One Year After His Election, Obama On Verge of Audaciously Fulfilling His Promise as the Green FDR
Arianna asserts Obama has shown "timidity" in governing. On climate and clean energy policy, he has been anything but!
Future historians will inevitably judge all 21st-century presidents on just two issues: global warming and the clean energy transition. If the world doesn't stop catastrophic climate change -- Hell and High Water -- then all Presidents, indeed, all of us, will be seen as failures and rightfully so.
In that sense, what team Obama has accomplished in the year since he was elected is nothing less than an unprecedented reversal of decades of unsustainable national policy forced down the throat of the American public by conservatives. Three game-changing accomplishments stand out:
- Green Stimulus: Progressives, Obama keep promise to jumpstart clean energy, economy -- conservatives keep promise to jumpstop the future. The stimulus represents the single biggest increase in clean energy investment in U.S. history -- $100 billion public investment aimed at driving, which is pulling in another $100 billion in public investment. Huge investments in energy efficiency, renewables, transmission and smart grid, and mass transit and train travel are already having a big impact, for instance, helping the wind industry survive and thrive in the great Bush-Cheney recession.
- Regulatory Breakthroughs: Obama will raise new car fuel efficiency standards to 35.5 mpg by 2015, which is the biggest step the U.S. government has ever taken to cut CO2. And the Obama EPA declared carbon pollution a serious danger to Americans' health and welfare requiring regulation. The EPA has begun the process of developing regulations, and while that is a very imperfect way to address global warming, it ensure that the country will take some action in the event Congress can't.
- First-ever climate bill advances: In June, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a landmark bipartisan climate bill, 219 - 212. It would complete America's transition to a clean energy low-carbon economy, begun in the stimulus, ultimately driving $100 billion a year in total U.S. investments in clean energy technologies and industries.
All this together won't guarantee that we preserve a livable climate, but it will give future Presidents -- working in concert with other countries -- a fighting chance to do so.
That said, conservative denial and obstructionism remains strong, and a climate bill could still fail if team Obama does not remain vigilant. Obama is fulfilling his promise in the climate and clean energy arena, but much hard work remains.
So, one year after the election, what do you think Candidate Obama would think of President Obama? Tweet your response (our Twitter hashtag is #OneYearLater), or post it in the comments section.
Aaron Belkin: Obama Is Timid Because Progressives Are Timid
What can we expect from a President who presides over a relatively conservative public, whose party is fractured by a fundamental contradiction, and whose legislative agenda is held hostage by Ben Nelson?
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Anybody that expected that the results of 30 years of misguided leadership could be fixed by Obama in 9 months is hopelessly unrealistic.
Despite resistance from the Republicans, and from certain elements within the Democratic Party, Obama has accomplished more progress in 9 months than his predecessor accomplished in 8 years.
I know that in recent weeks and months it has become fashionable, on both the right and the left, to criticize Obama for lack of results, but I think that those critics are failing to acknowledge many of the things that the Obama administration has accomplished.
Are you kidding?
1) shooting of wolves
2) cruel poisoning of prairie dogs, toxification of the land
3) approval of yet another mountaintop removal in West Virginia
4) approval of clearcutting of Tongass National Forest
5) parroting coal industry's "clean coal" nonsense
6) appointment of Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior (every rancher's friend)
7) appointment of Lisa Jackson as head of EPA (Bill Maher asked her about factory farming and she looked like a deer caught in headlights--totally clueless)
Obama is the "Green FDR"??? Give me a break.
8) continued BLM round-up of wild horses (gotta keep those ranchers happy, you know)
9) continued shipping of wild and other horses to Mexico for slaughter, where they face a brutal death (abused and stabbed in the spine multiple times until they get a "hit," and succeed in paralyzing them for slaughter).
If Obama would fund a green version of the CCC, like Roosevelt did back in the 30s, it would bring money to communities, put paychecks in the pockets of the unemployed, train workers in 'green' jobs, and help start the green energy revolution we need so urgently.
Agreed.
Mr. Romm,
You seem rather smart, and I assume you are safe and secure in your warm home in Washington, DC, but do tell: How can President Obama be considered "green" when his administration has failed to end mountaintop removal, which we all know is a crime?
Mountaintop removal produces less than 5 percent of our coal production, so it certainly is not an issue of jobs or energy need.
THANK you.
Let me guess...you are ANTI-everything listed above?
he cant move on that cause it would be a states right issue
and he doesnt have the political capital to
weather that storm
so to speak
Wow, i was just reading the climate bill had no chance among Republicans in the senate and they were even boycotting committee meetings. if the article is correct, it is excellent news! Great!!
I’m afraid my idea of “audacious” and “FDR-ish” differs markedly from yours. Since you weren’t around back then, let me give you a little history:
1) This country was at economic zero during the 30’s
2) We paid for WW-II in the 40’s and Korea in the early 50’s – all on the public.
3) We built 100,000’s of miles of roads in the 50’s and 60’s – again public monies
4) We laid over a millions miles of welded gas pipelines in the 50’s – again public monies
Those “investments” stimulated the economic boom from 1950-2000.
To me, imposing a 1-3 ¢/kWh excise tax on the 4,000 Bn-kWh electricity (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/electricity.html) we currently use would yield an investment fund of $40-120 billion PER YEAR! That would buy:
40-120 GW in wind turbines OR 8 – 24 GW of PV solar arrays PER YEAR!
To me that’s peanuts; still not audacious. Nonetheless a start. You want AUDACIUOS? I’ll give you AUDACIOUS!
1TW renewable energy in 5 years!
Just think – an all electric economy in 30 years. Starting with all-electric cars. Light duty vehicles on electric alone would save us $700,000,000,000 PER YEAR just in money we send to the middle east (a portion of which funds terrorism)
The tax rate on the wealthy was 90% + at that time, but we paid of f WWII and also started the Interstate Highway System. We definitely need to become enery self-sufficient. If it takes a tax, so be it. We haven't reaped much as a country by letting the corporate world run things with their big bonuses and salaries.
You are my favorite HuffPost blogger! Thank you for keeping us all up-to-date on what's happening with the most important political issue of our time.
Excellent post. Factual, significant and inspiring!
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