Kerry - Lieberman Climate Bill

[Bruce551]

It's the Opportunity, Stupid!

Robert Redford

27 July, 2010

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-redford/its-the-opportunity-stupi_b_660533.html

A small minority of Senators robbed America of a cleaner, more prosperous future last week. In the middle of the biggest oil disaster in American history, the hottest summer on record, and a war with an oil-rich nation, this group of cynics blocked efforts to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

This was the moment brimming with potential for new jobs, a more robust economy and cleaner environment -- this bill would have guided America down a profoundly safer and more productive path.

So therefore, the Senate is left to vote on an anemic energy bill of such remarkably limited scope that it could have been passed during the Bush era.

The elected officials who steered this turnaround have abdicated their responsibility to uphold our nation's best interests, and have shown us, and the world, an America woefully deficient in both leadership and ingenuity.

This was our moment to create two million clean energy jobs here in the United States. This was our moment to outpace China in the clean energy market that will dominate the 21st century. This was our time to slash our oil imports in half. This was our time to confront the perils of climate change, which despite head-in-the sand-denial, is in fact happening.

The American people wanted a home run, not a bunt. A recent CNN poll found that nearly 80 percent of voters believe that reducing oil use and shifting to cleaner energy would make life better for Americans, while a Wall Street Journal poll in June found that an overwhelming majority of people specifically support passing legislation to limit global warming pollution.

Yet a handful of politicians decided they didn't want to represent the will of the people. Given the chance to invest in American jobs and reduce dangerous pollution, they chose instead, to focus on their own interest and self-preservation.

The Republican Senate leadership has fought against every clean energy and climate measure simply because their political opponents were for it. This was the most shameful partisanship I have seen in my lifetime.

We all know who really loses when GOP leaders block progress: American citizens. The economic recession and climate change don't care which party you are in -- they will make life harder for everyone until we put the right solutions in place.

But the GOP wasn't the only force acting on its own behalf. A handful of moderate Democrats were so worried about being tarred by the Tea Party or losing reelection campaigns that they failed to show their support for clean energy and climate legislation -- even those who are on record saying that we must fight global warming. When elected officials act as bystanders to a crisis, they reveal their deep cowardice.

We can't forget that Big Oil and Big Coal reached deep into their pockets to inspire politicians to block climate action. Their undue influence in our nation's politics has once again placed the desires of polluters above the interests of all Americans.

Stronger leadership from the White House could have helped burst through political obstructions. President Obama has certainly done more than any other president to advance clean energy, yet he never seemed to roll up his sleeves, bring lawmakers to the table, and work to rally the American public behind it. If he thought his move earlier this year to approve new offshore oil drilling for the first time in decades would pay off last week in the form of GOP support for this bill, I guess he got his answer.

This is one of the many times when average citizens may be ahead of our leaders. All of us who want to generate jobs, reduce hazardous pollution, and strengthen our nation's security need to make our voices heard. We should praise those senators who represented our best interests and hold accountable those who looked out only for their own.

I remember the last time our nation came this close to embracing clean energy -- back in the late 1970s. I hope my children don't have to wait another 35 years to seize the moment once again, because that moment, that opportunity might not be there.

I agree one 100% with Robert, the failure to pass a Senate Energy/Climate Bill is a Travesty of justice to the American people and the world.

[Bruce551]

Billionaire Polluter David Koch: Global Warming Is Good For You

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/27/koch-global-boiling/

David KochIn a recently published New York Magazine profile, pollution billionaire David Koch lies about his support for tea-party radicalism, cracks racist jokes, and denies the threat of global warming. One of the wealthiest men in the world, Koch has used his billions for decades to promote the extremist, anti-regulatory, right-wing political groups like Americans for Prosperity that now organize under the Tea Party banner. “I’ve never been to a tea-party event,†Koch told reporter Andrew Goldman, even though he hosted AFP’s “Defending the American Dream†tea-party hoopla in Washington, DC, last year.

