Julia Bovey's Blog: U.S. Law and Policy

Dear Senator Kerry: We're on the same side.

2007-12-14T01:14:30Z

“No fighting, no hitting, no yelling and do not come downstairs!” I told my children this evening, “Mommy has a very important phone call.” They knew I meant business.

Unable to get a last-minute babysitter, I parked the kids in front of PBS Kids and prayed they wouldn’t make a peep during my conference call with Sen. John Kerry.

Kerry joined the call breathless having run back to his office seconds after casting his vote for the victorious energy bill. I watched him vote on C-Span II (we have another TV downstairs) and 10 seconds later he was on the phone. How important is the energy bill you ask? NRDC will release new analysis tomorrow showing that the bill’s provision to make the average new car in America get 35 mph will be even more effective than we imagined in slowing global warming and breaking America’s addiction to oil.

Kerry was on the call to talk about recent developments with some folks who blog about climate change, specifically Bali and the energy bill victory. But I had let his folks know in advance that I planned to ask him about the subject of my blog post from yesterday: the $25 billion for nuclear loan guarantees in the appropriations bill that is about to be sprung on us. I wanted to ask him about it NOT because I wanted to give him a hard time, but because I believe he has the power to actually DO something about it. He’s Senator John Kerry.

But that’s not how it went down. In fact, it went down badly, as is detailed in this description in Gristmill.

To Kerry, clearly I sounded hostile. Accusatory. This was not meant to be the case. I mean, he and I are supposed to agree, right? John Kerry wants to protect the environment. I want to protect the environment. John Kerry wants to stop global warming. I want to stop global warming. John Kerry works in Washington to try to make the world better. I work in Washington to try to make the world better. John Kerry thought he was the best candidate to be President in 2004. I thought he was the best candidate to be President in 2004. So I made a quip thinking that he would think it was coming from someone on the same team. He did not think it was from someone on the same team. He thought it was rude. He thought it was blaming.

But to me this speaks to a larger disconnect and defensiveness that’s happening now in the environmental community trying to fight the fight in the Nation’s Capital. Here in Washington, we are far more focused on what divides us than what unites us lately. People who agree that, for instance, global warming pollution should be reduced 80% by 2050 seem to believe they are diametrically opposed on solving global warming because one believes in a carbon tax and the other believes in a cap and trade system. That’s Washington. There’s no longer much feeling of a shared mission among those who would execute differently on any one detail of a plan. So, I guess it's no wonder that Sen. Kerry thought I was attacking him.

All of this is put in perspective for me by something very upsetting and disturbing I saw in the New York Times today. It was a photo of so-called eco jeans. Apparently the maker of these jeans suggests they are best laundered in the shower, with shampoo… while the washer is actually wearing the jeans. I’m not making this up.

My take away: there are people out there who want to protect the planet so badly that there is a market for $295 blue jeans that you must wash with shampoo while wearing them in the shower. Here in Washington, the goal should be to translate that desire – that caused someone to invent and someone else to buy those stupid jeans – into solutions.

Today a real solution happened in the form of a new mpg standard for cars sold in America. It’s a huge day, a huge step forward. But for me it will go down as the day that I talked to John Kerry assuming he knew that we were on the same side, but he assumed that we weren’t.

Smells Like Radioactive Pork. Ew.

2007-12-11T17:53:58Z

We can’t waste time around here patting ourselves on the back, and never is this more apparent than in the case of the relentless attempt to get American taxpayers to dole out even more cash to the world’s most environmentally problematic and fiscally disasterous source of energy: nuclear power.

We yelled ourselves hoarse getting the nuclear loan guarantees out of the energy bill passed by Congress last week. Folks thought there was no way we could do it, but we did. The bill passed without a dime for nukes.

But now, a whole week after that vote to make investments in new, renewable energy, we hear that Congress – that’s right, the one with the Democratic majority elected a year ago to bring change to Washington– has stuck the $25 billion for loan guarantees in the omnibus spending bill. This is an eighth night of Hanukah/early Christmas present from Congress to an undeserving and degenerative industry. This is a gargantuan public policy failure. And guess who pays? You and me.

How much is $25 billion in Washington, you ask? Are we talking about real money here? Well, President Bush is asking for $7.2 billion to fund the EPA for the next three years. So $25 billion in radioactive pork is three times what it costs to run the EPA for three years. Yeah, it’s real money.

What’s funny – the pathetic kind of funny – is that both the President and Congress are hollering about getting rid of pork, slashing earmarks, returning to the halcyon days of small government. Do where does $25 billion in loan guarantees for a handful of our nation’s most profitable companies fit in the quest for fiscal common sense?

Should Americans invest in energy? Absolutely. Clean renewable energy – the energy of the future – that will beat back global warming and free us from dependence on the Middle East. Wind. Solar. Geothermal. The next generation of cellulosic biofuels I like to call “grassoline” that will be cleaner, cheaper and far less resource intensive than corn ethanol. If we’re going to spend public money on energy, these are projects that deserve it.

