climate bill

Ben Wessel: Small biz can have a big impact

October 11, 2009

Today’s guest post comes from Ben Wessel, a 20-year-old student activist who is taking a year off from Middlebury College to work on the climate crisis. Ben is a very impressive young man—smart and committed—who is working at a nonprofit called 1Sky and plans to attend the UN climate negotiations in December in Copenhagen. He’s part of a growing army of young people around the world who are worried, for obvious reasons, about global warming. Ben is also the son of David Wessel, my colleague from way-back-when at The Hartford Courant, author of In Fed We Trust, and a columnist at The Wall Street Journal.

Ben Wessel

Ben Wessel

Coal and oil companies, manufacturers, and their allies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have spent many millions of dollars to oppose climate legislation in Congress. The Chamber – which has lost crucial members, including several big utility companies, over its opposition to mandatory climate regulation — spent $26 million on lobbying Congress in the first half of 2009, double the total of second-biggest lobbying firm ExxonMobil. (You can monitor lobbyist spending at OpenSecrets.org.) The opponents peddle bogus economic analyses and misinform the public into thinking that Congress wants to bankrupt the American family.

Climate advocates will never have the big bucks of their dirty coal and oil opponents, but I believe that something besides money can sway Senator’s votes– their constituents. Recent polling suggests broad support for climate action across the country. The Senate, however, is a tricky beast and the fate of America’s energy future (and much, much more) lays in the hands of a relative few. Although it might sound like hyperbole, the ability for the world to tackle climate change might come down to the  votes of Senators from North Dakota, Arkansas, and West Virginia. That’s why it’s time for clean energy advocates to recruit some unlikely allies in the fight to deal with the climate crisis – small businesses. [click to continue…]

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What’s wrong with Obama’s green team?

October 9, 2009

It’s hard not to be impressed by the people working for the Obama administration on the environment. For the most part, they’re smart, well-intentioned, dedicated. Let’s hope they can deliver meaningful results soon on the issue that matters most: climate change.

Today, I’m at the Society of Environmental Journalists convention in Madison, Wisconsin. It has attracted a parade of administration officials: Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, marine biologist Jane Lubchenko, who leads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality; Gina McCarthy, an EPA administrator in charge of air quality, and others. Al Gore keynoted, and we heard from economists, scientists and a CEO or two during a very full day.

tom_vilsack_1218

The boss and Vilsack

The Obama people came to sell cap-and-trade, hard. One version of a carbon regulation bill has passed the House, another’s pending in the Senate and the UN meetings in Copenhagen where a global agreement is supposed to be negotiated to replace the Kyoto treaty is just two months away.

Chances are, though, that, the U.S. won’t have legislation by then, which will make it difficult to get a global accord.

That’s because, for all the brainpower and commitment of Obama’s green team, the president has made climate change, at best, his No. 4 priority, behind the economy, health care and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Republicans haven’t helped on the climate issue, either.

To be sure, Obama & Co. have spent a  fortune subsidizing clean energy through the economic stimulus bill. But that won’t be as much help as a cap-and-trade bill with strong targets. [click to continue…]

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