Environment -- We Can Solve It

April 1, 2008

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, Benjamin Armbruster, and Brad Johnson

ENVIRONMENT

We Can Solve It

On Monday, former Vice President Al Gore and his climate change awareness organization, the Alliance for Climate Protection, launched a $300 million, three-year campaign to teach "people in the US and around the world that the climate crisis is both urgent and solvable." The "We" campaign "aims to enlist 10 million volunteers through a combination of network and cable commercials, display ads…and online social networks." Funding for the campaign includes Gore's Nobel Peace Prize money and all the profits from his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." The campaign will launch televison advertisements later this week that "will team up offbeat celebrity couples who may not have much in common but share a belief that it is important to address climate change." These "unlikely alliances" include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, the outspoken pastors Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson, and the Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith, country music stars on opposite sides of the partisan divide.

GREAT GREENWASH: While spending $100 million per year is remarkable for an issue-based public advocacy campaign, it is dwarfed by the $700 billion market in annual corporate advertising and public relations spending. The companies in the polluting sectors, such as energy, transportation, agribusiness, chemical, and manufacturing, recognize the economic stakes of fighting climate legislation. Their efforts involve public campaigns that "greenwash" their environmental record, arguing that global warming is not their fault. For example, the "clean" coal industry is sponsoring a $20 million lobbying campaign by the National Mining Association and a $40 million astroturfing campaign by front group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices. The American Clean Skies Foundation, a "clean" natural gas industry front group, is launching a "multi-million dollar media advocacy campaign" on Earth Day. The "ultra-clean" auto industry trade group Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers runs its "Discover the Alternatives" campaign -- while lobbying against increased fuel economy standards and filing suit against the regulation of tailpipe greenhouse emissions. The "clean" nuclear industry has established the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition to promote nuclear's low global warming footprint -- while ignoring the unsolved problem of radioactive waste. Big Oil's $100 million trade organization, the American Petroleum Institute, spends millions a year promoting projects like the "Energy Tomorrow" campaign -- which blames ethanol for rising fuel prices -- and buying goodwill from science teachers, environmental groups, volunteer organizations, and even bloggers, all while lobbying to keep billion-dollar tax breaks for oil companies.

FOSSIL FOOLS DAY: Executive from the five largest private oil companies -- ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron -- are on the hot seat today. Company executives have been called to testify this morning before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming for enjoying record profits from the unprecedented run-up in oil prices as they block attempts to roll back billions in unnecessary tax breaks and fight efforts to tackle global warming. Each company spends billions a year to develop new oil and gas reserves such as the Alberta tar sands and the Chukchi Sea polar bear habitat, as well as millions of dollars on greenwashing campaigns with slogans such as "The Power of Human Energy" and "Target Neutral." Youth climate activists are celebrating "Fossil Fools Day" today with international protests of the fossil fuel industry. They declared Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank America, the "Fossil Fool of the Year" for his bank's financing of coal-fired plants and mountaintop removal.

TEN TRILLION DOLLARS: The "We" campaign will amplify the calls of those asking the U.S. to join the rest of the industrialized world in cutting the six billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted by U.S. polluters each year. The European Union, since 2005, has done so with a "cap and trade" system -- the government sets a cap on total global warming pollution each year and runs a tradable pollution allowance market to allow companies to choose how to achieve the necessary reductions. A bill to establish a similar system for most emitting sectors in the United States, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191), was approved by Sen. Barbara Boxer's (D-CA) Environment and Public Works Committee in December and is slated to reach the Senate floor in June. The Environmental Protection Agency's economic modeling of the bill finds that its cap-and-trade system would generate pollution allowances worth well over $100 billion a year, a total of approximately ten trillion dollars over its multi-decade lifetime. The necessary transition to a low-carbon economy by 2050 will involve dramatic transformations of the American economy. This generational change offers the possibility to rebuild our economic engine on the principles of sustainability, opportunity, and justice, or to ignore that opportunity and further consolidate control in the hands of the few. Who benefits likely depends on whether the efforts of Gore and other activists -- or perhaps Mother Nature herself -- can evoke "a change in the public's sense of urgency in addressing this crisis."

TORTURE -- HAYDEN: WATERBOARDING IS 'AN UNINTERESTING QUESTION FOR THE CIA': Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, CIA Director Michael Hayden was asked whether he believes waterboarding is torture. Hayden responded that it is "an uninteresting question for the Central Intelligence Agency," claiming the Justice Department's opinion is more important and that the CIA has not waterboarded in five years. While 69 percent of the public believes waterboarding is a form of torture, Hayden called torture a "legal term" that the public has been using in a "far too casual way." Instead of considering it a moral or leadership issue, the Bush administration has repeatedly narrowed the legal definition of torture. For example, in 2005, the Justice Department "provided explicit authorization" to use a "combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning (waterboarding) and frigid temperatures." While Hayden claims that the administration has not used waterboarding in over five years, he did not explain why CIA officials left "open the option of reinstating" the tactic as late as this year.

