The fireworks of fear
Those who do nothing, attacking those who do something
The fireworks of fear
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
There will be fireworks over the Fourth of July, and not just in the sky. The GOP attack dogs plan to bare their teeth and bark with fervor at the swing-district Democratic House members who one week ago supported passage of the historic measure that slashes global warming emissions. Fourteen lucky Democrats will be able to see and hear themselves portrayed, in TV and radio ads, as job-killers who voted to drive up energy costs for the average American.
The Republicans are gleefully convinced that these House Democrats have irreparably damaged themselves by voting for the landmark climate and energy bill - which aims to cut greenhouse gases, wean America from foreign oil, create millions of clean-energy jobs, and require utilities to get more electricity from alternative sources. Indeed, the Republicans are planning to wield those swing Democratic votes as effective weaponry in the 2010 House races; hence their decision to seed the ground now, by launching attack ads 17 months in advance of the actual elections.
The GOP attacks are replete with slippery statistics, the kind intended to scare the bejeezus out of people. It's yawningly predictable that the Republicans have put up ads claiming that the global warming bill will wind up costing the typical middle-class family an extra $1,870 a year in hiked energy bills - a fanciful figure concocted by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank and repeated in an editorial by the conservative Washington Times - whereas the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office actually pegs the average household increase at roughly...$175 by the year 2020.
(Back in May, Republican House leaders were claiming an energy bill hike of $3,100 a year; they supposedly got this number from a Massachussetts Institute of Technology study, but the MIT authors promptly condemned the GOP's math as "simplistic and misleading." Republicans, by now citing the Heritage stat, appear to have modified their hyperbole a bit. On the other hand, even the Heritage stat is deemed so bogus that a Virginia TV station is refusing to air the GOP ad this weekend.)
Nevertheless, these Republican attacks could destabilize their intended targets - many of whom are Democratic freshmen who got themselves elected last November in traditionally Republican-leaning districts. Those voters might well swallow those scare stats; the No party in the past has proven itself quite adept at harnessing fear for political gain.
So, nothing new there. Actually, my intent today is to make a broader point about the GOP's intellectual bankruptcy on issues concerning energy and the environment.
For the past eight years, as our longstanding dependence on foreign oil mounted and as scientific documentation about man-made global warming reached critical mass, the Republicans did virtually nothing to address those pressing concerns. As late as 2006, President Bush still wouldn't even acknowledge that global warming was a crisis heavily perpetuated by human beings.
On June 27 of that year, he told reporters that, with respect to global warming, "there is a debate over whether it's man-made or naturally caused." Actually, by that point in time, the "debate" he cited was taking place only with the alternate-reality spheres of the Republican right.
In the real world, where science was actually a respected discipline in 2006, there was no such "debate" anymore. On one side of the ledger, you had Bush and the Republican congressional majorities that marched to his recalcitrant tune. On the other side of the ledger, you had a consensus about man's role. I'm talking about, for instance, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Sciences (in conjunction with its counterparts in Britain, China, Germany, and Japan), the American Geophysical Union, the American Meterological Society, the National Climactic Data Center, 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers...and Bush's own Climate Change Science Program.
By that point, even GOP message-meister Frank Luntz had thrown in the towel. Luntz used to tell Republicans to play up that "debate" angle, but that year he went on TV and said, "It's now 2006. Now I think most people would conclude that there is global warming taking place, and that the behavior of humans are affecting the climate."
The global warming bill passed by the House last week is a rickety Rube Goldberg contraption that faces an uncertain future in the Senate. But no such reform measure has ever gotten this far, it preserves the core goals of transforming America's energy priorities, and, most importantly, it stands in marked contrast to what the Republicans did on this issue when they held power. Which is to say, they did squat.
Actually, they did worse than squat. They actively obstructed the rule of law. This is the crucial context for the attacks they are launching today; having done zip in the past, now they want to politically punish those who at least are trying to address the future.
