<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Environmental Defense responds on Lieberman-Warner support]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by rsmith02 http://www.grist.org/article/in-the-pack/ Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:36:16 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/in-the-pack/1 This Email sounds like support?

The way this fundraising appeal from ED is written it led me to believe they were supporting the bill and it's a great step forward:

"Yesterday, Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA) introduced a comprehensive global warming bill that sets the stage for Senate action this fall.

Help us seize the momentum and pass a strong bill to cap and reduce America's global warming pollution. Please make an urgent gift to support our Operation: Climate Vote campaign.

The America Climate Security Act would establish a mandatory cap to dramatically reduce global warming pollution from the electric utility, oil and manufacturing industries, while at the same time protecting the economy and American consumers.

It already has broad bipartisan support - furthering its potential to pass the Senate. Our job over the next few weeks is to protect and strengthen the bill - including, among other things, total emissions reductions - and work with members of Congress to pass it this year.

Time is very short. Congress is planning to recess for the holidays in just a few weeks.

Your gift enables us to keep the pressure on Congress.

The timing couldn't be any more critical. Our supporters and staff have been working all year to make global warming legislation a reality.

In October alone:
50,000 online activists have sent emails to Congress.
Hundreds more have called the House and Senate leadership to urge action.
We've got on-the-ground organizers working in a dozen critical states.
We've maintained constant contact with key legislative offices on Capitol Hill.
Our work is paying off. With the introduction of the American Climate Security Act and with all the political momentum you've helped generate, we're closer than we've ever been to passing effective global warming legislation.

We need your support to get a strong bill out of committee and onto the Senate floor before Congress leaves Washington. Please make a gift today.  

Thank you for supporting our work. We'll keep you fully updated on the bill's progress in the coming weeks.

Sincerely,

Steve Cochran
Environmental Defense Action Fund







]]> This Email sounds like support?

The way this fundraising appeal from ED is written it led me to believe they were supporting the bill and it's a great step forward:

"Yesterday, Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA) introduced a comprehensive global warming bill that sets the stage for Senate action this fall.

Help us seize the momentum and pass a strong bill to cap and reduce America's global warming pollution. Please make an urgent gift to support our Operation: Climate Vote campaign.

The America Climate Security Act would establish a mandatory cap to dramatically reduce global warming pollution from the electric utility, oil and manufacturing industries, while at the same time protecting the economy and American consumers.

It already has broad bipartisan support - furthering its potential to pass the Senate. Our job over the next few weeks is to protect and strengthen the bill - including, among other things, total emissions reductions - and work with members of Congress to pass it this year.

Time is very short. Congress is planning to recess for the holidays in just a few weeks.

Your gift enables us to keep the pressure on Congress.

The timing couldn't be any more critical. Our supporters and staff have been working all year to make global warming legislation a reality.

In October alone:
50,000 online activists have sent emails to Congress.
Hundreds more have called the House and Senate leadership to urge action.
We've got on-the-ground organizers working in a dozen critical states.
We've maintained constant contact with key legislative offices on Capitol Hill.
Our work is paying off. With the introduction of the American Climate Security Act and with all the political momentum you've helped generate, we're closer than we've ever been to passing effective global warming legislation.

We need your support to get a strong bill out of committee and onto the Senate floor before Congress leaves Washington. Please make a gift today.  

Thank you for supporting our work. We'll keep you fully updated on the bill's progress in the coming weeks.

Sincerely,

Steve Cochran
Environmental Defense Action Fund







]]> Comment #2 by The Cunctator http://www.grist.org/article/in-the-pack/ Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:35:26 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/in-the-pack/2 Missing the point

What Mr. Kreindler fails to point out in his comparison with other green groups is that NRDC and LCV had pointed criticisms in their statements of the flaws of Lieberman-Warner. For example, from LCV: "We will continue to work to increase the reduction targets and the sectors covered in both the near and long term. We will also work to significantly increase the amount of allowances toward our goal of 100 percent auction, while ensuring that the auction revenues go to directly helping consumers, to increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency, and to helping impacted populations adapt to global warming both at home and abroad."

Only NWF had no criticisms of L-W. ED's statement does state "we continue to believe that deeper reductions are needed long-term. "

But a full overview of the positions of the environmental groups does find that ED finds fewer problems with the bill than nearly everyone else.

