Chuck Grassley

Sen. Chuck Grassley has dodged and weaved when asked whether climate change is a human-caused problem that needs to be taken seriously, as David Roberts points out.

Grassley exhibited that same tendency in an email he sent recently to constituent (and Grist reader) Ben Thompson, who had asked the senator about his views on climate legislation.  Grassley wrote that schemes to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions “are effectively a national energy tax,” and argued that Congress should focus instead on “increas[ing] the availability of renewable and alternative energy sources.”

Thank you for taking the time to email me. As your senator, it is important for me to hear from you.

I appreciate hearing your concerns regarding global climate change. I recognize that various predictions of global climate change have been a cause of concern for many and I believe that it is prudent to consider sensible steps to address potential future warming.

Nevertheless, it is important that the American people understand that such proposals to limit emissions of certain gases come with significant costs both to families and the economy as a whole. The consensus among economists is that any scheme designed to reduce greenhouse gases would result in costs passed on to all Americans and therefore these proposals are effectively a national energy tax. It is important to be honest about this point and to weigh any environmental benefit against the inevitable costs.

While I believe that it is prudent to consider sensible steps to address potential future warming, I have also always said that any environmental policy should be based on sound science, not political science. Virtually all scientists agree that the natural greenhouse effect contributes to warming, but we do not know the direct consequence natural variations in climate may have had on warming. Differences remain about how much our climate could change in the future, the pace of the possible change, or how human actions could impact it.

Concentrations of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, have increased since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Although progress through technology to stabilize concentration of greenhouse gases has been made, there has not been a cost-effective method developed to capture carbon emissions at their source.

The House of Representatives has passed legislation that would create a cap and trade system to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that are produced by various entities in our economy. In the Senate, a similar bill has been released and the relevant committees are considering this legislation. Because of the complexity of this issue and the many implications of this legislation for our economy and our society, I expect extensive debate in the Senate.

As a matter of fairness and in order to be more effective, I have repeatedly said that any effort to reduce greenhouse gasses should be addressed through an international agreement. In fact, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson has admitted in recent testimony that any unilateral action by the United States would provide no real environmental gain.

In the meantime, the most effective action Congress can take now to address potential future climate change, as well as make our air cleaner and healthier, is to redouble our efforts to increase the availability of renewable and alternative energy sources. In fact, I have been a leader in the Senate in promoting alternative energy sources as a way of protecting our environment and increasing our energy independence. Your comments will be helpful to me as the Senate considers any legislation related to global warming concerns.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I appreciate hearing your views and urge you to keep in touch.

Sincerely,
Chuck

Do you know what your own senators think about climate legislation?  Ask them, then tell us what you find out.

Here’s more on Grassley and climate, as written by Kate Sheppard on Aug. 5, 2009:

Sen. Chuck Grassley seems to relish his role as a maverick among Republicans. He has not bucked his party on climate votes in the past—he voted against the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act last year. But his home state of Iowa could gain a good deal from a climate bill if Big Ag gets all it wants out of the legislation.

Grassley recently predicted that climate legislation will have trouble in the Senate, but he disagreed that it’s a dead prospect.  “[W]hen you’ve got Democrats that are leading this Congress, and Gore pushing them in the religious way he’s pushing them, they’re going to want to produce something,” he said in an interview on CNBC.  “But I’m telling you, if it had trouble getting 219 votes in the House, it’s going to have really big trouble getting 60 votes in the Senate ... there’s some real trouble in the United States Senate on the global warming issue.”

Grassley has been outspoken in his belief that China, India, and other developing nations must curb their greenhouse-gas emissions, arguing recently on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, “If the United States moves ahead by itself [on cap-and-trade] ... after 30 or 40 years, we’re going to reduce CO2 by less than 1 percent.” He made a similar statement on a call with reporters in July. “If the United States would go ahead—because we’re supposed to so-called set an example for the rest of the world—and if the rest of the world doesn’t go along, then we’re turning out to be suckers because we’re going to just reduce total CO2 by a spit in the ocean by ourselves,” he said.

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At a recent Senate Finance Committee hearing on climate policy and international competitiveness, he said, “I’ve said many times that we ought to approach this issue through a worldwide, international agreement. That’s the only way to ensure that China and India and other major carbon-emitting countries are involved. Otherwise, our industry is going to be left very uncompetitive. We’re going to see more manufacturing move overseas where less efficient plants produce far more pollution than our American industries, and nobody should want to do that.”