Here's how bad it was: Back in 2003, the Bush team signaled that it intended to do nothing about curbing greenhouse gas emissions from new cars, insisting that (a) the Environmental Protection Agency (which it had successfully emasculated) lacked the authority to curb greenhouse gas emissions, because the 1970 law creating the EPA supposedly failed to specify carbon dioxide as a pollutant; and (b) even if the EPA did have such authority, there was too much “scientific uncertainty” (there it is again!) about the causes and effects of global warming.
But on April 2, 2007, the U. S. Supreme Court shredded the Bush arguments. It ruled that the administration had ample authority to take on global warming, via EPA regulatory efforts specifically aimed at car emissions. The court wrote that Bush's lawyers had offered “no reasoned explanation for its refusal” to act, especially since the 1970 Clean Air Act defines air pollutant in the broadest possible terms, as any physical or chemical “substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.” As the court also pointed out, the act specified that threats to climate and weather were to be viewed as issues worthy of EPA regulatory scrutiny. The act also specified, in Section 202, that the EPA shall regulate car tailpipe emissions of any “air pollutant” that “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”
Lastly, the court majority also cited the scientific consensus that U.S. car emissions directly contribute to global warming. Bottom line: Even without lifting a finger to push a clean energy reform bill on Capitol Hill, the Bush team was free to at least compel the EPA to curb new-car emissions.
And the response from the Bush people? Nothing. They put out the word that the high court ruling was "complex," and that it would tough to set an EPA timetable for cutting emissions. They simply ran out the clock until Bush left town.
This is the record of inaction that - fortunately for the Republicans - cannot be encapsulated in a 30-second ad. For years they did nothing to address a burgeoning national problem, yet now, on the holiday weekend, they want to politicize the votes of those who at least have tried to do something. Makes you feel downright patriotic, doesn't it?
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I'm off next Monday, the 6th. Back here on Tuesday.
Jim R- Robert Samuelson's column in the Washington posts states that only 1.5% of our electricity is generated through oil and gas. His point is that all the windmills in the world will do nothing for our oil and gas dependence.- liberal- It becomes political when those who reach different scientific conclusions have their character besmerched or worse yet lose their job. Such as the case of a scientist who was recently fired from the EPA. What you are doing is claiming it is settled science of the land when in fact there are far too many with imppecable credentials who do not suscribe to man made warming theories. We just don't want spend trillions and have people lose jobs of something that is anything but settled science. And quite frankly considering our latest jobs number I would say we focus on the real crisis instead of the contrived crisis. Now go out and enjoy the 79 degree July weather we are having.
- Smike, "Furthermore only 1.5% of our electricity comes from oil and gas. All the wind and solar in the world will not do a darn thing for our dependence on oil."I don't know what point Samuelson was making but his numbers are off. The U.S on average generates 20+% of its electricity using oil and gas. Your own Garden State averages over 50%gas generation. that's based on the reffed site as well as my dealing with PSE&G Several of my employers sites in NJ run $400,000/month in electric. (and that's at half the rate that you and I pay!)We are heavily invested in solar because the initial high cost has only a 7 year payback and it can cut 30% off of that $400K. Conservation is a very limited option - we have a business to run. The Cap and Trade issue - hot button that it is, is still up in the air. Deregulation is expected to cause artes to jump dramatically and will open the market to "energy managers" like Enron (yesterday's post) who have already learned how to manipulate the supply and cook the books. ....."I find that most people don't take the time to inform themselves on these issues." I think you're right.— JimR
- OOPS again.. Here's the site. http://www.eia.doe.gov/fuelelectric.html— JimR
- Jim R- I am not opposed to Solar and Wind power. But I think it is naive to think we rid ourselves off of dependence on oil and gas to power our cars. Although Honda does make a nice hydrogen fuel cell car but it is only available in Southern Calif. Everyone would be on board with alternative energy if it was cheaper. Cheaper and pollutes less would satisfy everyone but allow the free market to work.
