Red, Green, and Blue

In what some view as a harbinger of the difficult political task of relicensing the aging stock of 1970s era nuclear reactors nationwide, Vermont’s state Senate exercised its uniquely-held state relicensing authority to reject a plan to keep the Vermont Yankee plant open beyond 2012.

The vote came at a time of controversy for the plant itself, after recent concerns about tritium leaks have gone public and as activists, protestors and lawmakers expressed concerns over the plant’s safety. By contrast, the vote came just one week after President Obama announced the first $8 billion in an expected $50 billion of government-guaranteed loans for new nuclear reactors, a plan the White House said was essential to help meet America’s growing energy needs from sources that do not emit carbon dioxide.

The confluence of events has made the question of nuclear power’s future a hot political and media item throughout the northeast in recent weeks. The Boston Globe has been the battle ground for some partisans, as a nuclear advocacy group’s comments on the leaks were met with return fire in letters to the editor citing a history of deception and misleading comments as justifying continued concerns about nuclear safety.

The issue continues to divide the environmental movement, with some groups seeming to resign themselves to grudging acceptance of the president’s plan and the fact that nuclear power may be here to stay. The concession continues a trend that began with a considerable watering down of energy legislation in the House and the introduction of a proposed Senate bill that encourages expanded offshore drilling and investment in clean coal. Still, with $11 billion in 2009’s stimulus package directed to clean tech, some green groups and Democrats on the Hill were willing to make the compromise.

Others, however, continue to vehemently oppose the idea of expanding nulcear power (or even relicensing the existing stock) on several fronts: safety of plant operation, national security, proliferation risk, unsolved waste disposal issues, and now, the financial gamble of guaranteeing loans to an industry that has a history of cost overruns and project delays.

The financial battle will be one that President Obama will have to weigh in deciding how hard to push his loan proposal. After all, if he is in for $50 billion in new stock, does not that commit the White House to the battles over relicensure by the Nuclear Regulatory Council? It would be a difficult messaging move to propose $50 billion in taxpayer-funded loans and then not weigh in on free relicensure of existing nuclear capacity. Still, the political players on his staff, with a wary eye toward 2010’s mid-terms and the 2012 election will surely be loathe to get too involved in what are destined to be nasty, emotional, local political fights over relicensure.

Of course, all renewable power sources in play today (unless you include large-scale hydro, which most greens and the federal energy bills do not) require heavy subsidy to meet parity with conventional power. All proposals at the federal level (and all existing state RPS, feed-in tariffs, etc.) put the burden of subsidy on ratepayers with some kind of add-on to the utility bill.

The difference is that nuclear requires those subsidies up front, for the capital-intensive build out of new plants, as opposed to on the back end where subsidies equalize the cost of capturing sun, wind or water on projects that have already been developed by entrepreneurs, investors and utilities. Customers (also know as taxpayers) are going to pay the freight one way or the other. But, with capital loans, the risk of default is dramatically increased.

Still, even as opponents stake claim to a new line of attack on the finance side, safety concerns remain nuclear’s number one bugaboo. The tritium leaks at Vermont Yankee do not help, and with relicensures looming, more stories about more of those kinds of problems will inevitably emerge. It also does not help that while few Americans actually know the story of or understand the meaning of Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, those phrases have become bywords for a very vivid kind of catastrophic nuclear fallout.

Nuclear advocates are trying to change that perception. It will be a hard-won fight. If they can continue to attract hard-bitten greens with credibility in the movement that makes their most persuasive line of argument on safety a possibility. The argument goes that while there may be a small risk of a catastrophic meltdown event, that rationale assumes failure of the plant, its staff and regulatory oversight. While such an event would surely have tragic results, it would be mostly-local.

By contrast, climate science is nearing consensus on the fact that the use of GHG-emitting fuels like coal is globally cataclysmic in its very essence, when used properly as designed and planned. So, why should America write off any future for nuclear given the relatively small risk of major local damage, when the country is currently committed to a track that ensures worldwide harm? Another Globe letter layed out the framework for this variation of the Bush-Cheney “one-percent doctrine.”

