The Row to Hoe Just Got Tougher
January 27, 2010 Can you help Solar Nation help the American Nation?
The need for citizens to be engaged in the fight for clean energy in today’s America just grew more acute, with the result of the recent U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts.
Is that a political statement that will alienate large numbers of solar citizens? It shouldn’t be, for it was meant as a cold statement of political reality, not a partisan plaint. And the cold facts are that practically the entire Congressional Republican delegation and an uncomfortable number of Democrats have decided that clean energy, energy independence, and climate regulation are not worth advancing through legislative means. It’s not even the case that senators dissatisfied with the Kerry-Boxer bill combined to offer alternative legislation, perhaps with a carbon tax instead of cap-and-trade. No serious alternative—by which we mean a bill with even a modicum of co-sponsors—was presented as a challenger. The strategy for the minority party is simply to defeat whatever initiative is out there and hand the Administration a major defeat.
It’s also clear that the minority party has been, for the last year, much more disciplined and united than the majority. One would think that a party controlling 58% of the votes in the upper chamber would be able to proceed with a fairly robust agenda, but that hasn’t been the case. Nor did the proposed energy and climate legislation especially smack of ideology; it was a long overdue attempt to exercise common sense and face up to reality. But, in a way that is endemic to our political system, parochial and personal priorities won out over farsightedness. And now that the governing party’s supermajority (which was always conditional upon the adherence of two independent senators) has disappeared, the kind of far-reaching and comprehensive energy legislation we need will be significantly more difficult to achieve.
Meanwhile, on 1st St. NE
This situation has been compounded by the Supreme Court’s more recent ruling, to the effect that corporations should not be prevented from making effectively unlimited contributions to candidates (New York Times editorial here). In theory, one could argue that this does not discriminate between fossil fuel companies favoring candidates who will back business-as-usual and a clean energy company wanting to build a wind farm. But that theory breaks down with the comparison of lobbying funds available to these two industries.
This is why strong citizen advocacy for issues that do not enrich our legislators’ war chests is now needed more than ever. Only when congresspersons can be made to understand that neither campaign contributions from fossil fuel industry groups nor pressure for ideological conformity can compensate for the voter support they will lose because of their vote against our future, will our government return to a form in which it is recognizably of the people, by the people and for the people.
Solar Nation is on the front lines of the fight to create a clean future. More than ever now, can you help us win?
January 28th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
The Supreme Court’s dreadful decision is truly horrifying, especially considering the numbers of lobbyists from the oil and coal companies (over 2000) compared to the number of clean energy lobbyists (fewer than 200), and the funding that they have to work with.
For non-profit environmental groups to win this battle against the dirtiest and most profitable corporations in this country, we need a leveling of the playing field, not a selling of our future to our worst polluters!
January 29th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
We have to demand transparency and then give a thoughtful, well-defined, non judgmental critic of flawed plans (that which goes against common sense for a healthy survival for the Earth and all habitants).
It is essential that we do not become defensive (in argumentative attitude) nor try to invoke defensive attitude as that only shuts down negotiation. Not helpful.
Let’s fight the best fight! Stay positive and persistent! PLEASE!
January 29th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Actually, until now, the Obama administration has NOT promoted a comprehensive energy program. Until his State of the Union speech, I have heard nothing from him about expanding domestic drilling, coal, and nuclear. Let’s see if he can and will put his words into real programs so we can finally be on our way to true energy independence. Domestic oil and nuclear are essential in keeping our energy dollars from going overseas while we proceed to grow solar and wind.
January 29th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
What should be emphasized is the number of jobs that can be created to manufacture and install solar (PV) panels. Retrain the unemployed, and close those coal mines and retrain the miners, too!
January 29th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
I think you are off base for blaming the Republicans for not supporting solar. The fact is there are not enough sensible people in Washington (of either party) that can see that if we do not get over our dependence on foreign oil and quit supporting our enemies, we will not survive long enough to worry about global warming. We need solar, wind, geo, nuclear and even some coal if it helps make us energy independant. A national program supporting many forms of energy creation would go a long way toward solving our unemployment problems.
February 2nd, 2010 at 10:51 am
To Bob Loree: In fact, I was not limiting my criticism to Republicans; at base, it’s not so much the party affiliation or even the ’sensible’ quotient that’s making Government so dysfunctional - it’s the fact that, for the last 20 or perhaps 30 years, our Government has been ‘corrupt by design’. The increase in the importance of money (and the relative amount of it) in the congressional electoral process means that:
a) our legislators spend up to 40% of their time just fundraising for the next election;
b) legislation is, despite protests to the contrary from congresspersons, always slanted toward the donating interest.
This means that established industries with funds at hand have inordinate sway over the legislative process, irrespective of the public weal or the patent value of the legislation in question. Without getting off-track into health care or financial reform, let me stick with energy/climate.
It is abundantly clear that legislation creating a fundamental shift in our approach to this issue is needed, and yet senators who we must conclude (without even being charitable) are ’sensible’ people find arguments to defeat any attempt at this shift, without sponsoring any alternative, but still meaningful, approach more in keeping with their own ideologies.
This can only mean that these sensible people are constrained by the system in which they are trapped, and find themselves voting for that which they know is inimical to the interest of the people and the country. It’s as if they were lost in a complicated one-way system in an unfamiliar town; with every minute that passes, with every push on the accelerator, with every drop of gas they use, with every mile they travel, they are moving ineluctably away from their destination, but can do nothing to correct their course.
The sad conclusion of all this is that, if legislation today benefits the people, it is as an accidental by-product of that legislation, not as its goal.
The above represents a little too much of politics and too little of energy, I’m afraid, but it’s a truism that we must all face.