Fueled by his fear that the greenhouse gas pollution generated by Koch Industries might be limited by government regulation, Koch promotes a fantasy about benefits of a changing climate:

Koch says he’s not sure if global warming is caused by human activities, and at any rate, he sees the heating up of the planet as good news. Lengthened growing seasons in the northern hemisphere, he says, will make up for any trauma caused by the slow migration of people away from disappearing coastlines. “The Earth will be able to support enormously more people because a far greater land area will be available to produce food,†he says.

Unfortunately, Koch’s pollution really is heating the planet, and the consequences are grave. With less than one degree C of average warming, heat waves, extreme storms, droughts, sea levels, ocean acidity, wildfires, and flooding are already on the rise. In the unregulated world of global warming pollution envisioned by Koch, the planet’s average temperature will increase five to ten times more than existing warming, with a significant chance of a runaway greenhouse effect. As warming passes 7 degrees C, possible within this century, half the world’s inhabited area will become uninhabitable, literally too hot for the human body to survive. The world’s coral reefs will go extinct, as will about fifty percent of the species on the planet.

The IPCC analysis of global warming’s impact on agriculture found that even if destructive changes in extreme events or the spread of pests and diseases are ignored, agricultural yields will decline in the poorer regions of the world under relatively minor warming. Events like the record Russian heat wave that has destroyed 32 percent of its wheat crop and sent global prices skyrocketing will become commonplace. As temperatures increase more than 3 C, global productivity will decline, the American heartland turned to a permanent Dust Bowl, coastal areas consumed by rising seas, the world’s glaciers melting into memory.

As the David Koch-funded Smithsonian Human Origins Initiative warns, global warming is an “experiment†that is “likely to create entirely new survival challenges†for the entire human race. Quite simply, Koch’s happy scenario of a greenhouse planet comfortably sustaining human civilization is not based in fact.

Koch’s sense of humor is as regressive as his politics. “I played basketball when you could be white and be good,†Koch joked about his college days, though he made sure to tell the reporter, “I’m not a racist. I’m very broad-minded.â€

From the Guardian, U.K.

Obama must take a lead on climate change – and soon

The US leader must lay out a comprehensive and costed plan to the American people showing how he will move beyond oil.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/jul/28/sachs-obama-climate-change

All signs suggest that the planet is still hurtling headlong toward climatic disaster. The US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has issued its "State of the Climate Report" covering January-May. The first five months of this year were the warmest since records began in 1880. May was the warmest month ever. Intense heat waves are currently hitting many parts of the world, yet still we fail to act.

There are several reasons for this, and we should understand them in order to break today's deadlock. First, the economic challenge of controlling human-induced climate change is truly complex. Anthropogenic climate change is caused by two principal sources of emissions of mainly carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide: fossil-fuel use for energy and agriculture (including deforestation to create new farmland and pastureland).

Changing the world's energy and agricultural systems is no small matter. It is not enough to just wave our hands and declare that climate change is an emergency. We need a practical strategy for overhauling two economic sectors that stand at the centre of the global economy and involve the entire world's population.

The second major challenge in addressing climate change is the complexity of the science itself. Today's understanding of earth's climate and the human-induced component of climate change is the result of extremely difficult scientific work involving many thousands of scientists in all parts of the world. This scientific understanding is incomplete, and there remain significant uncertainties about the precise magnitudes, timing, and dangers of climate change.

The general public naturally has a hard time grappling with this complexity and uncertainty, especially since the changes in climate are occurring over a timetable of decades and centuries, rather than months and years. Moreover, year-to-year and even decade-to-decade natural variations in climate are intermixed with human-induced climate change, making it even more difficult to target damaging behaviour.

This has given rise to a third problem in addressing climate change, which stems from a combination of the economic implications of the issue and the uncertainty that surrounds it. This is reflected in the brutal, destructive campaign against climate science by powerful vested interests and ideologues, apparently aimed at creating an atmosphere of ignorance and confusion.

The Wall Street Journal, for example, America's leading business newspaper, has run an aggressive editorial campaign against climate science for decades.

The individuals involved in this campaign are not only scientifically uninformed, but show absolutely no interest in becoming better informed. They have turned down repeated offers by climate scientists to meet and conduct serious discussions about the issues.

Major oil companies and other big corporate interests are also playing this game, and have financed disreputable PR campaigns against climate science.

