Energy -- Polluting The Debate

May 13, 2009

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

ENERGY

Polluting The Debate

Congress is struggling to answer President Obama's call for energy reform, even as our climate and economy continue to degrade. Deadly storms and floods have left Alaska, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, Illinois, and Arkansas in states of emergency, as wildfires fueled by drought rage in California and Florida. Gasoline prices "jumped 12 cents, or 6 percent, last week, after several weeks of relative stability." And the Bureau of Labor Statistics has announced that there are "roughly 4.8 unemployed workers for every available job today," up 280 percent from 2007. To create millions of green jobs, end our dependence on coal and oil, and halt global warming, Obama has asked for comprehensive energy legislation like the American Clean Energy and Security Act, co-sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), which would set federal standards for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and global warming pollution. The Waxman-Markey legislation, first released in draft form at the end of March, is under intense negotiation in the House energy committee. Last night, Waxman, the committee's chairman, announced "he will release the full text of his new bill Thursday and will hold the first drafting session Monday." Some corporations are embracing this moment, calling for "the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions." Yet the prospects for reform are fragile, under threat by polluting industries and their political allies.

POLLUTER CAMPAIGN CASH: Markey has explained that the bill can't move forward without the cooperation of fellow Democrats on the 58-member energy committee, many of whom are representing "the coal sector, with the steel, with the auto sector, with the refining sector." These sectors generate billions of tons of greenhouse gases each year through the burning of fossil fuels. A Progress Report analysis has found that the average committee member opposed to, or wavering on, the green economy legislation has received six times as much lifetime climate polluter cash as the average supporter. The Democrats supported by millions in pollution contributions have successfully negotiated concessions from Waxman and Markey, including "lower targets for renewable energy," "a smaller reduction by 2020 in the emissions blamed for global warming," and freely allocating "valuable permits to release pollution to electricity distribution companies and auto manufacturers." Ironically, these concessions threaten the future of these very industries because the nation needs to set strong clean-energy standards in order to compete in the 21st century economy and invest in green job recovery. The changes led Center for American Progress fellow Joseph Romm to downgrade the bill from a "B+" to "about a B or B-."

POLLUTER LOBBYISTS: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in a Senate hearing Tuesday, decried the extraordinary amount of spending by corporate global warming polluters to lobby Congress. Reading from an E&E News story on new lobbying disclosures, Whitehouse noted that carbon polluters such as electric utilities and oil and gas companies have spent nearly $80 million on lobbying just in the first quarter of 2009. "So if we wonder why the Senate is the last place in America that still doesn't get it that climate change is a real problem for people and that carbon pollution is something that people should pay for when they emit it -- big utilities, big industry -- gee, connect the dots," Whitehouse concluded. By comparison, environmental organizations have spent a combined $4.7 million and the entire renewable energy industry has spent $7.5 million, both less than the $9.3 million spent by Exxon Mobil alone. The lobbying to water down the bill has been effective, as many moderate Democrats in the Senate now question clean energy reform, repeating industry arguments. For example, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is "against forcing petrochemical companies" to "bear the brunt of new costs." And Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) worries a cap on carbon pollution "could have a negative impact on our economy by raising utility rates on consumers."

POLLUTER FRONT GROUPS: At the same Senate hearing, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) waved a "smoking gun" document that he said showed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to public welfare "was based more on political calculations than on scientific ones." The interagency review memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) argued that regulation would have "serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the US economy." "Obama Administration Memo Warns of Harm to Economy if Greenhouse Gases Regulated through Clean Air Act," wrote ABC News's Jake Tapper. As OMB director Peter Orszag explained, however, there was no real controversy: "[W]e simply receive comments from various agencies and pass them along to EPA for consideration, regardless of the substantive merit of those comments." The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder has revealed that the author of the comments was Joseph M. Johnson, a Bush administration holdover in the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy. Johnson was previously a research fellow at the Mercatus Center, an anti-regulatory think tank founded by Koch Industries, the largest private company in the U.S. that is involved in practically every sector of global warming pollution. The billionaire Koch brothers have provided over $120 million in the past 20 years to the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, the Mercatus Center, and dozens of other right-wing, anti-regulatory, and global warming-denial organizations. These organizations provide an intellectual veneer and grassroots feel to the decades-long effort by polluters like Koch and Exxon to prevent clean energy reform and preserve their dirty profits.

