While the Earth Burns

Score 1 for the Party of ‘No.’

The losers this time, however, aren’t just Democrats or President Obama. By maintaining a united front against a climate bill with teeth — or even a single tooth — the GOP has prevailed over future generations. In one sense, the GOP has achieved a paradoxical victory: they’ve won a party-line, non-partisan battle. Paying the price for the GOP-enforced inaction on climate and energy policy will be Republicans and Democrats, Independents and Tea- Partiers, liberals and conservatives. Natural disasters don’t give a hoot about partisan politics.

Little has changed in the 104 years since Ambrose Bierce penned his definition of the Senate: “A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.“

On second thought, perhaps the last word does need to be updated. To “felonies.”

The Solar Energy Industries Association released the following statement this afternoon, in response to the Senate climate bill, the American Power Act:

While we’re still analyzing the 987-page bill, we’re pleased with the effort to place a price on carbon, an essential step in stopping global warming and stimulating greater deployment of renewable energy sources like solar. But to really make a difference, we need to ensure that any revenue from this legislation is targeted directly at deploying renewable energy like solar – an energy source that 92 percent of the Americans say they want greater use of, now.

We also believe that for any climate legislation to succeed, it must embrace one of solar’s key strengths – its diverse applications. Distributed generation solar, like photovoltaics and solar water heating, as well as utility-scale solar power are both crucial to fighting climate change and should be rewarded for generating clean energy. These proven technologies have been working for decades and serve as one of the reliable ways to address global warming.

Lastly, we hope to see protection for the voluntary renewables market. Under previous climate bills, no effort on the parts of homeowners and businesses to generate their own carbon-free energy was recognized in lowering the ‘cap.’ We hope that this major issue has been addressed and individuals have been empowered to have a real impact on the amount of pollution released into our environment.

Senators Kerry and Lieberman deserve a great deal of credit for pushing ahead with these vitally important issues. We should not pass up this opportunity to move America’s clean energy economy forward. A well-structured bill that deploys more renewable energy will create stable, well-paying jobs, help achieve energy security, and fight global warming. We look forward to working with Congress and the Obama Administration to get the right policies passed into law.

Not exactly a full-throated endorsement of a bill that makes major concessions to the nuclear power, coal and oil industries. Clearly, though, SEIA understands both the political realities that necessitate some compromise and the giant step the bill makes by placing a price on carbon.

Oh, yes, and the need to “work with Congress…to get the right policies passed…” [My emphasis]

Update: Full American Power Act bill is now available (click here).

The Senate climate change bill — aka, The American Power Act of 2010 — has landed. Or at least a 21-page draft outline of the bill has. Solar, wind and other sources of renewable energy are hardly mentioned in the bill. Nuclear power is the clear favorite here. In fact, the bill starts with Subtitle A: nuclear power, comprised of three major parts and sixteen sections. The topics cover new funding for the nuclear industry, ways to make licensing and permitting new plants quicker and easier, and more tax breaks for the industry.

You’ll find renewable energy sources lumped together and then combined with energy efficiency — at Subtitle D. Even with all of these industries cobbled together, Subtitle D doesn’t merit separate parts and is dealt with in four short sections with little substance to them. You won’t even find the words wind, solar or bio-fuel anywhere in the 21 pages.

Still, it’s hard to extrapolate from an outline to a full-fledged bill, let alone to an enacted law. Read the document above and see where you think it’s heading.

More:

[An internal summary of the summary of the bill was transcribed by the good folks at the Wonk Room.]

A “pen and pad” background briefing by congressional staff for reporters is now underway.

The climate bill’s formal “unveiling” is scheduled for a 1:30 PM (EDT) press conference today.

…but ducks the hard questions: Where’s the data that shows he conducted a creditable poll on climate change? My guess is he’s still playing the “parlor games” that caused the rift with the National Council on Public Polls. You can read his comment, and my reply at True/Slant, here.

Spinning, spinning, spun.

Maybe it’s the illusion of getting the real inside information, the dope that only a double agent can provide, that has led green groups to buy into Frank Luntz’s con-game. This is the guy, after all, who advised the Bush administration to magnify scientific disagreements about climate change as a way to avoid actually doing something about the real problem. Never mind that sowing doubt had been the propaganda tool of choice for industries like Big Tobacco going back decades.

Which headline do you think will sell more papers?

Word Guru Shapes White House Policy

or:

Man States Obvious

Sadly, some green groups are buying Luntz’s snake oil. And the media misses the real story — that Luntz has been twice admonished by professional polling organizations for sub-standard (and in one case, unethical) work. Not too surprising when you realize that Luntz’s study on communicating about climate change was commissioned by the News Corporation, parent company of Fox News.

Read the sordid details of Luntz’s scam here.

With all eco-eyes focused on the action (or, more properly, inaction) on a climate bill, other critical components of a clean energy economy can be overlooked. That was the case on Monday as the dominant news story concerned speculation about whether Republican members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Public Works would show up for Tuesday’s climate bill markup session (they didn’t).

While that tragicomedy played out, a forum at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House went largely unnoticed. The “Clean Energy Economy Forum” was hosted by the Department of the Interior, which manages one-fifth of all land in the nation (and 1.7 billion acres on the outer continental shelf). Given the sheer immensity of these lands, DOI policies play an enormous role in GHG emissions and in shaping what our nation’s energy future will look like.

DOI Sec. Salazar signing order to address climate change

The forum was only the latest of DOI Secretary Ken Salazar’s efforts to make DOI policies conform to the realities of climate change and the parallel need to develop renewable sources of energy.

In his second month in office (March), Salazar issued an order making renewable energy development a top DOI priority.

More recently, in mid-September, Salazar signed a secretarial order establishing a framework to coordinate climate change efforts throughout the vast DOI bureaucracy. Policy, data gathering and public education will all be coordinated by the newly formed Climate Change Response Council.

Order 3289 calls for the DOI to:

• Adapt its water management strategies to address the possibility of shrinking water supplies and more frequent and extended droughts.
• Conserve and manage fish and wildlife resources.
• Protect cultural resources that may be affected by climate change.
• Address the impacts of climate change on American Indians and Alaska Natives.
• Provide state-of-the-art science to understand and adapt to climate change.
• Quantify carbon stored in forests, wetlands and grasslands.
• Identify areas where CO2 can be safely stored underground.
• Identify ways to reduce the DOI carbon footprint

Stakeholders from 39 states were scheduled to attend Monday’s event, according to a DOI press release sent on October 30th.

Moral of the story

Not to put too fine a point on it, but…the DOI’s actions are a reminder that the Legislative branch is only one of three on our governmental tree. The Executive can flex its muscles in other ways if Congress isn’t up to the task. The EPA — another part of the Executive — has already signaled it’s willingness to regulate CO2 under provisions of the Clean Air Act. Perhaps EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will step up to the plate with a regulatory solution to climate change if a legislative one fails.

In the end, we do need a comprehensive climate change bill from Congress. But Republican obstructionism combined with the Democratic failure to govern as a majority party on the most important issue of they day, may force President Obama to bravely go where no Congress has gone before — or appears to be going anytime soon, for that matter. That would require bold action, measures carrying significant political risks. But isn’t that the platform on which Obama was elected in the first place?

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We’ve requested from DOI a list of forum speakers and of major stakeholder groups in attendance, but haven’t received it yet. We’ll post it here as an update when it arrives.

Video of the forum is broken into three parts. Part one is above and the two last segments are below.

Part 2.

Part 3.