What do they need with a planet?
Will someone please hide Bush's veto pen? There has got to be someone in the White House who cares about kids. A staffer perhaps. Maybe Laura? Not only is President Bush threatening to veto S-CHIP, the CHILDREN'S healthcare plan recently passed by the Senate with bipartisan support, but he's going after the planet next with a veto threat to the Energy Bill.
JK wrote the book on the environment, and Bush is determined to burn it.
OK, VP Gore wrote a little something as well. As you may know, both men (and JK's co-author) have been leading on environmental issues for a very long time now. And Congress, with some notable exceptions *cough* Inhofe *cough*, is starting to listen and act on climate change.
You may recall that the Senate passed a little piece of legislation in June called the Energy Bill. The House passed similar legislation last week.
Neither perfect, but both a damn sight better than anything we've seen in, oh, decades. So, the bills go to conference committee sometime after the Congress returns in September and a final bill is drafted for President Bush to very likely veto.
JK spoke to the National Press Club in June, prior to the Energy Bill vote in the Senate.
Finally, we get some decent legislation to address the dangers of climate change. The House bill has a Renewable Energy Standard and the Senate bill a significant increase in CAFE standards, and combined, if they do it right, we'll get a pretty comprehensive Energy bill.
Or we would. Except George Bush has threatened a veto. He's going to veto an ENERGY BILL that would do something significant to help save the planet so his oil buddies can make a few extra bucks at the expense of the future of America's children.
Yep. Despite the fact that Bush says he recognizes the science of global warming, and even though he and Sec. Rice are hosting a conference in September that purports to address the issue (but is more likely an attempt to derail efforts to actually DO SOMETHING), he will likely veto the Energy Bill at the same time he tries to pull the wool over the eyes of the world with his bogus conference where he's expected to call for voluntary restrictions, not mandatory caps.
And what's sad is that he thinks he can get away with it. The media will do a couple stories on how great it is that the President is having this big conference on climate change and maybe some stuff on what Condi was wearing and isn't it just great how the administration is addressing environmental issues
except ...
No one is buying it. So the corporate media need not bother trying to sell us a bill of goods this time. It's not going to work.
ELLIOT DIRINGER, DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIES AT PEW CENTER ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE:."Binding limits on emissions is something the administration has resisted from the start. If this is just to carry on with a voluntary approach, then it could be worse than useless."
BRENT DORSEY, DIRECTOR OF ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM AT ENTERGY CORP, THE SECOND-LARGEST U.S. NUCLEAR OPERATOR:
"The plan from the Bush administration is still a voluntary plan. We think a mandatory plan is absolutely necessary."
JOHN COEQUYT, ENERGY POLICY ANALYST FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP GREENPEACE:
"We're definitely concerned that the meetings in Washington are going to be used to erode support for the process that's strengthening at the U.N. ... It's definitely possible that they're going to try to roll this out as an alternative. I think that that would be a disaster."
So, when you tell folks what you did with your summer vacation, wouldn't it be great to be able to say that you helped save the planet? Call, write or e-mail the White House, and demand that Bush sign the Energy Bill.
Comments (3)
Posted by Faith | August 10, 2007 7:54 AM
Oops. Sorry. I forgot to add my great thanks to C-SPAN for covering this speech.
C-Span rocks!
http://www.c-span.org
Posted by Jessica Szabo | August 10, 2007 11:07 AM
Faith, this is an excellent post. That's exactly what I meant in my comment under the "Music" post. We'll hear on the news that President Bush is doing great work on the environment just because he's having the conference, whether it results in positive action on climate change or not.
I think blogs like this one really help people not to buy it, to see that what's reported on a lot of news broadcasts isn't necessarily accurate.
Posted by Kerryvisionary | August 10, 2007 1:54 PM
Nice post, Faith, and great speech by JK. Every day we hear more news of weather disasters all over the world that can be directly traced to climate change. Ignoring that is insane. A new, scary weather environment, ripe for global disaster, is one of the greatest challenges our children will have to face in the future.