Grassley’s other concerns about a climate bill include how it would affect the agriculture sector and energy consumers in coal states like Iowa. As the ranking minority member of the Finance Committee, which is likely to craft a portion of the bill, Grassley may play an important role in shaping the legislation—even if he doesn’t ultimately vote for it.

Do you know more about this senator’s stance on climate legislation?  Tell us.

Find out about other senators by clicking on their names in the right column.

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Chuck Grassley

In a Tuesday conference call with Iowa agricultural reporters, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) offered some state-of-the-art Republican doubletalk on climate change (maybe he read it in Glenn Beck's book). This is worth reading in full, in part to admire the blithely inconsistent muddle of it all, but also in part to marvel at just how second-nature this line of dissembling has become. These talking points are echoed almost verbatim up and down the conservative food chain, all the way from bottom-feeders like Marc Morano to U.S. Senators. Unlike most Democrats, no conservative has to think on his feet about it, or craft his own careful line on it.

Senator ... are you convinced greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change and are a threat to human health?

GRASSLEY: Well, I'd be foolish if I didn't give -- I'd be foolish if I didn't give it some consideration because there's a massive amount of scientists that feel that it does. But there's also an increasing number of scientists that have doubt about it.

And so, not being a scientist, I don't know exactly where to say only those things that are really quantifiable, and temperature has risen. But the scientific aspect that I still reserving judgment on is the extent to which it's manmade or natural.

And it's reasonable, considering that there's at least a natural factor in it, because historically, and you can go to the core drillings in the glaciers to get proof of this, that we've had decades and decades, and maybe even centuries of periods of time when there's been a tremendous rise in temperature, and then a tremendous fall in temperature. And all you've got to do is look at the little ice age of the mid-last millennia as an example. And so we've got to single out what's natural and what's manmade before you can make policy.

Now, a lot of members of Congress and most environmentalists are -- are absolutely convinced manmade is the -- is the factor -- chief factor here. But I -- I want to, before I vote on it, be more conclusive in my judgment, and I haven't reached that conclusion at this point.

But it's enough to know that I think that even if it is manmade entirely, and so there's justification for the legislation, you still have to deal with the reality factors that domestically there's a very unlevel playing field between California and New York that benefit financially from it, and the Midwest and the Southeast United States that's going to be hurt; and then the unlevel playing field if you don't include India and China, an unlevel playing field with the United States versus those countries.

And so -- so we don't want to lose all of our manufacturing to China. We've already lost a lot.

We -- it's better to have an international agreement and include China and India in it.

It's a greatest hits parade:

Individually the points are flimsy, but if you're not paying close attention, the answer just slides by in a haze of aw-shucks blather and faux-erudition. What the average Iowan hears is "blah blah blah don't let 'em take yer money!!! blah blah."

This is why, as I've written before, I really think conservative legislators and pundits should be nailed down on this question. Do you believe there's a threat or don't you? And if you don't, why don't you trust the National Academy of Sciences or the multi-agency climate science review begun under Bush?

This sort of cornpone skepticism was tired years ago. It's hard to believe they're still getting away with it.

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CPSC.govKnow what’s awesome? Bike sharing.

Know what’s not awesome? Bike sharing programs that get wrecked by theft and general disregard. As many of them seem to do.

But let’s hear it for optimism: Check out this editorial in the daily paper of the University of Iowa. It lays out plans for a bike-sharing program based on those that have gained speed in cities from Paris to Portland—but says the smaller size of Iowa City would mean less velo-vandalism:

Iowa City’s population hovers around 80,000, a good portion (say, half?) of whom are students, faculty, and staff at the university who need easy and available modes of transportation. If there were around 3,000 free bikes at hubs distributed around mostly downtown — some placed near the farther facilities and dormitories — all provided for the day’s use completely free of charge, what’s the point in stealing one? There’s another just up the street. We are perfectly sized for an operation like this, and beyond its plain convenience, there are other benefits.

One of the most prevalent topics of idle conversation (beyond smokers’ rights, binge drinking, and violence) is the parking situation downtown. It’s awful, we all know this, and with wheels turning toward complicating the already-awkward Dubuque and Washington Street intersection, the traffic patterns will suffer that much more. Bicycle hubs would significantly reduce both traffic and parking … and all the crap we pump into the air every time we circle the block yet again in case we can grab a spot right out front.

