After Precarious Climate Vote, Grassroots Pressure Needed More Than Ever

The House passed the first comprehensive clean energy and climate protection bill on Friday, but exactly in the way I worried about last week -- not on a wave of grassroots momentum, but last-minute cajoling by House leaders and expense of White House political capital leaning on wavering congresspeople.

Right-leaning Dems in swing districts pleaded to the Speaker to allow them vote against without repercussion, and she had to count every head so she could let as many skittish congresspeople off the hook as possible.

In other words, the climate bill was perceived as a politically risky "tough vote", not a momentum-building easy vote.

The polls may say this is a popular bill. But Beltway perception does not trust those numbers will hold up, and won't unless they feel positive affirmation from voters, particularly in swing states. As a result, right-leaning Senate Dems are already making noise about weakening the bill further, which would risk shattering the tenuous coalition between enviros, labor and industry.

The disagreement between Open Left's Chris Bowers and myself reflected the conflicting views on the Left in regards to political tactics for the House endgame. I had argued we needed a big grassroots push last week to improve our chances of strengthening the bill in the Senate. Chris argued the votes were in the bag as of Tuesday, so there was room to criticize the bill in the run-up for the vote.

The frantic scramble for votes on the last day, the high number of defections from right-leaning Dems, and the immediate negative reaction from coal-state Senator Claire McCaskill (who chose to ignore that compromises with coal-state Dems were already struck), supports my fear.

Chris may still disagree. The bill did pass after all, if barely.

But what's past is past. More importantly, after this vote, we should be back on the same general page. We need to amp up the grassroots pressure on the Senate, pressure that was largely missing during the House legislative process.

Though I suspect Chris and I would end up back at opposite ends once we get closer to a Senate vote.

With right-leaning Dems holding the upper-hand right now, it will take a monster grassroots push to counter corporate interest pressure and allow us to strengthen the bill. In all likelihood, we will need increased grassroots engagement simply to hold the line, and avoid such a weakening that would make it impossible for us avoid a greenhouse gas concentration of 450 ppm and a certain climate catastrophe.

Originally posted at OurFuture.org.

Follow Bill Scher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billscher

Comments

[JulieSA]

There was a huge grassroots effort against this bill, by people who didn't want to see more transfer of wealth from rural and poor urban America to Wall Street. It was difficult to get through on the phone lines of the undecideds.

We rubes out here in Flyover country are really angry about this bill. It's a huge government power grab.

[valkano]

It's highly unlikely that the Waxman-Markey bill will move in the Senate. When it stalls there, we need a Plan B.

The best Plan B we have is a tax on carbon that returns the revenue to consumers through income and payroll taxes. There were carbon tax proposals in the House authored by both Republicans and Democrats, and so would have a far better chance at passage.

The advantages of the carbon tax over cap and trade are laid out quite well in a piece by the Citizens Climate Lobby that appeared in the San Diego Union on Sunday:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jun/28/lz1e28saunder214918-better-way-slow-global-warming/?&zIndex=123419

[GoldenAgeMaster]

This bill is a terrible bill, for many reasons. Fortunately, those reasons will be enough to stop it's passage by the Senate.

Mr. Scher, you may want to reconsider you're "don't move to canada" request. If the proposed above mentioned bill passes the senate, it will cause the US to extend it's recession by at least 10 years, while making only a handful of people billions of dollars.

[research]

Read the bill. It's a banking and investment bill.

It does noting for individual rooftop solar, the most viable energy source we have at 3 cents per kwh.

80% of the bill text is banking and investment stuff.

60% of the money goes to "clean coal".

[myinfo]

I have just 1 product that you green people back that shows you don’t know what you are doing.
Compact fluorescent lights now required contain Phosphorus and Mercury. Poisons look them up and no recycling system and no provision for breakage. No dimming
What happened to the earth years ago the dinosaurs where here.
What man made thing caused them to disappear?

[research]

Home depot recycles them, you get ones that dim. LEDs will replace them in a few years.

[myinfo]

Yes but how many people will take them back instead of throwing them away?
(A greater danger comes from the possibility of millions of these things being thrown into landfills, where the toxic mercury could leech into the water table with all kinds of nasty consequences.) From Green Daily
Also what if they break???? There are dangers for those handling them. Haz-mat if there are several.
Recycling them would mean taking them out safely and putting them into a recycling container (that would need special padding and handling) without breaking them. I want to see most people try to do this.
Compact Fluorescent use a ballast .Ballasts not designed to work on a dimming circuit and get hot enough to be considered a fire hazard. Most aren't dimmable and all don't dim are well as other products.
Some LEDs contain lethal gases and can't match true colors.