Tuesday Energy Blogging: How the Senate has “filibustered” us out of good environmental legislation
Posted by: Donna
So here it is Tuesday and it’s Energy Blogging time. Of course, I’m thinking about tonight’s events so any post I write would take tonight’s MA Senate result into consideration. I was searching the ‘net for energy legislation and came across the Environment America Congressional Scorecard 2009.
If you think Republican Scott Brown’s election has been a disaster for health care and banking reform, consider what it will do to energy/environmental bills.
1. Global warming: Cap global warming pollution
Roll call# 145 Voted on: 6/6/08 Result: Failed 48-36 Pro-Environment vote: YesGlobal warming threatens to affect every aspect of our lives, from increased droughts to more severe storms and floods to impacts on food, more heat waves and sea level rise. In the summer of 2008, Senators Boxer, Lieberman, and Warner spearheaded an effort to cap global warming pollution nationwide and tighten the limits over time. On June 6th, 2008, The Senate failed to achieve the 60 votes needed to cut off debate, so the bill was rejected by a 48-36 vote (Roll Call #145). ENVIRONMENTAL VOTE: YES.
2. Repower America: Block clean energy incentives Roll call #150 Voted on: 6/17/08 Result: Failed 52-44 Pro-Environment vote: Yes
As one of the fastest growing industries in the US, the clean energy industry has created thousands of jobs across America. The wind industry alone employs 85,000 Americans. Unfortunately, critical tax incentives to encourage more wind and solar development were set to expire in December 2008. H.R. 6049, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 extended these critical tax credits for one year and paid for the extension by delaying implementation of certain tax breaks for multinational corporations. On June 17, the Senate failed to achieve the 60 votes needed to cut off debate and extend these important tax breaks. (Roll Call #150). ENVIRONMENTAL VOTE: YES.
3. Repower America: Block clean energy incentives Roll call vote #192 Voted on: 7/30/08 Results: Failed 51-43 Pro-Environment vote: Yes
As one of the fastest growing industries in the US, the clean energy industry has created thousands of jobs across America. The wind industry alone employs 85,000 Americans. Unfortunately, critical tax incentives to encourage more wind and solar development were set to expire in December 2008. Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus crafted another package of tax extensions S. 3335 in another attempt to extend these critical tax credits for one year and paid for the extension by delaying implementation of certain tax breaks for multinational corporations. On July 30, 2008, the Senate once again failed to achieve the 60 votes needed to cut off debate. The tax credits were finally extended in late October. (Roll Call #192). ENVIRONMENTAL VOTE: YES.
Notice a pattern? Those Senate bills passed. Yet they didn’t become law because they didn’t get a filibuster-proof majority. The entire future of America’s development of renewable energy and of our assuming a prominent role as a world leader in combating carbon emissions is held in abeyance by an anachronistic, obstructionist, and undemocratic Senate rule.
And now, thanks to the incisive voters of Massachusetts, there is one more filibusterer in the U.S. Senate. Maybe the states offer us the best hope?
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Oh yeah, I watched the chirpy AM TV bunnies. What struck me not only by them but the”winner” in MA is a sense of gloating. Seems not too long ago the Goopers where whinig about the vaunted bi-partisanship. Now that patriotic spirit reverts to the usual Gooper meme “I got mine”.
yeah,yeah,yeah
Donna,
” As one of the fastest growing industries in the US, the clean energy industry has created thousands of jobs across America. The wind industry alone employs 85,000 Americans. ”
More liberal BS. The subsidies to create these make work jobs would have destroyed at least an equal number of real jobs. If green jobs were real they would not need government welfare. Evil capitalists would be creating them if they were real.
” Global warming threatens to affect every aspect of our lives, from increased droughts to more severe storms and floods to impacts on food, more heat waves and sea level rise. ”
Unprovable dogma. How about giving me the conditions that would show no global warming? Because if it’s hot it’s global warming. If it’s cold it’s still global warming. If there is a drought anywhere on the globe it’s global warming. If there are floods it’s global warming.
Donna,
Guess what,, more trouble for you global warming believers. More mistakes found in your science.
The UN panel, which by the way won a Nobel Peace Prize for it’s report, apparently made some enormous errors. There do do appear to be people of at either the UN or the Nobel Prize Committee, who actually read the reports they generate and give out prizes for.
The IPCC which released the report made two glaring errors. They said their prediction that Himalayan Glaciers would be gone by 2035 was based on a Consensus of experts. Instead it was based on an interview with one Indian scientist who denies the prediction.
Second the IPCC document said that the complete surface area of the Himalayan glaciers probably would go from 500, 000 sq Kilometers to 100,000. by 2035. There are only 33,000 sq kilometers now.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,583711,00.html
Alan, you don’t “believe” in science, you either understand it or you don’t.
And the thing about science is that scientific theories are, by definition, changeable upon new discoveries. Scientific theories change upon new discoveries, as they should. Beliefs tend to more fixed, as they are based on completely different principles than science.
Alan, here is a far more comprehensive source of information about the Himalayan glaciers than Fox News: http://web.hwr.arizona.edu/~gleonard/2009Dec-FallAGU-Soot-PressConference-Backgrounder-Kargel.pdf
The problem with most popular science reporting is that you have writers who are not scientists looking for an “angle”. So they cherry-pick a data point or two, draw a sweeping conclusion from it, and slap a titillating headline on it.