First gay marriage, now bike sharing? Oh Iowa, we hardly knew ye.

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Climate change is a global problem—but as of yet, there’s no global solution. That’s why mayors across the U.S. are taking action, from building green to organizing bike rides, from redeveloping downtowns to cutting emissions. Here are just a few of the municipal leaders who have worked to take our collective future into their own hands.

Bloomberg unveils his grand Plan.PlanNYC 20301. Michael Bloomberg, New York City.
Pop.: 8.2 million
Call New York the accidental eco-city: cram millions of people onto an island, and you’ve got to figure out how to build up, not out. Throw a big park in the middle, and voila: you’ve got an anti-sprawl city that values open space. During his tenure, Bloomberg has made the most of that happy accident, creating an ambitious 127-point initiative called PlanNYC 2030 that encompasses everything from reclaiming waterfronts to repairing electrical grids to reducing traffic congestion. (OK, that last one hasn’t gone so well.) A year after unveiling the plan in 2007, the city had launched a full 93 percent of its components.

Nickels at a climate rally with King County exec Ron Sims, since tapped to head HUD.Oran Viriyincy 2. Greg Nickels, Seattle.
Pop.: 594,000
In some ways, Greg Nickels became synonymous with the phrase “green mayor” after spearheading the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement in 2005. Since then, more than 900 of Nickels’ fellow mayors have come on board, Republican and Democrat alike, from all 50 states. No stranger to eco-ideas at home, Nickels—who has led the Emerald City since 2002—has also been instrumental in bringing light rail to the area, pushing to increase investments in open space, and launching an ongoing series of “clean and green” community-service events. He’s up for reelection this year, and one challenger says he hasn’t done enough on the environment. Only in Seattle.

Newsom uses a white hanky to demonstrate clean diesel emissions. Seriously!MTC3. Gavin Newsom, San Francisco.
Pop.: 765,000
Another mack daddy of sustainability, Newsom is almost too green to believe. Since he took office in 2004, the city has reduced government emissions to below 1990 levels, launched the nation’s largest solar incentive program, banned plastic bags, and introduced ambitious green building and green jobs programs. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, city leaders hope to increase wind power by the Bay, including underwater turbines at the Golden Gate Bridge. Speaking at a conference of green IT entrepreneurs this spring, Newsom—who also recently confirmed his 2010 gubernatorial ambitions—offered up his city as guinea pig: “If you have an idea, let me know. We are a laboratory for innovation.”

Malloy in a glamorous mayoral moment.Will Merydith/flickr4. Ed Malloy, Fairfield, Iowa.
Pop.: 9,650
In November, the city fathers in this liberal southeastern Iowa outpost unanimously adopted a Green Strategic Plan. Their vote was more than ceremonial: they also secured a state-funded grant to hire a sustainability coordinator, inventory their greenhouse gases, and create educational materials for residents. The new plan envisions everything from conserving energy to supporting local farms. Malloy, who’s been mayor since 2001 and heads up a local oil company, says the environment-economy connection is clear. He hopes Fairfield’s ideas will catch on: “We want to create a model community, a virtual template that other small towns can adopt to create the same results.”

What a difference a Daley makes.www.drugabuse.gov5. Richard Daley, Chicago.
Pop.: 2.8 million
Since announcing his intention to make Chicago the country’s greenest metropolis, Daley has made great strides. Green roofs cover or are planned for 3 million square feet, topping everything from City Hall to a McDonald’s. Redevelopment and landscaping have revitalized gathering places across the city, from prominent landmarks like Grant Park to neighborhood playgrounds. And the Windy City is committed to increasing its use of renewable energy (though a recent revelation showed things lagging in that area). Chicago is even bidding to host the 2016 Olympics—a bid that hinges on the event being the greenest Olympics in history.