As for the nuclear industry, how about borrowing money on the open market like every other business has to? What? No one will loan you money? How come? Oh, because you probably can’t pay it back? Because your business model isn’t viable? Well then, should you really be borrowing money? Can’t build new nukes without it? Well, maybe you should look into building something else. Ever hear of wind turbines?

It's in there!

2007-06-22T05:10:49Z

Well hogtie me to a Chevy and take me to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – I never would have guessed that champagne corks would be popping on Capitol Hill tonight. Yes, CAFE – the provision to get better cars and trucks that go farther on a gallon of gas – IS in the Senate Energy Bill. Now, let's see what happens in the vote on the entire bill. It's my job to be cautiously optimistic . . . more to come.

Detroit 8, Washington 4

2007-06-21T21:21:51Z

Ah, dear irony.... last night I sat under a clear starry sky and watched the Detroit Tigers make mincemeat of my adopted team, whose play on the field makes you want to make like their mascot and SCREECH.

Meanwhile, mere blocks away, another crew from the motor city was perpetrating a very similar filleting of any potential progress in the works on a sane policy for modernizing cars and trucks in America.

In the battle on the baseball field, the final score was Detroit 8, Washington 4.... in the battle to get better cars that go farther on a gallon of gas, I'm worried Washington won't do much better when going head-to-head with the Motor City.

But please keep in mind, many of my excellent co-workers here at NRDC who are wearing out the soles of their shoes working the Hill on this think otherwise. It's their optimism that gets us through fights like this.

Senate CAFE Vote: Being right may not be enough

2007-06-21T02:22:38Z

If the war over energy policy -- particularly miles-per-gallon (know in insider jargon as CAFE standards) -- was determined by newspaper editorials, today we would proclaim victory. The drumbeat of support has grown louder and louder, and now even papers I wouldn't have bet a nickel on supporting us are coming out squarely in our corner.

Today I was blown away by this from The Virginian-Pilot (not your NYT/Boston Globe/Northeastern Liberal broadsheet mind you):

Gutting the CAFE standard would be nothing more than a protectionist payoff designed to shield American car companies. It would allow American automakers to continue the kind of business as usual that is killing them and driving their customers into cars made by foreign companies. It would make Congress an enabler of lazy corporate misfeasance, the kind that led to the shutdown of Norfolk's Ford plant, and do nothing to encourage competition or wean America from its dependence on foreign oil.

So, if this is so clear to us, clear even to newspapers in places where everyone still drives American cars, then why isn't it clear to the distinguished members of the US Senate? The answer is, they're not looking at what's clear, what makes sense, or even what's best for America. They're involved in an old-fashioned political showdown. It's not even along party lines. It's about power and outdated assumptions about what will make life in America better. And it's a damn shame.

Hypothetical vote counts are clogging my inbox every two minutes. Last-ditch phone calls are being placed by both sides. One of two things will happen: Americans will start driving cars that go farther on a gallon of gas OR we will slide deeper into the addiction that keeps us beholden to the Middle East and insures our own environmental ruin. Which would you choose? Stay tuned!

Democrats Threaten To Spoil My Vacation

2007-06-20T01:40:59Z

Anyone who still believes that conservatives are tough task masters and liberals just want to have fun hasn’t been to Washington lately! Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is threatening to spoil our vacation…

"It’s our last week here before the July recess, and we’ve got work to do," Reid said yesterday. "And I hope we don’t run into the July 4th recess, but we may have to if we can’t get things done. So I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news regarding the schedule, but also we have obligations to complete energy and immigration."

A-MEN. Believe me, no one is more anxious than me to blow this steam bath of a swamp for my annual All-American, wiffle-ball-filled, meat-cooked-outdoors, skinny-dipping Independence Day fest in bucolic Vermont. But the Gentleman from Nevada says that – gasp! – the US Senate has to get its act together on this energy bill before any of us are going anywhere. We here at NRDC are doing our best to help – and not just for the sake of me getting to Vermont to eat a pack of Hebrew Nationals, either.

Let’s cut through the rhetoric. Real energy legislation means: 1) our cars go farther on a gallon of gas (how much is it going to cost me to dive the Bovey brood to Vermont?), 2) real investment in bio-fuels without clear cutting redwoods to grow corn, 3) renewable fuels like wind and solar that will fuel our future, 4) Efficiency – we have the technology now to use a lot less energy than we do, let’s put it in place.

It’s that simple, Ladies and Gentlemen of the US Senate. How’s about just making it happen and letting us get on with our vacations already (My ETD: NOON 6/29/07)? I don't want to see the looks on my children's faces when I tell them, "Sorry babies, the US Senate wants to keep our nation addicted to oil AND to celebrate we're spending America's birthday right here!"