It is an interesting argument to make. It is a tough one to sell. After all, these plants have to sit somewhere, and it will be difficult to find a local community where parents are willing to subject thier own childre to that risk – however small – in the name of the greater good. But, just like in the Revolution, the first shots in a major battle have come from New England, this time from the Green Mountain State. And, again, the repercussions will resonate all the way to Washington. But, who will emerge as the heroes? Only history will tell.

Don’t look now, but true to the cliche, the Baby New Year that Greens first met with hope (maybe even “HOPE”) nearly a year ago is now a haggard old man shuffling for the exit. Looking back to January 2009, the baby looks increasingly childish for having harbored a genuine – if now decidedly naive – belief that “this is the year, and Copenhagen is the place” for global action on climate change.

Yesterday’s announced agreement should not have surprised any moderately-close observer, neither should its vagueness nor its weakness. COP-15 was doomed to failure months ago when it became clear that the US could not even get a serious comprehensive climate bill through to the president, in spite of liberal supermajorities in both chambers and a White House believed to have “soft power” to spare.

Still, fallout is difficult to assess prospectively. But, now that the thing is actually done, it is time to tally the political score. What does failure in Copenhagen mean for US diplomacy in the context of China’s ascendancy and in the overall context of geopolitics? How will the agreement that Obama spearheaded play out in domestic politics for the rest of this session and into the mid-terms? Here are a few possibilities.

Geopolitics

Carbon is not the Issue – Cash Is

Climategate cannot claim much credit for derailing Copenhagen, the cake was already baked. But, the controversy over climate change science is sure to rage on in 2010, in part reinvigorated by the emails from East Anglia. Still, even if that fight does escalate, it will be too meager to derail the push for “environmental justice” that came into full flower in Copenhagen. Developing nations may no bones about their need – indeed, their expectation – for the West to cough up cash. Further, in part driven by domestic political pressure to “act,” developed nations like the US are committed to ponying up.

End of an Era?

With the question of dollars at the center of the table, the world is preparing to transition from the geopolitical “post-9/11″ epoch into a new one: Eco Cold War. If developing countries are to be taken at their word, the effects of climate change promise to be as problematic for security and human rights as they are in pure climate change terms. Whether those come to pass in fact is irrelevant, with no solid global agreement on climate change, regional agreements will proliferate and help to forge significant 21st century partnerships that will a) supplant the pacts that have become outdated since their creation in the post-WWII scrum, and b) fill vacuums in significant regions that were left unstable – in part – by the Cold War machinations of receding empires.

Domestic

Obama’s Shrinking Tent

Watch closely as reaction to the Copenhagen agreement plays out to see which US green groups wish to stay in the White House’s good graces. Establishment greens like Greenpeace were already angry about Waxman-Markey, and some grassroots groups like Friends of the Earth have already come out with disapproval for the two-and-a-half page pact. NRDC has stayed by his side through thick and thin this year, along with some others, but try as the White House might, this is going to be tough to spin. Obama simply cannot beat the drum for an entire year touting the existential significance of meaningful climate action and then try to reel it back when efforts fail. It won’t fly, and if they try to keep making it soar, it will only attenuate the damage.

Big Trouble in 2010’s Mid-Terms

Without a doubt, President Obama and the Democrats would have liked for something more to have come from Copenhagen – and not just philosophically, but also politically. With this agreement, they may have struck the most discordant note possible. The base is not pleased with the results on the global stage, but the deal might still be enough for the GOP to make some bones with moderates around the country who are looking at over 10% unemployment and starting to wonder just why Obama and Congressional Dems seem so concerned with a few degrees Centigrade over the next century. Brown Dogs are duking it out over the Senate climate bill and you have to wonder whether – as elections come ever closer – that bill ever even makes it to the floor now. With the Democratic house badly-divided, it could mean big trouble for Dems and a big mid-term swing in both chambers.

Climategate’s Encore

Climategate is not going to stop the global momentum for action. Too much is at stake. And, yes, I’m talking dollars. But, if the GOP does regain some footing in 2010, and the global trend toward conservatism (as evidenced in the last round of European elections) continues, this conference and this agreement could be leveraged to motivate an offensive against climate action. Until now, skeptics have been content to continue with business-as-usual and allow fringers and talking heads to fight the “junk science” fight. But, Greens have seen the first signs of more proactive cohesion from the opposition in 2009’s climate fights. Conservatives are preparing the first concerted backlash – as a movement – against energy and environmental reform.

