If you've developed space travel vehicles, you know about solar energy and the robust management of electricity grid feed-ins.

And if you have worked on the country's nuclear deterrent capabilities, you know something about nuclear power.

So here is a piece about how Lockheed Martin and BAe are getting into the renewable energy business.

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A bill to be signed into law today will rein in projects with massive overruns and require better testing of new technologies before production.

The bill has already been unanimously approved by the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.

According to the New York Times report, "Pentagon officials would also be required to weigh trade-offs among cost, schedule and performance objectives."

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I don't think I can even comment on this.

From The Nation:

"The Department of Defense paid former Halliburton subsidiary KBR more than $80 million in bonuses for contracts to install electrical wiring in Iraq. The award payments were for the very work that resulted in the electrocution deaths of US soldiers, according to Department of Defense documents revealed today in a Senate hearing. More than $30 million in bonuses were paid months after the death of Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a highly decorated, 24-year-old Green Beret, who was electrocuted while taking a show at a US base in January 2008. His death, the result of improper grounding for a water pump, has been classified by the US Army Criminal Investigations Division (CID) as a "negligent homicide." Maseth's death had originally been labeled an accident. Bonuses were paid to KBR in 2007 and 2008, after CID investigators had officially expressed concerns about the quality of KBR's electrical work. For its part, KBR denies any culpability for the electrocution deaths."

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BAE Systems, Europe’s largest defence company, had to answer shareholder concerns about company ethics at its annual meeting on Tuesday.

According to the Times report, BAe is subject to Serious Fraud Office investigations ofthe company's arms sales into South Africa, the Czech Republic, Tanzania and Romania. Meanwhile, BAe is also the subject of an investigation by the US Department of Justice.

Dick Olver, the chairman, stated that good progress was being made on improving ethical standards, but when questioned by an arms sales campaigner and investor appeared to say that whatever the company had done had been done to support the men and women on the front line. Note that does not necessarily mean our men and women on a front line that should matter to us politically, just whoever happens to be on the receiving end of the arms sales.

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The way I see it there are 3 ways that technology rapidly advances:

1) Greed - Somebody is going to make oodles of money if…

2) Space - “How the heck are we gonna win this here space race?”

3) War - “How do we kill more of them and save more of us?”

Let’s think about this in terms of our quest for alternative fuels.

Since we’re not launching poop-powered rockets into space…yet. And the green revolution has yet to fully evolve. War might be our best hope. (That’s a sentence I never thought I’d ever write.)

Consider this piece in the Washington Post:

“Every time you bring a gallon of fuel forward, you have to send a convoy,” said Alan R. Shaffer, director of defense research and engineering at the Pentagon. “That puts people’s lives at risk.”

Spurred by this grim reality, the Pentagon, which traditionally has not made saving energy much of a priority, has launched initiatives to find alternative fuel sources. The goals include saving money, preserving dwindling natural resources and lessening U.S. dependence on foreign sources.

“The honest-to-God truth, the most compelling reason to do it is it saves lives,” said Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson, director of operations and logistics for the Army. “It takes drivers off the road.”

And because turning water to wine is so B.C…

Two prototypes — known as the Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery — were deployed to Iraq in the summer and were initially successful, converting field waste — paper, plastic, cardboard and food slop — into biofuel to power a 60-kilowatt generator. “We were able to get oil out of trash,” Shaffer said.

Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery…Cool!

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Companies merely doing business with the regime in South Africa had their lawsuits dismissed. That left those who provided tools for repression.

According to the plaintiffs, the car manufacturers Daimler, Ford and General Motors knew their cars were to be used to suppress dissent. IBM knew its IT systems were to being used to strip people of their rights. The action can also proceed against Rheinmetall Group, which owns an armaments maker.

These actions under the Alien Tort Claims Act are to be permitted to proceed. The cases against them describe classic examples of what we at APEsphere refer to as the "use chain". In other words, as the BBC report put its: "The judge disagreed with IBM's argument that it was not the company's place to tell clients how to use its products."

Claims against banks Barclays and UBS were dismissed.

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The new budget by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pulls the plug on some of the Pentagon's most expensive Cold War-esque development projects.

On the scrap list, according to Mother Jones, are the F-22 Raptor, VH-71, the Navy's DDG-1000 Destroyer, Airborne Laser Missile Defense (a laser mounted on a Boeing 747), and the Army's Future Combat Systems program.

The extent of the lobbying effort launched by military contractors is described by Washington Independent writer Spencer Ackerman:

"In January, Lockheed Martin unveiled a Website called Preserve Raptor Jobs, arguing that the F-22 fighter jet it produces for the Air Force was a jobs engine during trying economic times. A spokesman for Lockheed told TWI last month that the site was merely intended to “provide information” primarily to the jet’s “supplier base,” but lawmakers from F-22-producing states warned Gates against cutting funding for the jet — which costs approximately $143 million per plane, of which there are currently 183 — using talking points that sounded much like text on the site. Similarly, defenders of the Army’s Future Combat Systems program for tech-enabled land warfare — the target of a Government Accountability Office report this week that criticized its “staggering” cost-overruns of $300 million — have argued in recent days that the program is crucial to soldier safety against insurgent attacks, even though it has yet to be deployed in full. The Politico reported this week that Boeing has deployed 100 lobbyists to Washington to push back against potential cuts."