SURVEILLANCE -- DNI McCONNELL SERVES AS WHITE HOUSE'S CHIEF INTEL BILL LOBBYIST: Congress returns to the Hill today, and the House gears up to vote on an intelligence bill that would authorize a broad program of wiretapping but would also refuse to grant immunity to telecommunications companies that complied with the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The White House's chief proponent of the wiretapping bill is Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, whose relations with House Democrats "remain frayed." "McConnell has drawn lawmakers' ire largely because the Bush administration has put him in the unusual role of intelligence community lobbyist." The LA Times notes that McConnell's role as the White House's "point person on espionage legislation is particularly unusual," as intelligence chiefs "have traditionally been expected to remain insulated from policy issues." Last fall, McConnell baselessly claimed that the expansive FISA law -- which Congress is now reforming -- prevented terrorist attacks. He also said that public debate of the law would lead to the "killing of Americans." McConnell follows a White House tradition of using fear tactics and trumped-up charges to pressure Congress to grant telecom immunity.

ADMINISTRATION -- ECHOING BUSH AND CHENEY, HAYDEN SAYS IRAN PURSUING NUCLEAR WEAPONS: CIA Director Michael Hayden is the latest high ranking Bush administration official to claim that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Asked by NBC host Tim Russert last Sunday if he "believe[s] the Iranians are trying to develop a nuclear program," Hayden said, "yes." While he did not offer any specific evidence of his "personal belief," his comment contradicts a key finding from the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran -- that the Iranians halted its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2003. Moreover, the International Atomic Energy Agency's latest report has said that Iran is only enriching uranium to a level consistent with a civilian nuclear program. Recently, President Bush falsely claimed that Iran "declared they want to have a nuclear weapon," and Vice President Dick Cheney also stated that Iran is "heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapons grade levels."

59 percent: Doctors who "support legislation to establish a national health insurance program," according to a new survey of more than 2,000 U.S. doctors. This number is up from 49 percent in the 2002 study.

"Fighting between Iraqi security forces and Shi'ite militiamen last month has driven civilian deaths in the country to their highest level in more than six months," according to new Iraqi government figures. A total of 923 Iraqi civilians were killed in March, "up 31 percent from February and the deadliest month since August 2007."

Prior to testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, House Republicans are launching a "full-fledged assault" on Democratic leaders, whom they accuse of trying to "legislate defeat" in Iraq. The campaign will include a "steady stream" of "op-eds and editorial board memos," an "aggressive" TV and radio operation, and an effort to "engage conservative bloggers."

Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) "said Monday that Don Siegelman should not testify before Congress because it could endanger the former governor’s criminal defense and distract the committee from its broader investigation of political influence in the U.S. Justice Department."

Today, the nation's top oil executives "return to the hot seat" as the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming "examines rising gasoline prices and the industry’s opposition to efforts to repeal $18 billion in tax breaks." The money would be reinvested in renewable energy.

While most agree the subprime mortgage crisis sparked the current economic downturn, "some economists argue the Iraq war is deepening the economic pain." Even the "most conservative economists acknowledge that Americans will eventually pay the price at home for a war financed entirely with borrowed money."

Last month, President Bush said he would attend the Olympics in Beijing this summer because he views it as "a sporting event." But given China's poor human rights record, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Bush should consider “boycotting the opening ceremony."

And finally: President Bush is getting sensitive about making sure he gets credit. While at the Washington Nationals home opener on Sunday, "play-by-play man Jon Miller" said to Bush, “Every year since you've been president, George [Will] has put on a special baseball dinner held at the White House." Bush quickly took umbrage at giving the conservative pundit all the credit, responding, "That's one way to put it. Another way is that George W. Bush hosts the dinner and George attends. He puts together the list."

The research team that brings you The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org needs summer interns! Click here for more information.

"In a historic but little-noticed change in policy, the Army is allowing scores of husband-and-wife soldiers to live and sleep together in the war zone -- a move aimed at preserving marriages."

SOUTH CAROLINA: "The federal government agreed on Monday to give South Carolina an extension to comply with the federal Real ID law."

UTAH : Labor Department says federal mine regulators were negligent in protecting the safety of workers at Crandall Canyon mine.

MISSOURI: Lawmaker introduces anti-steroid legislation in sports.

THINK PROGRESS: CNN scrubs Lou Dobbs' racially charged comment from official transcript.

WONK ROOM: Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT): Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson's resignation was "the right thing to do."

DANGER ROOM: Military report: Secretly "recruit or hire bloggers."

AMERICA BLOG: Basra violence only weakened Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malki while strengthening Muqtada al-Sadr and Iran.

"The Iraqi prime minister said Tuesday that a weeklong crackdown against militia violence in the southern city of Basra had been a 'success.'"

-- AP, 4/1/08

VERSUS

"The peace agreement brokered by Iran calmed the violence but left [Muqtada] al-Sadr's militia intact and Iraq's U.S.-backed prime minister politically battered within his own Shiite power base."

-- AP, 4/1/08

Think Progress

We Can Solve It

Blogroll