Franklin, my dear, she does give a damn.City of Atlanta6. Shirley Franklin, Atlanta.
Pop.: 519,000
Often held up as the poster child for sprawl, Atlanta boasts more green than meets the eye—and Franklin is to thank for much of the recent progress. Mayor since 2002, she has attacked infrastructure and intangibles with the same gusto, from overhauling the city’s sewer systems to creating a Climate Action Plan. The city is building a public-transit BeltLine, is tops in LEED-certified buildings, and has implemented practices in City Hall that led to a 20 percent decrease in energy usage. A comprehensive private-sector group called Sustainable Atlanta is developing recommendations for further actions, and all eyes are on the future. “We are building a green, sustainable city,” Franklin says. “We do this for our children, and we do this because it is the right thing to do.”

Planner, politico, father, grandfather.RalphBecker.com7. Ralph Becker, Salt Lake City.
Pop.: 179,000
Building on the groundbreaking work of predecessor (and official Grist crush) Rocky Anderson, Becker—who took office in 2008—has already made ripples in the eco-community. Upon taking the helm, Becker introduced his Blueprint for a Green City, in which he pledged to improve public transit, expand greenways, create neighborhood centers to promote walkability, and improve air and water quality. And the former urban planner isn’t just talking the talk; among other concrete steps, the city is piloting hybrid police cars and has undertaken an overhaul of its city code to make sustainability easier for all residents to achieve.

Don’t mess with Jerramiah.Byron Smith/Jersey Journal8. Jerramiah Healy, Jersey City.
Pop.: 242,000
He’s a rough and tumble guy running a historically rough and tumble city. But that just goes to show that green can be pursued anywhere, by anyone. Healy was recently given a Green Leadership Award by the state U.S. Green Building Council chapter. During his five-year tenure, he has held polluters accountable, opposed a controversial reservoir development scheme, and redeveloped brownfields. Up for reelection this month, Healy recently introduced ordinances that would require city departments to pursue LEED certification and green purchasing, and is reportedly considering a ban on plastic bags.

Manny being Manny.City of Miami9. Manuel Diaz, Miami.
Pop.: 410,000
Though some critics have dubbed him “Concrete Manny” due to his love of development, Diaz is paving the way for sustainability in Miami. An early signatory to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, he created Miami’s first sustainability department and a community-wide Green Commission. He has pushed green building, led an energy-retrofit of City Hall that included solar-panel installation, and is converting the city’s fleet to more efficient vehicles. Late last year Diaz launched Bike Miami Days, and this spring the city hosted a week of events leading up to Earth Hour. “We’re on the front line of global climate change here,” Diaz told Newsweek in 2007. “The water level doesn’t have to rise too much for us to be riding around Miami in canoes.”

Walker? I’d rather bike.Robert the Noid/flickr10. Elaine Walker, Bowling Green, Ky.
Pop.: 53,000
This TV producer-turned-politician has her hands full, from increasing affordable housing to contending with the crash of Big Auto, but green is on her radar screen. Transportation issues loom large in this western Kentucky city, and Walker has worked with local bike-advocacy groups (even creating a Mayor’s Bike Ride) and launched a Rethinking Transportation Choices task force. A signatory to the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, she is a proponent of green building and downtown redevelopment. “There’s too much of a perception that going green is a little bit out there and idealistic,” she has said. “It’s not idealistic—it’s vital.”

Cicilline envisions a model future.Cicilline.com11. David Cicilline, Providence, R.I.
Pop.: 175,000
In late March, this native son signed an order requiring all new municipal buildings to be LEED-certified, saying such a move would help create jobs and boost the economy. It was the first step in a 30-point plan called Operation Opportunity that seeks to help this mid-sized New England city rise from the doldrums; other steps include doubling the recycling rate, creating a green jobs training corps, and finalizing site plans for wind turbines. Cicilline, at the wheel since 2003, has also named walkability and sustainable leadership among his goals for the city.

Get your Phil.Tom Story/ASU12. Phil Gordon, Phoenix.
Pop.: 1.6 million
The long-time Phoenician made a splash in March when he unveiled a 17-point sustainability plan for the desert megalopolis he’s run since 2004. During his tenure, Gordon has already overseen eco-upgrades ranging from LED traffic lights to LNG buses, as well as bringing light rail to the city. The new plan aims to make Phoenix the first carbon-neutral city in America, through green job training, building retrofits, and a massive investment in solar energy. It’s making Phoenix hot in a whole new way.

