Environment Off The Table In 2008?

In 2000, George Bush made some meaningless mumbles about how we have to be "good stewards" of the earth, Al Gore got talked into downplaying his environmental credentials by some idiot consultants worried about him being called "Ozone Man," and in a debate between a future Nobel Prize winner and an oilman, the environment simply went away as a political issue.

Eight years later, the potential crisis of global climate change is even more pronounced, and Democratic voters are expecting their candidate to stand strong on this topic in the fall. Their likely opponent is mostly using the Bush strategy of making nice talk about the environment while planning on doing nothing about it. But the problem here is that, in the need to "get something done," Democrats in the Senate have pushed forward a flawed climate change bill that would be a giveaway to polluters, on the grounds that it's the only thing Bush would sign. And they went ahead and used McCain's toothless bill as the basis, leading to the leading candidates getting twisted up in knots.

McCain and Sen. Joseph Lieberman dusted off five-year old legislation to introduce last year’s Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, one of seven climate bills percolating in Congress (including two by Sen. Lieberman). The main provision: A national cap-and-trade scheme that would cover the power sectors, industry, commerce, and transportation. By slowly lowering the amount of greenhouse gasses those sectors could emit, McCain’s bill would reduce emissions by 65% by 2050. The bill also calls for more money for nuclear power and alternative-energy research [...]

One key part of Sen. McCain’s bill, like many other climate-change proposals now pending, is that he would allocate a big chunk of emissions permits to industry for free. They would have to buy in an auction some smaller portion of the permits. Europe did something similar when it started its emissions-trading scheme; permits were given away generously in 2005 and will be auctioned in 2013.

That’s what has Sen. Obama riled up. “I’ve been very specific about proposing 100 percent auctioning, which makes an enormous difference in terms of how effective it’s going to be,” Sen. Obama told Reuters. He added that he is in regular talks with former vice-president Gore and hopes to start work on climate-change policy as soon as he secures the nomination.

Meanwhile, it’s instructive to note who’s among the co-sponsors of the Lieberman-McCain climate bill of 2007: Sen. Barack Obama. Would President Obama veto legislation co-sponsored by Sen. Obama?

Hillary Clinton is a sponsor of this bill as well. They both got in bed with terrible legislation because it seemed like a good idea to get behind pending climate change legislation, but now it has the effect of blurring this issue for the general election. I know that their proposals bear no resemblance to McCain-Lieberman, but they were so afraid to not back the bill for cosmetic reasons that they've now lined up behind McCain. Slick move, everyone.

Now, the environmental community is starting to come around to the fact that McCain is all talk and no action on global warming and other crucial issues; last week's missed vote on a bill that would have included tax incentives for clean energy proved illustrative. But the traditional media isn't going to pay any attention as long as Obama and Clinton have their name of McCain's legislation. They need to announce that they'll vote against it.