Charlie Wilson and his Blue Dog Democrats growling at climate-change plan

[irishbobcat]

Charlie Wilson and his Blue Dog Democrats growling at climate-change plan
 

  Apr 10, 2009
Globe & Mail (Canada)
   
Blue Dog Democrats growling at climate-change plan

Party's fiscal conservatives and those elected in mining states could side with GOP to veto Obama's cap-and-trade proposal

April 10, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Nancy Pelosi keeps a small statue of a coal miner on her desk.

Miners "need not fear" that Democrats would ever tolerate a climate-change bill that abandoned the coal industry, the Speaker of the House of Representatives told The Washington Post. "You can't."

Ms. Pelosi's admission highlights the growing resistance from within the Democratic Party to the Obama administration's efforts to forge a cap-and-trade system to fight global warming.

"There seems to be a disregard, an indifference on the two coasts to manufacturing," Ohio Senator Sharrod Brown, a Democrat, said recently, referring to liberal Democrats who tend to cluster along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

"But manufacturing is the ticket to the middle class for a large part of the country. We've got to focus our attention on it when it comes to taxes, trade, energy and other issues."

At the same time, Republicans in Congress who believe climate change is real are working to change their leadership's skepticism toward global warming.

"You have a struggle under way among people with different ideas," said Richard Moss, who heads the climate change section at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington.

"There are plenty of Republicans who are taking up the fight within their own party, who are looking forward."

Those worried, as Environment Minister Jim Prentice is, that American actions could force Ottawa to toughen its anemic rules on carbon-dioxide emissions or face trade sanctions - and if Canada is worried, what must the Chinese be thinking? - can only wait and watch, as Democrats and Republicans struggle over climate change with each other and with themselves.

In a little-noticed vote last week, the Senate moved to prohibit the passage of any climate-change legislation by a simple 50-vote majority.

Instead, the bill will require the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Twenty-six Democratic senators joined with their Republicans counterparts to pass the ruling.

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee called it "the biggest vote of the year." It served as a warning shot to the administration. So-called Blue Dog Democrats from the heartland, who are more fiscally conservative than their coastal counterparts, and Democrats in states with coal mines or coal-powered power plants, are prepared to join with Republicans to veto the administration's efforts to slow global warming, if they feel those efforts go too far.

President Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to cap and then steadily lower permitted carbon dioxide emissions by industry and power producers.

Emitters who exceeded their caps could trade credits with those who came in below their caps. The government expects to rake in $150-billion over 10 years as it auctions off the initial credits.

The money would go to offset increases in energy costs as a result of the system, and to fund alternative energy technologies. Yes, it's complicated. And many Democrats, including Speaker Pelosi, are concerned about the effect cap-and-trade would have on the coal industry. Coal-generated power plants, which provide half of America's electricity, spew huge amounts of carbon dioxide.

Coal advocates argue that any climate-change strategy must include so-called clean-coal technology as part of the energy mix. But that technology is unproven and years from viability, at the least.

Those concerns may have motivated White House science adviser John Holdren to concede that the administration is prepared to compromise on its climate-change goals.

During the election campaign, Mr. Obama said the federal government should auction all of the initial permits for energy emitters; now Mr. Holdren says the administration may auction some of the permits and give the rest away, to reduce costs to industry.

"The idea, obviously, is to end up with a bill that reflects both the thinking of Congress and the administration, a bill that the President can sign," Mr. Holdren told The Post this week, adding that, when it comes to a 100 per cent auction, "whether you get to start with that or get there over a period of time is something that's being discussed."

All of this bodes ill for the fortunes of draft climate-change legislation drawn up by Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman and Ed Markey. The 600-page bill would impose a cap-and-trade system aimed at reducing emissions 20 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

As it now stands, its chances of making it through the House, let alone getting the Senate to pass matching legislation, are not encouraging.

Nonetheless, climate-change activists have grounds for optimism. First, there are Republicans, such as presidential nominee John McCain, who believe global warming is a threat and who are open to a bipartisan compromise.

Second, the Environmental Protection Agency, restaffed by the new administration with people who actually care about environmental protection, has ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

With that ruling in hand, if the administration decided that Congress was being too obstructionist, it could do by regulation what it failed to achieve through legislation.

Finally, Mr. Obama will be under intense pressure when he attends climate change talks in Copenhagen in December to demonstrate that the United States is finally taking action on global warming. His own party will be reluctant to inflict the political embarrassment of vetoing his legislation, sending him to Copenhagen empty-handed.

That is why leaders of the climate-change movement are urging their supporters to cut the administration some slack.

"One has to give them some room on the tactics they think are the wisest," said Mr. Moss, who remains optimistic that the administration will reach an accommodation with Congress on the issue this year.

The good news for the Conservative government in Ottawa is that the weaker the American cap-and-trade regime is, the easier it will be for Canada to match that policy. Mr. Prentice has warned that Canada will have to harmonize its policies for reducing greenhouse gases with the American model, or face sanctions.

The more Republicans and Democrats compromise in search of common ground, the easier that task will be.
   
   

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Charlie Wilson, although on the 21st centiry science and tech committee, is still anti-environment. He talks a good game about bringing America clean energy,

but he is a coal baron at heart. He has received government stimulus money to keep coal plants open . When you or your child suffers from coal polluttion in the future, thank Charlie Wilson.



Dennis Spisak

Mahoning Valley Green Party

Ohio Green Party



www.ohiogreens.org

www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/