Their general approach is to exaggerate the uncertainties of climate science and to leave the impression that climate scientists are engaged in some kind of conspiracy to frighten the public. It is an absurd charge, but absurd charges can gather public support if presented in a slick, well-funded format.

If we add up these three factors – the enormous economic challenge of reducing greenhouse gases, the complexity of climate science, and deliberate campaigns to confuse the public and discredit the science – we arrive at the fourth and overarching problem: US politicians' unwillingness or inability to formulate a sensible climate-change policy.

The US bears disproportionate responsibility for inaction on climate change, because it was long the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, until last year, when China overtook it. Even today, per capita US emissions are more than four times higher than China's. Yet, despite America's central role in global emissions, the US Senate has done nothing about climate change since ratifying the UN climate change treaty 16 years ago.

When Barack Obama was elected US president, there was hope for progress. Yet, while it is clear that Obama would like to move forward on the issue, so far he has pursued a failed strategy of negotiating with senators and key industries to try to forge an agreement. Yet the special interest groups have dominated the process, and Obama has failed to make any headway.

The Obama administration should have tried – and should still try – an alternative approach. Instead of negotiating with vested interests in the back rooms of the White House and Congress, the president should present a coherent plan to the American people. He should propose a sound strategy over the next 20 years for reducing America's dependence on fossil fuels, converting to electric vehicles, and expanding non-carbon energy sources such as solar and wind power. He could then present an estimated price tag for phasing in these changes over time, and demonstrate that the costs would be modest compared to the enormous benefits.

Strangely, despite being a candidate of change, Obama has not taken the approach of presenting real plans of action for change. His administration is trapped more and more in the paralysing grip of special-interest groups. Whether this is an intended outcome, so that Obama and his party can continue to mobilise large campaign contributions, or the result of poor decision-making is difficult to determine – and may reflect a bit of both.

What is clear is that we are courting disaster as a result. Nature doesn't care about our political machinations. And nature is telling us that our current economic model is dangerous and self-defeating. Unless we find some real global leadership in the next few years, we will learn that lesson in the hardest ways possible.

• Jeffrey D. Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia university. He is also special adviser to UN secretary-general on the millennium development goals. There is a podcast of this commentary.

Many Thais know that Thailand's monsoon weather pattern has changed, much less less rain than used to be. But, very little is being done to reform Thailand's agricultural sector.

[Bruce551]

More climate baby steps: Federal government to reduce its own carbon pollution by 100 million tons

Posted By Sean Pool On July 29, 2010 @ 8:58 am In Going Green, Politics

With hopes of squeezing a national clean energy and climate bill out of the 111th Congress rapidly dimming, many are now asking [1] whether the federal government can use its existing authority to reduce global warming pollution. One issue on which the Obama Administration has shown leadership is in using executive authority to reduce the emissions of the federal government itself (see here [2]). CAPAF’s Sean Pool has the story.

Last week, the President upped his ante by announcing [3] that the federal government would reduce carbon pollution from indirect sources, such as employee travel and commuting, by 13 percent by 2020. This goes above and beyond previous commitments made to reduce emissions from direct sources by 28 percent by 2020, under last year’s Executive Order 13514 [4].

A recent press release [3] illuminates some key facts:

“Every year, the Federal Government consumes more energy than any other single organization or company in the United States,†said President Obama.

“That energy goes towards lighting and heating government buildings, fueling vehicles and powering federal projects across the country and around the world. The government has a responsibility to use that energy wisely, to reduce consumption, improve efficiency, use renewable energy, like wind and solar, and cut costs.â€

The Federal government is the single largest energy consumer in the US economy. It owns 600,000 vehicles, owns and manages nearly 500,000 buildings, and paid a $24.5 billion utility and fuel bill in 2008. Meeting these targets will engage the nearly 2 million men and women across the country who are employed by Federal agencies.

This new commitment to reduce indirect emissions by 13 percent, when added together with previous plans under the executive order to reduce direct emissions by 28 percent, will cut pollution by 101 million metric tons annually by 2020. That has the same air-cleaning power as taking roughly 20 million cars off the road.

