Strengthen and Pass

Seeking a tougher climate bill, green groups set eyes on the Senate 19

First things first

Getting the climate and energy bill through the House might still be a challenge. The bill’s authors told reporters that they’re confident they can pass it, but they’re still counting votes. The enviro groups backing it are also working to whip up support through paid advertising and grassroots efforts.

Ed MarkeyEd Markey talks to the press during a June 24 rally on Capitol Hill.Kate Sheppard / GristNRDC’s Lashof said his group is focusing on a “huge education effort” geared at representatives who are members of the committee that approved the bill last month, Energy and Commerce.

LCV announced on Tuesday that it will not endorse any legislator who votes against the bill, which includes legislators who oppose it from both the right and the left. “It doesn’t matter where they’re from,” Tony Massaro, LCV senior vice president for political affairs and public education told Grist. “They vote against it, they voted the wrong way ... We want a ‘yes’ vote, and if you vote against it you’re not eligible for an endorsement. “

Massaro said that even if a representative votes with LCV on every other issue this year, the group’s 2010 political endorsement will be determined by the vote on ACES.

LCV is one of the few green groups to give electoral endorsements, so this is a fairly bold move on it part, and one its officials hope will be influential for some legislators. LCV tends to endorse candidates who are generally moderate but have solid environmental records, and who are facing tough races. In 2008 LCV endorsed 54 House candidates, and 40 of them won. That includes eight moderate Republicans that enviros and Democrats are hoping will be persuaded to break from the party line on this bill.

In addition to the ad blitz launched last week, Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters also started running a new television ad on Wednesday using video of President Obama endorsing the bill in his press conference on Tuesday.

And every group with a network of members and volunteers around the country—Sierra Club, LCV, Environment America, the Alliance for Climate Protection—has their folks out encouraging voters to call their legislators this week.

Attack from the left

Meanwhile, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have already decided that Waxman-Markey is too weak, and they are launching their own aggressive campaigns to halt it and improve it.

Friends of the Earth launched an ad campaign outright opposing passage of the bill unless it is dramatically changed. “We must strengthen this flawed bill or prevent it from passing,” the group argues on its website.

Greenpeace opposed the bill in the form that passed out of Waxman’s committee, and says the compromise with the Agriculture Committee members has made it even worse.

“It’s clear that Congress cannot deliver the kind of commitment we need to comply with the demands of science and the international community,” Greenpeace deputy campaign director Carroll Muffett told Grist. “It would take a substantial improvement in the bill on the House floor to get it to a place where we think it’s worthwhile. We’re just not seeing that.”

“There have been concessions to every industry under the sun and every committee under the sun,” he continued. “What there haven’t been are concessions to reality and concessions to the science.”

The group is instead turning it efforts toward the White House, calling on Team Obama to step up and demand tougher action than Congress appears set to deliver. While Obama called for action on climate on the campaign trail and in his inaugural speech, he was largely absent from the public discussion of the actual legislation up until his fleeting mention of the House bill during Tuesday’s press conference.

“The real hope here is for the president to step up and show some leadership, for the president to get outside his political comfort zone and demand that we take action, that the science requires we take,” said Muffett. “So far he hasn’t done that, hasn’t shown willingness to go beyond political pragmatism to real leadership on this issue.”

This Week

As the House prepares to take up Waxman-Markey, a manager’s amendment—the final version of the bill that the authors will introduce with final changes—is expected to be made public on Thursday morning, giving all sides a chance to see what further compromises may have been made. Al Gore is making a visit to the Capitol on Thursday afternoon to meet with Democrats and encourage passage of the bill, and he will speak with reporters after his meeting.

Debate on the bill is scheduled to begin on Friday and could continue into Saturday, as House leaders want to hold an up or down vote before legislators return to their districts for the July 4 holiday recess.

Kate Sheppard is Grist’s political reporter.

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  1. batadam482 Posted 11:01 am
    25 Jun 2009

    CALL FOR A STRONGER BILL: 1 PM FRIDAY ON THE HILL ACROSS FROM THE CANNON BUILDING Check out the facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=95878184495#/event.php?eid=102148416225&ref=t

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  2. Tr2828 Posted 11:31 pm
    25 Jun 2009

    Friday, yeah? Bill kabinwill make a strong güvenlik kabini call for more?

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  3. randino Posted 4:24 am
    26 Jun 2009

    People think the US Senate - a bastion of obstructionism and reaction since the day it was created - will improve a climate bill coming from the House??? I would like to know what history they are basing this hope on, and then I would like to know where I can get some of the stuff they have been smoking. Must be some dyanmite shit.

