Browner and Others Make It Clear: Climate Legislation Is Moving Forward
Posted January 12, 2010 in Solving Global Warming
I have read many articles in the past few days trying to assess how committed Washington is to passing a comprehensive clean energy and climate this year. But if there were any lingering doubts about where the White House stood, they were removed on Monday.
Carol Browner, assistant to president for energy and climate, hosted a live chat on the White House webpage, talking about President Obama’s commitment to creating a new, clean energy economy. You watch it here.
Browner explicitly called for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.
She has said similar things before, but the context of her comments is significant right now. She reiterated the administration’s support for the bill as part of an official White House series in the run up to the State of the Union address. Not only that, but she got the first slot in this ongoing feature.
That’s right, clean energy and climate legislation got top billing in this White House forum.
This doesn’t come as a surprise to me. I met with President Obama in the White House in early December, and he made it clear this is one of his top priorities. I also saw him in action in Copenhagen, where he rolled up his sleeves and put pen to paper in order to craft an international accord.
Still, having his main climate advisor broadcast the fact that the White House supports clean energy and climate legislation sends a powerful message just as the conversation heats up in the Senate.
I am hopeful the message will be received at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Some voices claim that the air has gone out of the climate balloon. They say there is little energy left to pass the bill in an election year.
The truth is that these are the same people who predicted the demise of the clean energy and climate bill in the House of Representatives--right before it passed in June. And they are the same people who forecast that the Senate’s version of the bill would never make it out of committee--right before it did in November. They say these things because they want to believe them, not because they are true.
The same goes for the patently false notion that Congress doesn’t take up major environmental legislation in election years. The sweeping amendments to the Clean Air Act--the ones that introduced the cap-and-trade program for Acid Rain--were passed in 1990. The Safe Drinking Water Act and the Food Quality Protection Act were both passed in 1996. The FQPA act had been bogged down for years in contentious battles, and yet it still got approved during an election cycle.
These pseudo political insights can’t mask the fact that clean energy and climate legislation remains a priority for the White House and key members of Congress.
The evidence is all around us.
I see it in Carol Browner’s chat today. I see it in Senator Kerry’s recent assertion that an integrated climate and energy bill is the best way to unleash innovation and create jobs. And I see it in Republican Senator Graham’s comments the other day when he said, “If we fail on climate change and energy, where will our new jobs come from to pay our Social Security and Medicare bills?”
Let the naysayers predict a breakdown. The rest of us are busy trying to put real solutions in place that will benefit our economy, our workers, and our planet.
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Comments
Dalan — Jan 13 2010 12:53 AM
To believe anything this administration tells you is hopeful at best. Obama will not push the global warming hoax while weather records are falling like the temperatures and oranges are freezing on trees in Florida. Obama cares nothing about anything but Obama. You will soon be disappointed like the rest of America.
Gregory Norminton — Jan 13 2010 10:06 AM
Dalan: stick to the blogs that peddle your delusions. For the rest of us - in the US and abroad - who accept scientific fact, let's keep up the pressure. The whole world (I know: I'm writing from Scotland) is looking to the United States to join (even the best legislative outcome would be far from a lead) the global effort against collective suicide. The voices of unreason (and they really are that: antiscience in every sense) seem very loud for the moment. They won't be for much longer. So keep fighting!
John Liffee — Jan 13 2010 10:50 AM
Gregory - Amen to that. It's sad: blogs, social networks and all that seem to hold so much potential for better communication between all kinds of people — but that's not going to happen for those who simply lack the thinking skills to distinguish incorrect reasoning from solid, logical argument. For people like Dalan, social media merely provides a hall of mirrors — a means to affirm each other's nonsensical ideas. I hope you're right that legit scientific observation and policy that derives from it will prevail, and there's certainly no moral choice other than to work to make that happen. But I'm only moderately hopeful.
Dalan — Jan 13 2010 04:15 PM
You should spend less time personally attacking people you don't know (typically liberal) and more time educating yourself. Do you understand that polar bear fossils have been recovered in sediments from a time when the Earth was several degrees hotter than today? Do you understand that whale bones have been found in open desert?I frequently find fossils of ancient sea plants near my home that is over 400 feet above sea level. Maybe we should ignore the fact that the other planets in our solar system experienced warming comparable to the Earth's in the early and mid 1990's. I'm sure the sun had NOTHING to do with that. So we are to believe that the Earth's temperature today is the "ideal" temperature because YOU say so? And your solution to the "problem" is to charge a tax on the gas that we exhale from our lungs? Yes, you are correct...I am a complete idiot! What could I have been thinking? Your shot was in Coppenhagen, and Obama and his followers blew it. The world will be shocked at the results of our midterm elections when we start kicking these baffoons out of Washington.
Gregory Norminton — Jan 14 2010 07:33 AM
'Dalan' (what's with the anonymity, anyway?): don't presume to know my politics. Though yours is evident.
Building a green future should not be a partisan issue. In the UK, as in the rest of Europe, being a conservative is not synonymous with being antiscience.
'Baffoons' indeed.
Dalan — Jan 14 2010 08:54 PM
Scientists who use phrases like "the debate is over" and "the science is settled" aren't scientists at all; they are political hacks. Since when is it antiscience to look at the big picture? Do you dispute that the planet was much warmer thousands of years ago? So what if the Earth is warming. We should be discussing how we adapt to our environment not how we change it. You choose the Rachel Carson approach which does more harm than good.