Reducing pollution and increasing energy efficiency also means saving money on the government’s utility bills, which means big savings for taxpayers in the long run. Official White House estimates project that the measures implemented under Executive Order 13514 will save taxpayers $8 billion to $11 billion [5] in avoided federal energy costs annually. The Executive Order is also expected to create clean energy jobs by stimulating demand for products from the innovative and high value-added cleantech and energy efficiency industries.

While reducing federal emissions seems like a pretty small step compared to comprehensive climate legislation that reduces pollution and creates jobs in all sectors of the economy, lets keep in mind that under any previous president, it would have felt like one giant leap.

Related Posts:

* Obama orders 28% reduction of government-wide GHGs, which will cut energy costs $10 billion a year [2]

Sean Pool [6] is a Special Assistant for the Center for American Progress Energy team, and also serves as an acting editor for scienceprogress.org [7].

Article printed from Climate Progress: http://climateprogress.org

URL to article: http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/29/executive-order-federal-co2-emissions/

[Bruce551]

The truth about global warming

Monday, August 2, 2010

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/01/AR2010080102850_pf.html

IN A DEPRESSING case of irony by juxtaposition, the death of climate change legislation in the Senate has been followed by the appearance of two government reports in the past week that underscore the overwhelming scientific case for global warming -- and go out of the way to repudiate skeptics.

First came a report on global climate from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which confirmed that the 2000s were by far the warmest decade in the instrumental record -- as were, in their turns, the 1980s and the 1990s. Unlike year-to-year fluctuations, these 10-year shifts are statistically significant. Further, the report notes that it derived its conclusions from an array of data sources -- not just the land-surface readings that doubters challenge -- from ocean heat uptake to melting land ice to sea level rise.

"If the land surface records were systematically flawed and the globe had not really warmed, then it would be almost impossible to explain the concurrent changes in this wide range of indicators produced by many independent groups," the report said. "The warming of the climate system is unequivocal." The gases most likely responsible for that warming, such as carbon dioxide, continue to accumulate.

Second was a strongly worded response from the Environmental Protection Agency to petitions that it revoke its finding that "climate change is real, is occurring due to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities and threatens human health and environment." As with much climate-change skepticism, the petitions were based "on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said. Among other things, the agency reviewed every document from the "Climategate" e-mail hack at a respected British climate research unit. The EPA found what four other independent studies did: that the e-mails contained some "candid" language but nothing that seriously discredits the scientific consensus on global warming.

Perhaps it is still too much to hope that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II will call off his misguided investigation of climate scientist Michael Mann, which seems to be based on the e-mail affair. Many climate-change skeptics will simply dismiss these reports as more evidence of a sprawling conspiracy instead of what they really are: yet more affirmation of the risks humanity runs if it continues to pump carbon into the atmosphere.

[Bruce551]

Kerry's, new Clean Energy Bill

Kerry Bill Will Spur Clean Energy Production

For Immediate Release: Friday, August 6, 2010

CONTACT: DC Press Office, (202) 224-4159

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) has introduced legislation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and excite clean energy production and technology across the country.

The Clean Energy Technology Leadership Act of 2010 will provide tax incentives for clean energy manufacturing, renewable energy, and conservation.

“While we continue the fight to bring comprehensive energy legislation to the floor of the United States Senate, it’s essential that we take action to start moving in the right direction,†said Sen. Kerry. “Providing incentives for clean energy production will drive our economy forward and take us one step closer to reducing our carbon emissions and ending our dependence on foreign oil.â€

The Clean Energy Technology Leadership Act of 2010 will:

* provide additional funding for the advanced energy manufacturing credit and uncap the credit for solar energy property, fuel cell power plans, and advanced energy storage systems, including batteries for advanced vehicles;

* extend and modify tax incentives for new energy efficient homes, nonbusiness energy property improvements, and energy efficient commercial buildings;

* encourage clean transportation by providing incentives for natural gas heavy vehicles;

* extend the excise tax credit for biodiesel and renewable diesel retroactively for 2010 and through 2012;

* modify the cellulosic biofuel tax credit to include algae based fuels;

* extend the credit for domestic manufacturers of energy appliances;

* provide an additional $3.5 billion for clean renewable energy bonds; AND

* extend the research and development tax credit retroactively for 2010 and through 2012 and provide an additional 10 percent credit for qualified advanced energy research expenditures.