(Environmental Defense, the National Wildlife Federation, and NRDC are fellow members of USCAP, a corporate-NGO partnership calling for cap-and-trade. The US-CAP platform calls for subsidies to polluters ("Be fair to sectors disproportionately impacted") as opposed to full auction.)

Hill Heat

]]> Missing the point

What Mr. Kreindler fails to point out in his comparison with other green groups is that NRDC and LCV had pointed criticisms in their statements of the flaws of Lieberman-Warner. For example, from LCV: "We will continue to work to increase the reduction targets and the sectors covered in both the near and long term. We will also work to significantly increase the amount of allowances toward our goal of 100 percent auction, while ensuring that the auction revenues go to directly helping consumers, to increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency, and to helping impacted populations adapt to global warming both at home and abroad."

Only NWF had no criticisms of L-W. ED's statement does state "we continue to believe that deeper reductions are needed long-term. "

But a full overview of the positions of the environmental groups does find that ED finds fewer problems with the bill than nearly everyone else.

(Environmental Defense, the National Wildlife Federation, and NRDC are fellow members of USCAP, a corporate-NGO partnership calling for cap-and-trade. The US-CAP platform calls for subsidies to polluters ("Be fair to sectors disproportionately impacted") as opposed to full auction.)

Hill Heat

]]> Comment #3 by The Cunctator http://www.grist.org/article/in-the-pack/ Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:40:18 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/in-the-pack/3 More on NRDC

NRDC on the Clear Skies Act of 2005, praising auctions for SOX and NOX:
"GRANDFATHER" THE DIRTIEST PLANTS: The Bush administration's original legislation would have required EPA to distribute some pollution "allowances," or rights to pollute, through an elaborate auction system. This market mechanism would have created incentives for the least efficient plants to undertake the most significant cleanup efforts to avoid paying more for allowances. But GCA complained that such an auction would "increase" polluting power plants' "compliance costs unnecessarily."

Again, the companies got what they wanted: The current bill does not include the auction provision. Instead, pollution allowances would be allocated according to how much fuel plants burned and how much pollution they emitted in the past, giving less efficient plants more (free) allowances, and eliminating any incentive to clean up.

Hill Heat


]]> More on NRDC

NRDC on the Clear Skies Act of 2005, praising auctions for SOX and NOX:
"GRANDFATHER" THE DIRTIEST PLANTS: The Bush administration's original legislation would have required EPA to distribute some pollution "allowances," or rights to pollute, through an elaborate auction system. This market mechanism would have created incentives for the least efficient plants to undertake the most significant cleanup efforts to avoid paying more for allowances. But GCA complained that such an auction would "increase" polluting power plants' "compliance costs unnecessarily."

Again, the companies got what they wanted: The current bill does not include the auction provision. Instead, pollution allowances would be allocated according to how much fuel plants burned and how much pollution they emitted in the past, giving less efficient plants more (free) allowances, and eliminating any incentive to clean up.

Hill Heat


]]> Comment #4 by ids http://www.grist.org/article/in-the-pack/ Sun, 21 Oct 2007 12:17:06 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/in-the-pack/4 pack of rats

It's been suggested elsewhere in comments (Connecting the Dots II Rynn) that the mainstream big enviro groups stick with slash and burn market approaches, like this bill, because their base won't let them move elsewhere.  Today's world is operating far more top-down than bottom-up to blame it on the base, not that its disengaged hands are clean.  The professional fundraisers and bottom feeders in Washington are the masters of disasters supporting the equivalent of spitting at the California wildfires or into Lake Lanier to solve the continuing crisis in front of US.  They deserve to be pointed out more for creating the green American Al-Qaeda.

]]> pack of rats

It's been suggested elsewhere in comments (Connecting the Dots II Rynn) that the mainstream big enviro groups stick with slash and burn market approaches, like this bill, because their base won't let them move elsewhere.  Today's world is operating far more top-down than bottom-up to blame it on the base, not that its disengaged hands are clean.  The professional fundraisers and bottom feeders in Washington are the masters of disasters supporting the equivalent of spitting at the California wildfires or into Lake Lanier to solve the continuing crisis in front of US.  They deserve to be pointed out more for creating the green American Al-Qaeda.

]]>