About Me
Biography
Eric (Ric) Redman was born in 1948 and grew up in Seattle, the youngest child of a lawyer and a civic leader. As a scholarship student he was educated at Phillips Academy (Andover), Harvard College, Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar), and Harvard Law School.
He began writing for newspapers and magazines in high school and college, and wrote the nonfiction best-seller The Dance of Legislation at age 23 after serving as an aide to US Senator Warren G. Magnuson (D-WA). Nearly 50 years later, that book is still in print. For five decades he has continued writing for newspapers, magazines, law reviews, and as a contributor of chapters to books edited by others.
Meanwhile, from 1975 through 2007, he also worked as a lawyer in the electric power sector in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and for the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. Beginning in 2001, he began focusing on the climate impacts of the energy system, and eventually became CEO of Summit Power Group, an independent developer of climate-friendly power plants, including wind, solar, and carbon capture projects. He and his wife helped sponsor the first scientific research expedition to study the climate impacts of soot (black carbon) in the Arctic.
Since 2014 he has worked as a consultant and lawyer for climate-friendly technology companies, and as a Senior Policy Fellow for Deep Decarbonization at the University of California San Diego’s graduate School of Policy & Strategy, where he also helps teach a graduate course on Real World Problems of Energy & Environment. His board memberships include the Northwest African American Museum, Earth Talk, and the Global Carbon Capture & Storage Institute. He chairs the Global CCS Foundation.
In the early 1980s, he fell in love with the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, its people – including his wife’s Native Hawaiian relatives – and its history. He and his wife owned a home on the South Kohala Coast of the Big Island for twenty years, where he assembled a library of Hawaiian history.
When his brother in law Tom Wales, an Assistant United States Attorney, was murdered in Seattle in 2001, Redman began writing Bones of Hilo for catharsis and escape. It took twenty years to bring the book to fruitition. Its release date in hardback, Kindle, and audio book editions by Crooked Lane Press is June 8, 2021.
(Author photo by Karen Ducey)
(The murder scene in Bones of Hilo)
My Work
Bones of Hilo
Coming Soon June 2021
From Hawaii’s Big Island to the wilds of Washington’s North Cascades, a novice detective uncovers a hoard of ancient secrets at the heart of a grisly murder.
A young detective from Hilo on the wet, working-class side of Hawaii’s Big Island, Kawika Wong faces a battle to gain the respect of his more seasoned colleagues. And he has a great career opportunity when Ralph Fortunato, the Mainland developer of an unpopular resort in South Kohala on the island’s dry and touristy side, is found murdered on a luxury golf course, an ancient Hawaiian spear driven through his heart.
With other detectives desperately trying to solve another string of grisly killings, Captain Terry Tanaka sends his half-Hawaiian protégé Kawika to investigate. As Kawika joins forces with his Hawaiian father and girlfriend to read the cultural signs and make sense of the ritualistic murder scene, they uncover a cache of secrets reaching far back into the Island’s ancient past – and well beyond the Island itself. The San Francisco journalist who finds the body has her own attractions for Kawika, and her own theories about Fortunato’s demise – but do they line up with the evidence?
On a perilous journey that stretches from the Big Island to the North Cascades of Washington and back, Kawika and those around him find danger at every turn. He still has much to learn about history and lies, loyalty and betrayal, truth and fiction, race and revenge, and even about Hawaii itself, both old and new. And he’d better learn it fast, because his instincts and skills may not be enough for him to catch a savvy killer who’s determined to catch Kawika first.
"The best mysteries draw you in with plot and suspense, and stay with you through their vivid characters and the new cultures, eras, and corners of the world they open to you. As you begin Bones of Hilo, the authorities are reeling from the implications of an extraordinary murder. When you reach the end, you’ve been immersed in their investigations—but have also learned about revenge versus forgiveness, loyalty versus betrayal, the parts of history that are known versus those that are repressed, and the ever-changing contours of race. This is a book that will stay with you."
— James Fallows, bestselling co-author of Our Towns
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OTHER WRITING
This paper is one in a series of case studies examining the role of demonstration projects in the commercialization of new clean energy technologies.
Years ago, I stumbled onto the disturbing possibility that the Navy had dumped spent nuclear material in the ocean off the coast of Washington and Oregon. Over the past five decades, the story has played out in fascinating ways for me, however well-known the truth may be to the Navy, Members of Congress, and — as I relate here — unexpected others.
CCS, especially with geological sequestration, is increasingly recognized as a climate mitigation necessity, in addition to all other forms of CO2 emissions reductions. This article reviews the mixed success of Federal government efforts to launch large scale CCS projects in 2003-2016.
The Pacific Northwest is known for its innovative solutions. Whether the challenge is integration with the natural world, the relationship of science and policy, learning to use what we know, or simply enjoying a balanced and fulfilling life, these writers, leaders in their respective disciplines, provide the background necessary to understand the issues and move forward. This lasting collection from the magazine is an invaluable resource for students, educators, and practitioners working in various fields as well as decision makers in government, business, and other sectors looking for real-world answers to ongoing conflicts.
Collectively, the writers in this volume apply their expertise and talent to provide an intelligent and informed context through which to see public issues and make sense of the changes that continue to shape the region and our world.
