Five Takeaways From the Senate's Spill Bill

Update: Faced with a lack of support, Majority Leader Harry Reid decided today to push a vote on a legislative response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster to September.

The decision of Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring a scaled-back "spill bill" to the Senate floor instead of a comprehensive energy bill that could reduce climate pollution in a serious way has led to a lot of political finger-pointing about who is responsible.

But the threats posed by climate disruption and our dependence on dirty fossil fuels transcend politics. Some analysts are saying that polluting corporations and their K Street mercenaries have won, while the environmental movement and its champions have failed. The introduction of the spill bill, however, is not a total loss. It's an opportunity for us to regroup and refocus. And while the bill is in no way an adequate substitute for strong and scientifically based emissions reduction targets or a permanent stop to offshore drilling, it does have some laudable features. Below are five things we can take away from the circumstances surrounding the introduction of the spill bill, and where the progressive environmental movement must go from here.

1. The Clean Air Act is left intact:The bill preserves the most powerful tool to keep carbon pollution at bay. The Clean Air Act survived an attack by Sen. Lisa Murkowski that would have kept it from regulating the heat-trapping gases that disrupt the climate, and likewise sidestepped the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act that would have weakened it. The spill bill doesn't touch the Clean Air Act, and President Obama has stated he'll veto passage of Sen. Rockefeller's bid to postpone the implementation of Clean Air Act restrictions on carbon emissions and protect greedy coal executives.
2. The spill bill is good on its merits: This bill will erect a wall between revenue-takers and oil industry regulators in the Department of the Interior and it will lift the paltry liability caps that put taxpayers on the hook for the damage and destruction caused by feckless and irresponsible oil companies.
3. The American Power Act is dead: The American Power Act was a horrible bill. It would have provided billions in preemptive bailouts for the nuclear industry, and billions more to dirty energy sources such as coal. It would have shoehorned states into allowing drilling off of their shores. It would have kneecapped the Clean Air Act. It would have created carbon markets susceptible to the type of derivatives trading that blew up the economy in 2007. The bill's carbon pollution targets were set woefully below what science demands. And if it had become law, Congress would have considered its job done, while the Earth's thermometer steadily climbed and climate disruption continued unabated. So if the "spill bill" means that the American Power Act is dead, great.
4. We now have the chance to reset the debate: Friends of the Earth and a large coalition of progressive groups refused to get behind watered-down and inadequate legislation. Activists agreed. The dealing and capitulating that produced a lowest-common-denominator, polluter-friendly bill alienated more people who might be inclined to support real climate legislation than it gained from people who weren't. A truly progressive bill, however, that demands sharp reductions in our carbon pollution and our fossil fuel consumption -- and that forces polluters to pay -- could build the type of enthusiasm unseen among progressives since inauguration day.
5. Progressives must now work together: The unfortunate political reality is that entrenched special interests have billions to spend on lobbying and influence. But by building a strong political base through strengthening our grassroots we can harness influence more powerful than money. To build our grassroots, however, we need to work together across the wider progressive movement. By supporting campaign finance reform, environmentalists can pull back the curtain on polluters who support candidates who deny climate change and support wasteful giveaways for dirty energy. Health care and the environment are inextricably linked, for it is the pollutants in the air that contribute to the rising levels of asthma and dirty, contaminated water that breeds and spreads disease. Immigration is our issue, too -- as climate change turns forests into deserts, redraws coastlines, and alters crop yields, millions of people will be forced to migrate, and populations across the world will shift. Each part of the progressive movement has its specialty and its own unique perspective, but none will be heard if each goes it alone.

Though a strong, comprehensive climate and energy bill appears unlikely, we still have work to do. We must remain vigilant in protecting the Clean Air Act from attack by members of Congress who cozy up to Big Oil and King Coal. We must work to end the subsidies, giveaways, preemptive bailouts and bad policies that perpetuate our reliance on dirty energy. Though federal legislation is the only real long-term solution, we must bolster state-level solutions when Congress is unable to act. And all progressive groups must work together to build a strong grassroots base and turn the debate in our favor.

 

Follow Erich Pica on Twitter: www.twitter.com/foe_us