “this agreement gives us tools to influence Iranian decision making, and it provides unprecedented visibility into Iranian nuclear activities. It also binds the world together in a common cause, and it reasserts U.S. leadership in confronting threats to global peace.”

Clean Power
In what President Obama called “the biggest, most important step we have ever taken” in tackling climate change, today he unveiled his Clean Power Plan, the aim of which is to cut greenhouse gas emissions from US power stations by nearly a third within 15 years. Vox.com today published an excellent article explaining the plan.

Dive Deeper: CSIS’s Sarah O. Ladislaw and Michelle Melton today authored a new Critical Questions (CSIS’s signature Asked & Answered series of short papers) on the plan.

And, CFR’s “Backgrounder: Modernizing the US Energy Grid” is also a helpful resource.

It's All Greek
As the Greek stock market reopened today, it plunged over 16 percent, its worst daily performance since 1985 when modern records began, the Guardian reports.

Dive Deeper: CSIS’s Heather Conley spoke to Fortune Magazine’s Nina Easton in a piece published today: “Why the Eurozone was always doomed to fail.”

In that Number
178

Number of people Nigerian troops rescued from Boko Haram in attacks that destroyed several camps of the Islamic extremists in the northeast of the country.
Source: CBS News.

Critical Question
Asked: Now that the Clean Power Plan has been announced, what’s next?

Answered: Sarah Ladislaw, CSIS Energy Program director:

The hard work of implementing the Clean Power Plan has just begun. From this point forward, activity surrounding the CPP will follow three parallel tracks. First is the ongoing administrative process at EPA. EPA will take public comments on the CEI and the model federal implementation plan (FIP) released along with the two final rules. The model FIP is an idealized model plan that resembles what EPA would impose were states to refuse to submit their own plans (or submit plans that did not meet EPA’s criteria in terms of stringency or enforceability).

Second is the process at the courts. Both rules announced today have been targets of legal challenges. The timeframe for hearing the lawsuits is uncertain, but several years of litigation, both of the rule itself and of the state implementation plans, are certain. The administration believes that several changes made between the draft and final rule strengthen the legal grounds for the final rule. but legal challenges are expected just the same.

The third track is at the state level. States will continue deliberations with the EPA and their own stakeholders over interpretations of the rule and begin the complicated process of determining their compliance plans. The process in each state is likely to be different, involving a variety of administrative bodies (including the governor’s office, state public utility commission, air regulatory agency, and, in many states, the state legislature), stakeholder groups (including citizens), and regulated entities.

Read the full analysis here.

One to Watch

Coral Davenport is the energy and environment policy correspondent with the New York Times. As climate change continues to be on the agenda coming up to the 2016 presidential election, as well as in advance of the UN’s Paris Conference in November, look to her to explain the dynamics behind these complex issues. Photo credit: Twitter

Optics

This Shelby Cobra sports car, 3-D printed at the Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is 1 of “ 20 Amazing things the National Laboratories have done” featured on the DOE website.

Photo Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Highly Recommended
A New York Times article published today by Michael Forsythe and Mark Mazzetti, “China Seeks Businessman Said to Have Fled to U.S., Further Straining Ties.”

This Town Tomorrow
General John Campbell will join Brookings at 3:00 p.m. for a discussion on the current and future state of security in Afghanistan.

CSIS on Demand
As Obama unveils a new Clean Power Plan to tackle climate change, be sure to watch as the director of the International Energy Agency explains their 2015 world energy outlook and special report on climate change.

Sounds
In case you missed it, listen to our own Heather Conley discuss Greece and the fate of the eurozone for the Smart Women, Smart Power podcast . You can read Fortune ’s companion piece here.

I Like It Like That
Superb article by Harvard’s Neiman Lab on the New York Times’ challenges in building a digital brand.

Smiles
This weekend, one of our readers, Alan, tipped me off to a big-time smile.

I often talk about the power of music in our Smiles section. Late last week, a group of Italians called the “Rockin’ 1000” harnessed that power in an astonishingly effective way.

Videotaped in a park in Cesena, Italy, 1,000 musicians assembled to jointly perform “Learning to Fly,” the most popular song by one of America’s most popular and globally worshiped rock bands, the Foo Fighters.

Why? Simply because they wanted to ask the Foo Fighters to perform in their town.

Their video went viral. To date, over 17 million people have watched it. And, the Rockin’ 1000 got what they asked for—the Foo Fighters’ lead singer Dave Grohl has agreed to perform in Cesena.

It’s a happy and fascinating story. We’ll talk more about the Foo Fighters themselves tomorrow, but in the meantime, enjoy the Rockin’ 1000 video. I’ve never seen anything like it. The video underscores that the right combination of great ideas, good music, word-of-mouth whispers, and ubiquitous channels of distribution such as YouTube can prove to be highly persuasive. What a fascinating smile.

Feedback
I always welcome and benefit from your feedback. Please drop me a line at aschwartz@csis.org.