http://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-17-is-bill-mckibben-right-to-be-angry-with-obama/Alas, despite the far-reaching powers people tend to ascribe to the U.S. presidency in general and Obama specifically, it seems to me the real culprit is — yes I’m going to say the same thing again, I’m boring! — the U.S. Senate.
Bill says Obama is using the Senate like Bush used China, as an excuse for delay. The analogy is apt insofar as China was out of Bush’s control and the Senate is out of Obama’s. But it’s inapt in that there’s plenty Bush could have done without China and he didn’t; there’s plenty Obama can do outside the Senate and he’s doing it. When it comes to matters under executive branch control, the progress over the last 10 months has been amazing—new fuel efficiency rules, new enforcement of efficiency standards, EPA moving forward on CO2 regulations, energy standards and goals for all federal departments, tons of green stimulus money, national retrofit programs, delay of mining and drilling permits, sustained bi- and multi-lateral international climate diplomacy ... the list goes on. Obama is doing what a president can do—more than any president has ever done.
If I can just interject here, this is the same thrashing Obama received by Joe Klein in Time magazine. That he was wrong to let Congress do its thing. But given the track record of Bill Clinton (who did the opposite and failed on both health care and climate change), I think this was the right tactic. I HOPE it works, but the idea that Obama from the executive branch could order the legislative branch by decree to make Congress pass something is laughable, and I am so tired of people saying that he can do this.
The difference between Clinton’s flamboyant rhetorical pushing and Obama’s relatively laid back style is this: Obama’s still has a chance to work. However frustrating it may be to activists who want bigger words, bolder promises, and faster action, the fact remains that the Dems are within reach of passing a health care reform bill and have at least laid out a path to passing a clean energy bill and ratifying a binding international climate treaty in 2010. It’s too early to deem Obama’s leadership a failure.
Yes: political realities can be changed. The kind of broad grassroots movement that Bill McKibben himself has been so instrumental in creating can shift the tectonic plates. But a crucial step in that process is to accurately identify what and who is blocking progress. It’s not Obama who deserves the ire of the 350 army. It’s Max Baucus. It’s Ben Nelson. It’s Jim Webb. It’s Evan Bayh. It’s the filibuster! These targets are harder to reach and in many ways less satisfying to battle, but they are the real locus of delay and inaction.
Robert links to another article he has written which is also excellent:
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-02-the-real-reason-the-climate-bill-is-going-to-suckThe real reason the climate bill is going to suck
...
What’s that dysfunction? It’s simple: a supermajority requirement coupled with an extreme, unified minority. Everything else—and I mean pretty much every lamentable feature of American politics —flows out of that. Rich Yeselson puts it in pungent terms: “We are living through the Californiafication of America—a country in which the combination of a determined minority and a procedural supermajority legislative requirement makes it impossible to rationally address public policy challenges.”
Yes, this is a discussion about congressional procedure, which conventional wisdom says will bore everyone. But it’s time you got un-bored, and quick, because nothing else you care about is going to improve until this does.
The stupormajority
Now that I have you all on the edge of your seats, read both articles. I am a big fan of David Roberts, both on Twitter and his articles, as they actually make sense!
Oh, one more excerpt from the end:
Want to know why Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and John Kerry (Mass.) can’t say enough adulatory things about coal and nuclear and offshore oil drilling? Want to know why billions in pollution allowance value are being dumped on the nation’s dirtiest utilities? Want to know why there are enough agricultural offsets in the bill to make every Big Ag exec rich and help every coal plant avoid the work of reducing emissions for 10 to 15 years? Want to know why a carbon tax would end up with all the same flaws? This is why.
Pick your crappy part of the bill. It’s there because Kerry and Boxer have to get 60 votes and Republicans won’t give them more than a tiny handful, so collecting votes means shoveling handouts to conservative Democrats in hock to the nation’s dirtiest industries.
Want a better bill? Imagine what Kerry and Boxer could put together if they could blow off Nelson and Rockefeller, Conrad and Bayh, Landrieu and Lincoln. Imagine if they only needed a majority, the way legislative bodies in other developed democracies are run; the way the Founding Fathers envisioned our democracy being run; the way common f*cking sense plainly tells us a democracy ought to be run.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
