Picture credit to REDOIL
Yesterday I sent off a Tweet saying: “Tired of Waxman compromising. Admiring Peterson for standing up for his constituents (ag). Wish Markey would too. #ACES” just to receive a bunch of responses along the lines of: “I don’t understand what you’re talking about” and realized maybe it’s time for a non-wonky update on why our future (might) not be as rosy as it could be.
The Waxman Markey bill (aka American Clean Energy and Security Act, Clean Energy Jobs bill, Lightswitch Tax, Clean Coal Bill etc) started out as an ambitious proposal in President Obama’s budget which called for the United States to once again find its greatness and power through an overhaul of the way we use electricity. It called for us to generate large amounts of renewable energy (i.e. energy that doesn’t run out and doesn’t harm the health of surrounding communities), to stop wasting electricity by modernizing our distribution networks and a plan to put a price on carbon and redirect revenue to help low-income Americans cope with increasing energy prices and help mitigate effects of the climate crisis throughout the world among others.
Why now you ask? Because this December we have a meeting with destiny. Most scientists say that we need to be on the path to reducing emissions by 2012 or we will be too late to avoid the most serious effects of the climate crisis. That means that strong international legislation needs to pass this year to allow governments throughout the world time to start planning their carbon free futures. This December, the United Nations governments are meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, to agree on a global treaty for emissions reductions, remember Kyoto? This is the same thing, but needs to be much more ambitious and much more equitable (i.e. helping underdeveloped countries get out of poverty by transferring clean energy technology, investing in mitigation measures to help tropical countries cope, etc.) We need to show up at Copenhagen with a congress-sanctioned plan to reduce our emissions or any commitment we take won’t be taken seriously. (again, remember Kyoto?)
So, we have this meeting with destiny and a great proposal from Obama, what’s the hold up? The hold-up is that while progressive young people were running around the whole country getting a progressive president elected, we kinda forgot to take a look at our Congress. Many of the highest recipients of coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas, forestry and industrial agriculture money are democratic representatives who have been in Congress for generations and who wield a significant amount of power in their respective committees. Thanks to these corrupt old (mostly) white men, the proposal that began as an ambitious road map to a healthier and more prosperous America turned into an unbridled nightmare full of handouts to polluters and wishful thinking about extremely expensive and in some cases nonexistent “green washing” technology (remember those heartwarming Clean Coal ads? Yeah, clean coal is a pipe dream.)
Throughout the whole process of writing the bill and bringing it from committee to committee, (wonky) newspaper headlines repeatedly read variations of: “Waxman Compromises on Climate Bill“. Now, I’m usually all for compromises, except that there are two fundamental problems with how they happened with this bill:
- The compromises were always with the corrupt mentioned-above conservative Democrats
- Waxman never publicly stood strong on any part of the bill (note, I said publicly)
Where were the progressive legislators? Why were they toeing the party line instead of standing strong for what they believe in and asking for compromises over bad terms themselves. Why weren’t they standing strong against the creation of a speculative carbon market that threatens to simultaneously undermine the effectiveness of the bill and rapidly inflate energy prices? Or why didn’t they stand strong against the weakening of the Renewable Portfolio Standards and the millions of clean energy jobs that would have resulted from it? Couldn’t they have stood strong to protect Appalachians from another 50+ years of America’s addiction to coal? These are the questions we should be asking our Representatives.
The progressive caucus’ failure to protect Americans from corporate greed is a huge disappointment and something that we need to make sure isn’t repeated in the Senate. This Friday, the American Clean Energy and Security Act will be voted on by the House of Representatives. Our future won’t be safe unless we break the shackles of corporate influence on our government, and this won’t happen without grassroots action. Calling and e-mailing your Representatives (which you can do here) isn’t enough anymore. Get together a group of friends and show up at your Representatives’ in-district office with signs calling for more (find out who your Representative is here, find out where their office is located by going to their website). For more information about what Campus Progress is asking legislators to do, visit campusprogress.org/climatebill.
Now is the time to take action. I promise it is a good investment of your time (i.e. 10 minutes now to pass bold climate legislation equals about 100 lives saved, 10 less droughts in your region, etc. – statistic inspired by but not based on scientific principles)