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Changes have been made to the draft bribery bill to bring greater transparency and accountability to international business deals.

The Guardian reports:

"Last October the government was strongly criticised by a global watchdog for its "continued failure" to meet its international obligations in tackling bribery.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) working group on bribery called for swift introduction of foreign bribery legislation in Britain and to "establish effective corporate liability for bribery as a matter of high priority"."

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Former Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc. finds the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) an unwelcome restriction on its ability to "compete".

We previously reported the fine reported in the company's K-10 annual disclosure form relating to the bribery of Nigerian officials, but there are a couple of other statements in the K-10 that are of interest in their own right.

Firstly:

"Limitations on our use of agents as part of our efforts to comply with applicable laws, including the FCPA, could put us at a competitive disadvantage in pursuing large-scale international projects. Most of our large-scale international projects are pursued and executed using one or more agents to assist in understanding customer needs, local content requirements, and vendor selection criteria and processes and in communicating information from us regarding our services and pricing. As a result of our settlement of the FCPA matters described below under “—Risks Relating to Investigations” and “—Risks Related to Our Relationship With Halliburton” a monitor will be appointed to review future practices for compliance with the FCPA, including with respect to the retention of agents. Our compliance procedures and our requirement to have a monitor may result in a more limited use of agents on large-scale international projects than in the past. Accordingly, we could be at a competitive disadvantage in successfully being awarded such future projects, which could have a material adverse effect on our ability to win contracts and our future revenue and business prospects."

The only way that the new compliance processes will inhibit business acquisition is where the appointment of an agent creates the risk that bribes will be paid. There are going to be contracts which can only be secured by resorting to bribery. The only way this is going to change is through a change in practice among bidders, removing incentives such that a culture of corruption among officials in such countries declines over time.

Pay-to-play is a great example of where being a responsible company will lead to lower shareholder returns. What is offensive about the KBR statement is the implied assertion that a business that can only survive by being indifferent to its role in perpetuating the problem nevertheless has a right to exist - their profits are more important than the social damage done by their way of acquiring business.

But the disclosure does not stop there. Another disclosure of interest in the K-10 comes later, on page 58:

"Bidding practices investigation

In connection with the investigation into payments relating to the Bonny Island project in Nigeria, information has been uncovered suggesting that Mr. Stanley and other former employees may have engaged in coordinated bidding with one or more competitors on certain foreign construction projects, and that such coordination possibly began as early as the mid-1980s.  In connection with KBR LLC’s agreeing to enter into the plea agreement described above, the DOJ has agreed not to pursue any further investigation or penalties relating to the coordinated bidding allegations."

So any griping about KBR being placed at a competitive disadvantage because it cannot bribe government officials with such impunity, has to be read against the background that this is a company that is used to rigging the competitive game in any event.

Instead of the implication, which we are clearly meant to take from the first quotation from the K-10, that KBR would like to behave as the American people expect but only in a more perfect world, you come away with the sense that this is a company that is never inclined to compete on a level playing field and possibly therefore could not do so even if it tried.

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Detainees tortured at Abu Ghraib prison and later released without charge can sue U.S. military contractor CACI International Inc.

Four former detainees brought the action.

According to a press release issued by Common Dreams:

"U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, of Alexandria, Va., denied CACI's motion to dismiss the detainees' claims which allege multiple violations of U.S. law, including torture, war crimes and civil conspiracy.

CACI sought immunity against the lawsuits and claimed that the actions of its contract interrogators at Abu Ghraib were beyond judicial review. Court martial and other testimony from the soldiers convicted of abuse link the company personnel to the abuse.

In a ruling important to accountability for government contractors in Iraq, the Court ruled Tuesday that "[t]he fact that CACI's business involves conducting interrogations on the government's behalf is incidental; courts can and do entertain civil suits against government contractors for the manner in which they carry out government business. CACI conveniently ignores the long line of cases where private plaintiffs were allowed to bring tort actions for wartime injuries."

The Court also rejected CACI's effort to shield itself from accountability by invoking the political question doctrine. The Court found "the policy is clear: what happened at Abu Ghraib was wrong." The Court reasoned "While it is true that the events at Abu Ghraib pose an embarrassment to this country, it is the misconduct alleged and not the litigation surrounding that misconduct that creates the embarrassment. This Court finds that the only potential for embarrassment would be if the Court declined to hear these claims on political questions grounds. Consequently, the Court holds that Plaintiffs' claims pose no political question and are therefore justiciable.""

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