I am not able to provide a link for this article?because I could not obtain it
directly;?I requested the asistance of a woman in my FingerLakes Progressives
group who gets Times-Select subscription through Cornell.? (I'd mention her
name but I haven't asked permission.)???
So I am pasting the full thing; it's not that long and it reads well.? But this
is a nice piece from someone who couldn't be accused of being a tree-hugger or
a bleeding heart but is in fact a real bottom -liner. I'm?very glad he has
become?so outspoken on?global warming.?His analysis of what occurred in the
Senate last week on?the Energy Bill?is tougher than alot of environmental
groups, some who are touting?a victory <snort) of sorts.?
Jeanne
The Capitol Energy Crisis
?
New York Times, The (NY)?? June 24, 2007
Author: THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
?
When you watch a baby being born, after a difficult pregnancy, it is so painful
and bloody for the mother it is always hard to tell the truth and say, "Gosh,
that baby is really ugly." But that's how I feel about the energy legislation
passed (and not passed) by the Senate last week.
?
The whole Senate energy effort only reinforced my feelings that we're in a
green bubble -- a festival of hot air by the news media, corporate America and
presidential candidates about green this and green that, but, when it comes to
actually doing something hard to bring about a green revolution at scale -- and
if you don't have scale on this you have nothing -- we wimp out. Climate change
is not a hoax. The hoax is that we are really doing something about it.
?
No question, it's great news that the Democrat-led Senate finally stood up to
the automakers, and to the Michigan senators, and said, "No more -- no more
assisted suicide of the U.S. auto industry by the U.S. Congress. We're passing
the first bill since 1975 that mandates an increase in fuel economy." If the
Senate bill, which now has to go through the House, becomes law, automakers
will have to boost the average mileage of new cars and light trucks to 35 miles
per gallon by 2020, compared with about 25 miles per gallon today.
?
But before you celebrate, pay attention to some fine print in the Senate bill.
If the Transportation Department determines that the fuel economy goal for any
given year is not "cost-effective" -- that is, too expensive for the car
companies to meet -- it can ease the standard. That loophole has to be
tightened by the House, which takes up this legislation next week.
?
But even this new mileage standard is not exactly world leading. The European
Union is today where we want to be in 2020, around 35 miles per gallon, and it
is committed to going well over 40 m.p.g. by 2012. Ditto Japan.
?
There are other things that make the Senate energy effort ugly. Senate
Republicans killed a proposed national renewable electricity mandate that would
have required utilities to produce 15 percent of their power from wind, solar,
biomass and other clean-energy sources by 2020. Twenty-three states already
have such mandates. No matter. Making it national was too much for the
Republicans.
?
And the Senate, thanks again to the Republicans, also squashed a Democratic
proposal to boost taxes on oil and gas companies that would have raised some
$32 billion for alternative fuel projects.
?
Despite all the new research on climate change, the Senate didn't even touch
the idea of either a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax to limit carbon
dioxide emissions. An effort by Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota to legislate
a national reporting ("carbon counter") system to simply measure all sources of
greenhouse gas emissions, which would enable a cap-and-trade system to work if
we ever passed one, also got killed by Republicans. We can't cap and trade
something we can't measure.
?
Here is the truth: the core of our energy crisis is in Washington. We have all
the technology we need right now to make huge inroads in becoming more energy
efficient and energy independent, with drastically lower emissions. We have all
the capital we need as well. But because of the unique nature of the energy and
climate-change issues -- which require incentives and regulations to build
alternatives to dirty, but cheap, fossil fuels -- you need public policy to
connect the energy and capital the right way. That is what has been missing.
?
"We have to work to ensure that the House will at least toughen the provisions
that the Senate passed," said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global
Warming Program.
?
The public wants it. But energy policy gets shaped in the halls of Congress --
where wily lobbyists, legacy industries and politicians greedy for campaign
contributions regularly sell out the country's interests for their own. Only
when the public really rises up -- as it has finally done against the auto
companies -- do we even get moderate change. Don't look to the Bush team to
lead the revolution.
?
"We are the only major country in the world where no one even knows the name of
the environment minister -- the head of our Environmental Protection Agency,"
said Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. "Whoever it is --
and most people don't even know if it is a he or a she -- has been in a
six-year witness protection program. Until the Democrats took over, no Bush
E.P.A. administrator appeared before the House committee in charge of energy
and climate change."
?
Folks, we're home alone. So call your House member -- especially the
Republicans. If you don't, some lobbyist will.
?
?
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