Earth Equity News

The R Word. Posted by David Roberts, Gristmill, August 20, 2008. "There were two remarkable aspects of the National Clean Energy Summit [held in Las Vegas August 18-19]: Federal policy recommendations from the varied speakers… were largely in sync... [and] nobody so much as mentioned the rather striking fact that this policy consensus has yielded zero actual policies at the federal level… What explains [that]?... The Republican Party… Here's a simple test: if Republicans vanished from the Congress and the executive branch, what would [happen]? Well, [Dems] would pass renewable tax credits, cap-and-trade, electricity grid improvements, efficiency standards… They've tried to do one or more of these things over a dozen times since they regained [the] majority… [but] those bills have been blocked by Republicans, mainly in the Senate via a historically high number of filibusters. That's the situation. But people at conferences like this not only fail to get angry about it or rail against it ... they fail to say it. Instead, there's this constant invocation of bipartisanship… Maybe it shouldn't be [a partisan issue], but it is… and it seems to me that figuring out a way… over [the partisan] roadblock is part and parcel of creating the clean energy future [because] pretending it's not there isn't working… The media calls it 'partisan squabbling'… Leading progressive[s]… like Bill Clinton… praise McCain… The public can't get a clear sense of who the good guys and bad guys are on clean energy, so they end up cynical… If it was out in the open that Republicans are purposefully blocking anything except drilling -- and quite deliberately avoiding any compromise… public sentiment might shift. But as it is now, Republican culpability is hidden behind a haze of misleading media coverage and soothing nostrums about bipartisanship from Dems… The U.S. doesn't need any more policy summits… [We need] more political summits, where people can come together and talk about practical strategies for getting legislation through Congress. That's the main barrier, and unlike the policy stuff, nobody seems to know how to tackle it."