Bill Scher’s Posts

• The Odd Couple

  Sen. Lindsey Graham crosses the climate rubicon 0

  Posted 1 month, 1 week agoLast week, I struck a hopeful note after GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham expressed interest in a climate bill compromise that included a carbon cap in exchange for support for some nuclear power and coastal drilling. But my expectations it would really happen remained low.

• THE NUCLEAR OPTION

  Are there GOP senators who will back the climate bill? 4

  Posted 1 month, 2 weeks agoIn July I speculated that Sen. Lamar Alexander might lead some Republicans to back a climate protection bill if Democratic leaders made some concessions regarding nuclear power. Since then, Alexander has imploded and Sen. Lindsey Graham has emerged as the GOP's climate dealmaker.

• Will there be a third chance for a better acronym?

  Kerry-Boxer: A second chance for progressives 1

  Posted 1 month, 3 weeks agoThe new Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act gives progressives a second chance to influence climate legislation, if we learn the right lessons from both the legislative process for the House climate bill and the ongoing health care debate.

• Cherry Picking Season Is Over

  Conservatives ditch CBO data when convenient to attack climate bill 1

  Posted 2 months ago

  Conservatives who loved citing the Congressional Budget Office when it was being hard on health care legislation keep on ignoring it when it comes to climate legislation.

• I Got Yer Jobs Right Here

  Neutralizing Big Oil's climate-bill attack, with investment in manufacturing 2

  Posted 3 months ago

  Creating a green jobs economy is our best chance to revitalize America's manufacturing base, and we'll likely lose political support to address the climate crisis if we don't also seize this economic opportunity.

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Bill Scher’s Recent Comments

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  The bill's defeat would not leave us in a stronger position because a hypothetical defeat would largely be the result of hesitancy to do anything significant on climate from right-leaning Blue Dog Dems, not because of mass defection from the Progressive Caucus. That would leave Blue Dogs with the increased leverage, not us.

  
  I suppose your dream scenario would be such a mass defection, but I would argue that would not negate the Blue Dog dynamic. It would just add to it, and leave us at a stalemate.

  On Wanna strengthen the climate bill? Get this one passed. posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago 26 Responses

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  When I say "grassroots," I am not referring to the work of enviro groups, I mean literal grassroots, individual citizens. Congresspeople were not feeling the heat from constituents en masse making calls and sending letters demanding a strong global warming bill, during the legislative process. They rarely do. But if you want to counter the influence of special interests during the legislative process, maximizing grassroots pressure is the only way, because that lets congresspeople know they have a significant number of constitutents passionate about the issue who are watching their vote, and may not vote for their re-election based on their position.

  I have no complaint with the efforts of any particular enviro group. I only note that their lack of coordination with each other on matters of policy substance makes it harder to maximize grassroots pressure earlier in the process.

   

  On Wanna strengthen the climate bill? Get this one passed. posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago 26 Responses

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  SETB, no I have not read the full bill. I am not a policy expert and do not claim to be. Like most citizen-activists, I rely on policy experts to help me make judgments on complex legislation. My understanding of these final compromises, and new pages yet to be released is that they are basically on the margins and would not fundamentally alter the bill's ability to get us under 450.

  On Wanna strengthen the climate bill? Get this one passed. posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago 26 Responses

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  1. I'm not criticizng the grassroots. It's just a fact they were not engaged early in the process, which I attributed to the lack of coordination/agreement among environmental orgs (giving the grassroots a clear focus for their energy), and lack of attention paid by the traditional and liberal media (letting the grassroots know when their energy would be most productive).

  2. I don't expect anyone to get behind any bill s/he deems to be "crappy." My point there is we in the grassroots need to be engaged BEFORE the deals get done, if we ever want to avoid grappling with tepid compromises, and trying to discern if they constitute incremental progress or woeful crappiness. I don't think that is an easy problem to solve (see #1), but that is the missing piece in my view.

  On Wanna strengthen the climate bill? Get this one passed. posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago 26 Responses

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  Thanks! Those words you put in my mouth were quite tasty. Much more so than what I actually wrote.

  I do not believe that the most recent deal-making has altered the bottom line question whether or not the approach, if globally adopted, has a reasonable chance of keeping us below 450. (There is no correlation between number of pages and parts per million!) And I made an argument mid-way in the post that the bill passes a basic threshold in regards to substance: not necessarily perfect, but well enough in the ballpark that it moves us forward.

  My final, perhaps counter-inituive, point was that at this moment in the process, "from a political perspective" the final-final details of the House compromise (read: the most recent changes) don't matter, that passing this version on a wave of grassroots support (as opposed to grumbling) will provide fresh political leverage that can be used to substantively improve the bill later in the legislative process.

  If you would like to disagree with my actual analysis of the political dynamics, please do so.

  On Wanna strengthen the climate bill? Get this one passed. posted 5 months ago 26 Responses