The realities of Clean Energy investment.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/09/governor-granholm-federal-government-must-act-to-create-clean-energy-jobs/#more-31285

In a presentation at the Center for American Progress Thursday, Governor Jennifer Granholm energetically explained how Michigan is creating jobs by building a low-carbon economy. Taking advantage of Michigan’s manufacturing base, the Governor is fighting tooth and nail to bring clean energy businesses to Michigan. Thus far, the results are impressive, and she described many successes.

* Michigan factories will make General Motor’s new Chevrolet Volt, which will get a whopping 230 miles per gallon and travel up to 40 miles on it’s battery pack alone. (Last month, President Obama visited both the Detroit Hamtramck facility where the car is being built, and the Holland, Michigan, plant where LG Chem is to make the Volt’s lithium ion battery packs. He took the Volt on “the shortest joyride in history.â€)

* Twelve Michigan businesses won $1.35 billion in stimulus investments for advanced battery research and manufacturing last August, over half of such funds made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

* Today, 16 advanced battery companies are located in Michigan, representing almost $6 billion in total investment and the potential to create 62,000 new jobs.

* Since the passage of the Recovery Act, seven major solar companies have invested over $3 billion dollars in Michigan, slated to create almost 21,000 jobs.

* Already, clean energy projects funded by the stimulus package have saved or created 54,000 jobs in the state.

* In sum, 47 clean energy companies have invested over $9 billion in Michigan.

But according to Governor Granholm, Michigan’s transition to a clean energy economy cannot be sustained without some assistance from the federal government. For one, Michigan—and other industrial states trying to diversify and sustain job growth—needs the federal government to send a market signal to businesses by passing a climate and clean energy bill. This will provide certainty for investors and reduce the cost differential between new, clean energy sources and old, dirty sources such as coal.

Second, Granholm asked for additional government incentives to create demand for clean energy products, like feed-in tariffs and clean energy tax credits. These incentives would encourage families to purchase solar panels, plug-in electric hybrid vehicles and other emerging technologies, speeding their commercialization.

There more than a Trillion dollars siting on side lines, ready to invest in Clean Energy, waiting for the U.S. Congress to make a commitment to reducing carbon

emissions.

[Bruce551]

AS THE WORLD BURNS

How the Senate and the White House missed their best chance to deal with climate change.

by Ryan Lizza

OCTOBER 11, 2010

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/11/101011fa_fact_lizza?printable=true#ixzz11JrhIYg4

Lindsey Graham, Joseph Lieberman, and John Kerry each sought a kind of redemption through climate-change legislation.

Last paragraph:

Al Gore--> A third explanation pinpointed how Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman approached the issue. “The influence of special interests is now at an extremely unhealthy level,†Gore said. “And it’s to the point where it’s virtually impossible for participants in the current political system to enact any significant change without first seeking and gaining permission from the largest commercial interests who are most affected by the proposed change.â€

Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman were not alone in their belief that transforming the economy required co-peration, rather than confrontation, with industry. American Presidents who have attempted large-scale economic transformation have always had their efforts tempered—and sometimes neutered—by powerful economic interests. Obama knew that, too, and his Administration had led the effort to find workable compromises in the case of the bank bailouts, health-care legislation, and Wall Street reform. But on climate change Obama grew timid and gave up, leaving the dysfunctional Senate to figure out the issue on its own.

As the Senate debate expired this summer, a longtime environmental lobbyist told me that he believed the “real tragedy†surrounding the issue was that Obama understood it profoundly.

“I believe Barack Obama understands that fifty years from now no one’s going to know about health care,†the lobbyist said. “Economic historians will know that we had a recession at this time. Everybody is going to be thinking about whether Barack Obama was the James Buchanan of climate change.â€

In November, 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected to the presidency immediately causing seven states to secede from the Union forming the Confederate States of America. Buchanan did not believe that the federal government could force a state to remain in the Union. Afraid of Civil War, he ignored aggressive action by the Confederate States and abandoned Fort Sumter. He left office with the union divided.