    Randy Cunningham Cleveland, OH

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  4. randino Posted 4:28 am
    26 Jun 2009

    People think the US Senate - a bastion of obstructionism and reaction since the day it was created - will improve a climate bill coming from the House??? I would like to know what history they are basing this hope on, and then I would like to know where I can get some of the stuff they have been smoking. Must be some dynamite shit.

    Randy Cunningham Cleveland, OH

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  5. Sethil Posted 10:47 am
    26 Jun 2009

    A greater awareness and concern for the world, and our neighbors is nothing to be discouraged, but the truth is often twisted in what the popular media tells listeners, and that creates a misplaced concern and harms real people. I know friends who have been laid off in the "uber-rich" oil business because of the limitations on drilling. Real people losing their livelihood is harmful. CO2 isn't. The film Not Evil Just Wrong has a good approach to the green movement. http://noteviljustwrong.com/

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    1. Tyler Durden Posted 5:57 pm
      27 Jun 2009

      Aww, you know "real people" who've lost jobs because they work in a totally evil industry that's quickly destroying the planet.  I feel so sorry for you and your friends!Guess what: I know a real planet that's being destroyed by the oil industry, among other things, and that clearly and easily takes precedence over any amount of job loss by anyone.Massive and unnatural emissions of carbon dioxide are not harmful?!  You are either really ignorant or an oil company shill.  You deniers are quickly becoming and endangered species, and the sooner the better.

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  6. Vinfrommidwest Posted 2:29 pm
    26 Jun 2009

    While I agree that the government should boost the alternative energy resources, this goes too far too fast. You can't save the planet if you can't eat. As a small business owner (I run a rental house on the side), this is bad news. Increasing everyone's electricity bill gives them less disposable income to pay rent. If people couldn't afford health care before, they definitely can't afford it now. wow. If people would have just waited, the market would have naturally taken its course to encourage alternative energy investments. There was no need to get the government involved at all. Once the price of electricity naturally hits 30 cents per kwh, all solar panel installations become an easy sell.

    I would liken this move by the government to the cause of the civil war. When the cotton gin automated harvesting, there was no economic reason to own a slave. The war might have been prevented.

    Think hard, when has a big government program EVER been hugely successful?

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    1. randino Posted 2:59 pm
      26 Jun 2009

      The cause of the civil war was the determination of the slave owners to defend and extend a social and economic system that classified one whole class of people as property to be owned. The investment in this system was enormous. Various people tried to present economic arguments on why slavery should be abolished, but in the end it was a moral argument that won the day. And so it will be with global warming. The moral argument that one generation should not destroy the planet that future generations will have to live on.

      Randy Cunningham

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      1. Vinfrommidwest Posted 3:23 pm
        26 Jun 2009

        The cotton gin wasn't invented until after the Civil War. How could have any economic argument of that time been heeded? You're reply is weak, and I suspect you'll be crying when you're latte' costs double. Prove to me that the higher $150/bbl oil costs from last year didn't kick start the alternative energy industry already. The existing system works. There is no need for a moral argument and congressional debate, because there is no need for government to get involved. Do you think that this huge TAX will be repealed if economic fusion / solar thermal / geothermal plants are installed? NEVER. The congress will NEVER give up this POWER. Pelosi and her like are uneducated, as much as Bush.
        I have kids, and this tyranny affects their liberty and our family's livelihood. You probably live in a large city, so you have no clue how badly this will affect the non-urban population, who depend upon cheap energy for their livelihood. The shock from the additional regulation and induced inefficiencies will put people in dire straits economically, debase the dollar, and stifle innovation that would have manifested itself naturally. Your lack of education regarding capitalism makes me sick.

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    2. justlou Posted 11:24 am
      27 Jun 2009

      Hey Vin,Here is a little history lesson in capitalism for you:  Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1794, long before the civil war. By making cotton cheaper, this cotton cleaning machine, stimulated market demand and increased the South's economic dependence on slaves to grow and harvest the cotton by hand.  

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    3. Tyler Durden Posted 6:03 pm
      27 Jun 2009

      This is a really selfish post, but it shows why humans will do nothing to stop global warming or anything else.  A small business owner is worried that he'll lose some business because electricity costs a little more, and that's supposed to be more important than the environment?  Than maintaining a livable climate?  Sheesh, talk about ass backward priorities, self-centeredness and lack of spirituality!  Well, as Bill Maher recently quipped, in Vin's world business will be good but we'll all be dead.