- First some housecleaning....I believe it was JimR who said yesterday that unemployment as a lagging indicator is economics 101. Take a look at what was posted on the Dollars & Sense blog..."In the upcoming issue of D&S, John Miller points out that this time, the job losses struck first, so much so that the NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research, the official recession-dater) abandoned the standard metric (two consecutive quarters of falling GDP) and instead dated the recession to December 2007 based on the pace of job losses. In other words, unemployment is suddenly a leading indicator."— tom - wilmington, de
- Polman is hilarious. In the CBO cost estimates, they show allowances costing $28 for the 5.056 billion tons of CO2 in the cap in 2020. Take $28 and multiply it by 5.056 Billion tons and you get $141.568 Billion, not the $91.4 Billion estimated by the CBO, so that is one problem. Second problem, the CBO estimates allowance costs (revenues to the government) of $119.7, $129.7, $136, $145.6 and $152.9 (all in BILLIONS) from 2015 to 2019. So in their analysis they show costs (revenue to the gov't) dropping to $91.4 Billion? If he were a serious journalists, DP would have known that before quoting from the CBO report....but then again, maybe he does know it but just chooses to ignore it.— tom - wilmington, de
- Let's also see how, if it is going to cost more in carbon allowances to both produce and refine oil, it will make us less dependent on foreign oil. So, should Valero refine more of its own oil here in the US, where it will cost billions in carbon allowances, or refine it overseas and import the gasoline, not having to worry about those pesky carbon offsets. I can see all those jobs being lost now.— tom - wilmington, de
- Did anybody see where the Los Angelas mayor has stated the his city will have no coal generated electricity (now pegged at 40%) by the year 2020? He also stated that this will naturally cause electricity rates to skyrocket. He said that in his inaugural speech...why not, I wonder, say it before the election?— tom - wilmington, de
- Something else Polman omitted from the CBO report...."“The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap,” the report said in a footnote. “The reduction in GDP would also include indirect general equilibrium effects, such as changes in the labor supply resulting from reductions in real wages and potential reductions in the productivity of capital and labor.” So the figure adopted by the CBO and Polman does not take into account any other costs.— tom - wilmington, de
- OK before I take in some July 4 festivities. Tom I was responding to a specific and somewhat sarcastic referrence to the 'cliche' about lagging indicators. It was either Eco 101 or 132 - I only had two Eco classes. I'll buy your explanation that it has now changed. You are a numbers guy more than I. For Tom and Smike (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623140359766167.html) Valero Oil is using a wind farm for supplemental power at a Texas refinery. 10 year payback, 40+% savings on utility power (at a much lower rate than we pay in these parts) They view it as a win/win/win situation. Just think of the possibilities around here.— JimR
- Lastly, before I go outside to throw the football around with my sons, causing our respiration to increase, causing more exhaling and carbon emissions, Polman fails to mention that by 2020, emissions are only being cut (according to the bill) by 17%. What is the cost after 2020, when the bill calls for emissons cut by 83%? As to whether this is settled science or not, it is only settled because Gore refuses to debate the matter, as he has shown consistently over the years. This is far from settled science.— tom - wilmington, de
Comment removed.- Tom/SMike: Per the conversation regarding unemployment as a "lag" or "lead" indicator of the economy --- it is a lag only in the sense that it occurs after other things have happened --- again, typically six to nine months later. It has nothing to do with how truly vital it is to our economy. You guys love to point to Obama being responsible for the high level of unemployment we now face. The moves he has (& has not made) may very well lead to (even) higher unemployment, but you can't prove how much yet (if any). Example: You own a company that loses a big account. You spend time fighting to get the business back, then spend time trying to get new business. You begin to trim expenses, but if you are ultimately not successful, THEN you eliminate some jobs. The lead indicator is the lost account. The lag indicator is the lost jobs. Both hurt the economy. The larger the company, the longer a period of time there is between lead & lag indicators. Obama certainly is responsible for many of the inconsistent "lead" indicators, but unemployment is not one of them.— yobill626
- Now taking bets on how long it takes for Sarah Palin to accept a job at FoxNews.......no way she runs for President.— p-diddy
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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