Coleman (left) and Rybak do their thing.Lou Michaels13. Christopher Coleman, St. Paul.
Pop.: 274,000
14. R. T. Rybak, Minneapolis.
Pop.: 377,000
The Twin Cities are in the hands of two progressive mayors intent on doubling the metro region’s eco-efforts. Coleman and Rybak, elected in 2005 and 2001 respectively, have both made sustainability a priority—Minneapolis, for instance, doles out climate change grants to neighborhood organizations, while St. Paul created its own hybrid car-sharing program. Together, the two leaders have created an annual sustainability report and a green manufacturing initiative, and they’re bringing bike-sharing to town. It’s all part of an effort, they say, to make theirs the most livable cities in the country.

Dixson, far left, leads the groundbreaking of Greensburg’s first eco-home.Greensburg GreenTown15. Bob Dixson, Greensburg, Kansas.
Pop.: 850
Talk about inheriting someone else’s problem: Bob Dixson became mayor of Greensburg in 2008, exactly a year after it was devastated by a tornado. But Greensburg has rallied, and the former postmaster is now overseeing the town’s much publicized green rebuilding effort (which has also been documented for TV). Learning as he goes, Dixson has become an eco-evangelist of sorts, traveling the nation to talk up renewable energy, green building, community spirit, and the common sense behind green. “In rural America,” he told Smithsonian magazine earlier this year, “we were always taught that if you take care of the land, the land will care of you.”

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Yesterday was the 39th anniversary of Earth Day, and to mark the occasion President Obama was in Newton, Iowa, to speak about clean energy. Newton is one of those towns where most of the residents are employed by one major employer, and until October 2007, that employer was Maytag. So when Whirlpool bought Maytag and shut down the Newton plant, over 12% of Newton's 16,000 residents lost their jobs. If you didn't lose a job, your husband, sister, or neighbor surely did.

But now Newton's a shining example of what's possible. Instead of dishwashers and washing machines, the people of Newton are making wind turbines. That's why President Obama chose Newton and Trinity Structural Towers to argue that "the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline."

But towns like Newton aren't just losing jobs, they are losing talent too. Young people have been hit hard by this recession. According to the Education and Labor Committee, of the 1.2 million jobs lost last year, 60 percent were held by workers under the age of 25. Mobile and in search of opportunity they are moving to bigger cities and mega regions that promise greater opportunity. Iowa, in particular, has been hurt by this "brain drain," losing more college graduates than any other state in the country.

So while we replace dishwashers with wind turbines, and re-open empty auto manufacturing plants with solar manufacturing facilities, let's also work to build truly whole communities. The communities that define themselves by one industry or one employer will be increasingly at risk. A healthy, 21st century economy demands that we become increasingly self-sufficient in the resources we use---the food we grow, the water and energy we consume, and the products we build. Revitalizing local living economies can create jobs, conserve energy, and keep young talent in the community.

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President-elect Barack Obama will nominate former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) to be secretary of agriculture, Democratic sources say.  Vilsack has been a big booster of ethanol, including corn-derived ethanol.  “I think corn was a great way to start the conversation on renewable fuel,” he said in an interview with Grist last year. “But we can’t grow enough corn, and I think there are more efficient ways over time to produce ethanol from biomass with less stress on the environment, less use of water, less use of fertilizer.”

On the subject of organic and small-scale farming, Vilsack told Grist, “My hope is that we transform from the traditional farm policy to a food-and-farm policy that encourages greater diversity in agriculture, including incentives for food production and enhanced conservation practices.  I also think we ought to be looking at changing the way we subsidize agriculture generally, from a commodity-based process to a conservation-based process, which would benefit organic farms as well.”

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How much responsibility do humans have for the floods disastrously deluging the Midwest? Of course the rain poured for days, but it fell on plowed-up prairies, drained fields, altered streams, no-longer-wetlands, and developed flood plains -- all unable to absorb precipitation to the best of their natural ability. Between 2007 and 2008, more than 160,000 acres of Iowa land (mostly covered with deep-rooted, water-absorbing grasses) was taken out of a federal conservation-reserve program to be farmed (mostly for corn). Near St. Louis, Mo., nearly 30,000 homes have been built on land that was submerged by flooding in 1993; despite taller, stronger levees -- which some say are part of the problem, not the solution -- the area may very well be swamped again as floodwaters roll south. "Cities routinely build in the flood plain," says Kamyar Enshayan, a city councilmember in Cedar Falls, Iowa. "That's not an act of God; that's an act of City Council."

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