As America’s leading expert on the Presidency and an adviser to presidents from Harry S Truman to Bill Clinton, Richard E. Neustadt was “the most penetrating analyst of power since Machiavelli,” as Guardian of the Presidency makes clear. In this inspirational book, Neustadt’s former colleagues and students celebrate the rich and diverse contributions he made to political and academic life in the United States and beyond. JFK confidant Ted Sorensen, the late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Harrison Wellford, formerly of the Office of Management and Budget, and Matthew Dickinson focus on his role as a White House adviser. Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter highlights Neustadt’s ability to interpret the Presidency for the outside world. Fellow scholars Ernest May, Charles O. Jones, Harvey Fineberg, and Graham Allison analyze his legacy as an educator and founding director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Anthony King (Britain at the Polls) and Eric Redman (The Dance of Legislation) discuss his work in the United Kingdom and Brazil.
HUMANS CONTRIBUTE TO GLOBAL WARMING—scientifically, that’s settled. But we rarely ask, by what means? We assume we know: Burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas produces carbon dioxide (CO2), a “greenhouse gas” that traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere. But that widely accepted hypothesis turns out to be seriously incomplete. So our CO2-focused climate policy and the layers of laws built on it—from European rules implementing the Kyoto Protocol to the United States regulations charging fees to new power plants for their CO2 emissions—are incomplete as well. That huge problem is partly driven by something tiny: the ultra-fine particles we know as soot.
The Dance of Legislation has long been considered a classic description of the legislative process. In it, Eric Redman draws on his two years as a member of Senator Warren Magnuson’s staff to trace the drafting and passing of a piece of legislation ― S.4106, the National Health Service Bill ― with all the maneuvers, plots, counterplots, frustrations, triumphs, and sheer work and dedication involved. He provides a vivid picture of the bureaucratic infighting, political prerogatives, and Congressional courtesies necessary to make something happen on Capitol Hill. In a Postscript to the 2000 edition, Redman reflects on how that process has, and has not, changed in the thirty years since the book was first published.
Mr. Redman maintains that ALCOA was a straightforward statutory construction case in which the meaning of the relevant provisions of the Northwest Power Act was clear. He asserts that ALCOA simply affirmed congressional intent.
There are several reasons why the Bonneville Power Administration uses combination service rather than firm power service to meet the DSI top quartile demand: (1) if properly designed, combination service can provide adequate power quality for this portion of the DSI demand; (2) environmental impacts and costs to non-DSI consumers would be greater if firm resources, planned and installed for other loads, were increased by the amount of the DSI top quartile; and (3) although combination service imposes costs on the DSIs in the form of periodic interruptions, it saves money for all BPA customers by permitting BPA to take advantage of certain physical features of the Columbia River power system that would otherwise impede rather than facilitate efficiency. These policy reasons are simple; the operational details of combination service are not. Because combination service is complex it is poorly understood, the cost savings it provides the Northwest are in danger of being lost.
Rolling Stone Magazine (Issue no. 182 / March 13, 1975) “Did Nixon Legally Win the 1968 Election”
In 1972, John Marttila, a Boston-based professional campaign consultant, was asked to manage Delaware Democrat Joe Biden’s race for a U.S. Senate seat. Biden’s campaign was floundering and low on funds. This case recounts the strategies and tactics Marttila used in his first campaign — Father Robert Drinan’s successful 1970 bid for a seat in the U.S. House from Massachusetts. It then provides basic information on Delaware’s demographics and voting history, and on Biden’s opponent in the senatorial race. Students are asked to develop solutions to the problems posed by the Biden campaign, keeping in mind the differences and similarities between that and the Drinan race. The sequel details Marttila’s tactics in guiding Biden to victory.
When The New Yorker featured two long and frightening articles on supertankers by Noel Mostert last May, they had a stunning impact. But excellent as they were, Mostert’s articles only hinted at the eloquence and power of his finished book, “Supership.” With their indictment of tanker safety standards and their warning of the ecological dangers the huge ships pose, the articles interweave the best traditions of Ralph Nader and Rachel Carson. But the book takes this basic exposé and turns it into real literature, a story of ships, sailors and the sea narrated with an unself‐conscious skill that Conrad or Melville might have envied.
Guns kill 20,000 Americans each year. But consider the bright side. That’s less than one death per year for every 10,000 guns in private ownership—a small price to pay for such an important privilege. Moreover, as Robert Sherrill says in “The Saturday Night Special,” we should be candid with ourselves: Gun victims are rarely middle‐class folks; they are the “refuse” (he puts it bluntly) of our “trashy” society, mostly criminals or people who “wouldn’t have come to much” anyway. Highway accidents, by contrast, cause three times as many fatalities, and wayward automobiles—unlike bullets — are wickedly egalitarian. May we not, all things considered, “fairly ask ourselves if the typical victim of cannot be spared?”
IN THE OLD DAYS, of course, we had to ride the train from Boston to Seattle–four days and three nights, coast to coast. In fairness to the Great Northern and Northern Pacific, one has to admit a limited nostalgia when looking back. The railroads could each you many things–you gained a sense of “the vastness of America,” to which, your parents insisted, your richer classmates aboard those jets remained forever oblivious.
About ME
Eric (Ric) Redman is a Seattle-based writer, lawyer, and climate activist. He is a former contributing editor of Rolling Stone and has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, and many other publications. He also wrote the non-fiction bestseller The Dance of Legislation.
Copyright 2020