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      1. Dave from Canada Posted 8:29 am
        28 Jun 2009

        Please don't feed the trolls.

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  7. Dave from Canada Posted 9:18 am
    28 Jun 2009

    I hope the bill isn't much different in the Senate, or it won't become law.One hole that should be plugged is the removal of EPA powers.  Those powers should be restored in the Senate bill, if possible.If not, then in fresh legislation introduced as soon as this one becomes law.

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  8. Vinfrommidwest Posted 6:17 pm
    28 Jun 2009

    You are all politically out of touch with the midwest.  If you haven't read history, then you have no clue about the madness lurking around the corner due to this energy tax.  You think you're saving the planet, but the fact is that you'll just export jobs to India and China, and at the end of the day, the dollar will be debased to little or nothing, and the climate will still have the same problems.  The non-energy related items in this legislation are ridiculous, and will take away your freedom.  Scarcity of resources will force energy prices to go up until renewables replace the infrastructure anyway.  A big energy tax could go as far as to destabilize the civilization we live in.  Would you like to live in the neighborhood with the first food/energy riots?  really?  The refineries might shut down, and we'd have nothing but imported gasoline.  Would you like to live in the Gulf when that happens?  That's a national security issue.  Here's a thought:  there were natural wildfires every 15-30 years in the west (Idaho) 200 years ago, caused by lightning.  After the fire protection and regulation, those wildfires only happen every 50 years these days, but burn JUST AS MUCH AS 2 NATURAL FIRES.  Is the Cap-and-tax going to stop wildfires now, too?  Maybe we can legislate away the inconvenient laws of the universe next.I want the best for my kids, just like all fathers would, and that means less government and more freedom.  If this legislation were nothing but a tax to replace the federal income tax, or a tax to sequester greenhouse gases, I'd be all for it.  But, IT IS NOT.  It's filled with mandates and things that will take away freedom.   

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    1. Nuggetross Posted 8:49 am
      30 Jun 2009

      " You are politically out of touch with the midwest."
            You are politically out of touch with most of the United States population centers.  Is the midwest          the USA?

      Summary of post:

      "madness"
      "export jobs to India and China" "destabilize the civilization we live
      in" "big energy tax" "best for my kids" "take away freedom"

      I'm glad your response to the bill is so solidly rooted in research and facts rather than your idealogy...

      Are
      these just the same talking points that we will hear from climate
      change deniers?  Will the argument expand beyond loosely thrown around
      memes?  Is John McCain wrong for backing cap & trade?  Should he
      just blantly be kicked out of the GOP for supporting cap & trade?

      I
      wish I could understand your "refineries might shut down"  argument or
      the wildfire story...?  Maybe I'll just try to restate your argument:
      cap & trade is just another way of the Democrats and some mutinous
      Republicans spreading their respective Communist beliefs.  And uh,
      let's not let these un-American, tax-loving, out of touch politicians
      ruin the economy by investing in the scorge of the earth that is
      renewable energy and a clean environment...DRILL BABY, DRILL!  That
      will solve all of our problems...

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      1. justlou Posted 10:12 am
        30 Jun 2009

        Nugget:  I say you are pretty well in touch with the politics of the rural Midwest.  You have encapsulated much of what passes as the politically correct here.  Independence is overrated here as so many mindlessly parrot what they need to follow and conform with the dominant community ideologies.     

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  9. Billhook Posted 5:28 pm
    01 Jul 2009

    I've no information on the likelyhood of the Senate strengthening the bill,but there are clear pointers as to the scale of change needed if it is to become more of a help than a hindrance to the resolution of the global problem of human pollution destabilizing the climate.Both the Chinese govt and the IPCC have been calling for the US to commit to a 40% cut by 2020 on its 1990 emissions, while the UK has, like other EU states, committed to around a 30% cut by 2020 given a global deal being agreed.Thus if Obama really wants to provide US leadership on the issue, then he'd better see to it that the senate raises the bill's goal from its ludicrous 4% by 2020 at least to more than 30%.Alternatively, we in Europe could fall in line with US "leadership" by cutting our commitments to just 3%.If 4% is the best the US can manage, why should anyone else try harder ?And, given the massive historical responsibility of the US, why should developing countries make any commitment at all ?Let us be very clear -  a lousy deal at Copenhagen based on the present Waxman-Markey bill would be a far worse outcome than no deal, and ongoing negotiations.Regards,
    Billhook        

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