TORTURE -- SENIOR BUSH OFFICIAL SUPPORTS 'INQUIRY' INTO TORTURE PROGRAM: Last month, former State Department legal adviser Philip Zelikow made headlines when he revealed that in 2006, he wrote an "alternative" legal memo to the infamous Office of Legal Counsel torture memos. "I felt obliged to put an alternative view," he explained, saying the torture memos had "grave weaknesses." "My colleagues were entitled to ignore my views. They did more than that: The White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo." In an interview with Foreign Policy today, Zelikow endorsed an investigation into the Bush administration's torture program. "And so one of the reasons I support some kind of inquiry is to comprehend why so many people believed that a program like this was a good idea -- since we now believe it was a mistake," he said. "So we can learn from the mistake. When there is this kind of collective failure, we need to learn from what happened." Zelikow said he supports the kind of commission being floated by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT), which would be similar to the 9/11 Commission that Zelikow helped spearhead. Today, Zelikow is set to testify before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. The subcommittee chairman, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), said Zelikow's original memo is in the process of being declassified.

"Bring it on!" quipped a White House official yesterday when asked about Vice President Cheney's recent re-emergence. A "dismayed" Republican remarked: "We're trying to turn the page and he's climbing out of the grave to haunt us."

"The parents of slain Army Ranger and NFL star Pat Tillman voiced concerns" yesterday "that the general who played a role in mischaracterizing his death could be put in charge of military operations in Afghanistan." "I do believe that guy participated in a falsified homicide investigation," Pat Tillman Sr. told the AP. "It is imperative that Lt. General McChrystal be scrutinized carefully during the Senate hearings," said Mary Tillman.

According to a "list drawn up by Afghan officials," 95 children were "among the 140 people said to have died in a recent U.S.-Taliban battle in western Afghanistan." Afghan authorities blame the deaths on U.S. air strikes, but the U.S. military disputes their claim.

The Obama administration reported yesterday that the financial condition of Medicare and Social Security has deteriorated, in part due to the recession. As a result, Medicare is expected to run out of funds by 2017, while the Social Security trust fund "will be exhausted in 2037." Spending for both programs accounted for more than one-third of the federal budget last year.

As AIG CEO Edward Liddy faces Congress again today, new documents have emerged showing that "senior officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York received details about the bonuses more than five months before the firestorm erupted." However, the New York Fed did not alert the Obama administration to the potential controversy until the end of February.

The New York State Assembly approved legislation last night that would make New York the sixth state to allow same-sex marriage with a pivotal vote on the measure now shifting to the State Senate. Gov. David Patterson (D) has offered strong support for the bill's passage.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Harold Koh's nomination to become the State Department legal adviser yesterday by a vote of 12 to five. Koh's nomination now goes to the full Senate, though the vote has not yet been scheduled.

Senate Democrats expect to lose the vote on the confirmation of David Hayes as Deputy Secretary of the Interior this morning, which would mark "the first time Congress votes to reject one of President Obama's nominees." Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) is leading the GOP opposition to Hayes over Obama's decision to cancel oil and gas leases in Utah." "This is not about Hayes," his spokesman admitted.

Though there is a "widely reported expectation that President Barack Obama will be looking for a qualified woman" to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, a new Gallup poll found that "64 percent of Americans say it doesn't matter to them whether Obama appoints a woman." Another 26 percent said that it would be "a good idea, but not essential."

And finally: Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (R) yesterday had a "Twitter spasm," and "inadvertently confirmed on Twitter...that he'll challenge Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) in 2010." Shurtleff "later sent a message saying he thought he was responding to one individual and quickly pulled down the messages, but not before they were widely distributed." His original plan was to announce his candidacy on May 20. (View his Twitter messages here.)

Conservative Judge Richard Posner describes "the intellectual decline of conservatism."

Conservatives are outraged over the release of torture photos, but not over torture itself.

The National Review thinks President Obama's health cost savings are too vague and optimistic, but they love Newt Gingrich's even vaguer and more optimistic alternatives.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen forgets that he already made up his mind on whether torture works.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat claims that the pro-choice movement is not "comfortable with the language of rights and liberties."

Business Roundtable declares, "We're going to spend whatever it takes" to defeat corporate tax reform.

Philadelphia Inquirer hired John Yoo as a columnist.

"[Director of National Intelligence] Dennis Blair comes out and says that these enhanced techniques worked and he probably would have done it in 2002."
-- MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 5/12/09

VERSUS

"I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past...the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."
-- Blair, 4/16/09

Think Progress

Polluting The Debate

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