Team of rivals blah blah

Browner included on Obama economic team discussions 4

Last week John Broder wrote in The New York Times about contrasting views on climate policy among two top Obama administration officials: economic team leader Larry Summers, who favors "safety valves," slow phase-ins, and caution, and climate/energy czar empress Carol Browner, who favors strict carbon restrictions, quickly implemented.

(Broder’s article was irksome, by the way. At no point did he see fit to mention that the reason Browner and "environmentalists" favor stiffer carbon restrictions is not that they don’t care about costs but that they disagree about costs. The casual reader is left with the impression that economists and other Very Serious people have to do a "reality check" for la-la-land greens who don’t care about money or working people.  Have we learned nothing from our experience with previous environmental regs? Why is historically ungrounded pessimism the same as "realism"? Grr. Wait, where was I?)

Anyway, one wouldn’t want to make too much of this, but it seems like a good sign that earlier today when Obama met with his economic team, Browner was in the room.

Perhaps this is a signal that environmental policy gets a seat at the big kid’s table and doesn’t get filed under do-gooderism. Maybe we can’t persuade the economists to take efficiency or innovation seriously, but at least someone representing an optimistic assessment of costs will be around to temper all the pessimism. Let’s hope Summers takes her seriously despite her gender.

David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.

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  1. ce1907 Posted 1:29 pm
    05 Jan 2009

    sadlyMs B is window dressing
    not part of ruling clique

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  2. TomCasten's avatar

    TomCasten Posted 4:00 am
    06 Jan 2009

    Carol Browner on Carbon CapsOr maybe Carol Browner is closer to economic truth than the card-carrying economic advisors.  What if apparently cheap but high carbon coal-fired power costs more than clean energy?  What if we add to the apparent price of coal power  the costs of premature deaths, pulmonary and other diseases, damage to forests and buildings and failed fly ash impoundments?  In our calculations, replacing coal with local generation that recycles waste energy provides clean energy that reduces total costs, before counting climate change costs.
    Tom Casten

    Tom Casten, Chair, Recycled Energy Development LLC

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  3. coupeditor Posted 7:44 am
    06 Jan 2009

    Team of rivals blah blahIn 2001, in the landmark court case Coleman-Adebayo v. Browner, Carol M. Browner and the agency she administered, the EPA, were found guilty of race, color, and sex-based discrimination as well as tolerating a hostile work environment. The case provided the impetus for the passage (unanimous in both chambers) of the No FEAR Act (Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation) that was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The law was heralded as the first civil rights law of the 21st century. Study of Coleman-Adebayo v. Browner is now mandated study for all new Federal employees within 90 days of their being hired, and every 2 years for all Federal employees. The extent of the racism and retaliation within Ms. Browner's EPA was so pervasive that Congress and the Executive required study of it as the penultimate example of what was WRONG with government. When asked in Congressional hearings whether she accepted the judgement of the jury, Ms. Browner said she did.
    The question for Mr. Obama, is: Given her unrepentant position on the deplorable conditions she oversaw at EPA, how is Carol Browner qualified to hold administrative position again?

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  4. Wolverine Posted 3:49 pm
    06 Jan 2009

    Framing, DaveIt's not that real environmentalists don't care about money or working people -- well some may not but they're a minority -- it's that we care less about those issues than the environment.  That's precisely what makes us environmentalists, by definition.
    The reason that this is important is that if it were proven to the right people's satisfaction that trashing the environment were better economically than protecting it, you lose your argument.  Much better, and much higher moral ground, to fight for the environment for its own sake, not because it's a better economic choice.

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