Waxman-Markey, the Senate climate fight and Copenhagen all failed in 2009, due to the continuing legacy of ignorance, inertia and in-fighting that have marked the past thirty years of the fitful progress for the green movement. But, if they thought 2009 was a tough year, watch what happens now that the other side is actually spoiling for a fight.

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In the late-night aftermath of a too-close-for-comfort 220-215 vote, House Democrat leaders and the White House hailed the passage of a health care bill that would cover more than 35 million uninsured Americans while introducing a limited public option and adding restrictions on discrimination against insurance applicants with preexisting conditions. But, not everyone – not the entire Democratic caucus or even some of its most active interest groups – praised the bill, which included an amendment that codifies the so-called “Hyde Amendment,” and would restrict the use of federal funds for abortion coverage.

The parallels to the House’s Waxman-Markey climate bill – which passed in June in the face of opposition from green stalwarts and Democratic political players like Greenpeace – are significant, and it begs the question: are progressives on board with all of this “progress?” The vote that one House Dem took on the bill is already becoming an issue in the Massachusetts special Senate election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat. The issue is proving to be the first real policy distinction among four candidates for the seat, and Democrats facing re-elction nationwide in 2010 can now expect Stupak-Pitts and abortion to become a potential anti-incumbency lever.

Progress or Politics?

Presumably, a year ago, as progressives basked in the victory-with-a-mandate of the nation’s first truly progressive president since FDR, they would not have settled for a health care bill that the chairwoman of the House Pro-Choice Caucus called “the biggest restriction of a woman’s right to choose that will be considered on the House floor in my career.” Likewise, they could not have anticipated that they would be left to cheer for a climate bill that not only includes huge subsidies for coal companies and nuclear plants and expansion of offshore drilling, but also does not auction carbon credits under its cap-and-trade program, instead handing the credits as allowances to utilities and other major carbon emitters.

Call it what you like – genuine progress, an important Trojan Horse, political spin – but walking back from hardcore progressive initiatives might have real political consequences as 2010’s mid-term elections approach.

The Known Enemy – GOP Sharpening Attacks and Piling Up Ammo

Of course, the GOP will be taking dead aim at Dems across the country, branding them as government expansionists who have increased the federal debt and mismanaged the financial crisis through free-spending programs like Cash for Clunkers. But, the parrallels to the the 2003 BTU Tax vote also cannot be underestimated.

The House vote on that bill – which put Dems in the lower chamber out there on a somewhat controversial issue in spite of the fact that the Senate never came close to taking a similar vote, and therefore the measure had no chance of becoming law – is often given partial credit for driving the Republican Revolution of 1994. Like ‘94, there is not much evidence that the Senate will be able to pass – or perhaps even vote or move out of committee – a bill that approaches many of the issues that the House rules allowed Speaker Pelosi to put on the floor and take to a vote. Facing high Congressional disapproval already, House Dems are already tacking on the challenges of a still-flagging economy that just breached 10% unemployment, a figure that promises to continue rising right through 2010’s election season. Now they must also defend their vote for this health care bill against GOP challengers. The politics will play out, but there is the chance that the razor’s edge health care vote violated one of the first rules of Washington: never take an unnecessary vote.

A New Enemy Within? Greens, Gay Rights, Pro-Choicers and Peaceniks

More than in 1994 though, Democrats in Congress might be facing backlash from both sides as 2010 advances. The climate bill’s “giveaways” alone would not have been enough to energize hardcore progressives to unseat sitting Democrats, but add in the escalation in Afghanistan; a lack of progress on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell;” and, now the health care vote and its abortion amendment and Democratic leaders may have done just enough to instigate a mutiny that unites the four most active and important political power players within the party: greens, gay rights groups, anti-war advocates and pro-choice women’s interests.

In other words, it is not inconceivable that by splitting the baby (turning John Kerry’s famous phrase on its head, many Dems from deep blue states voted against the anti-abortion amendment before they voted for the bill), Democrats who were already vulnerable have made themselves beatable.

Speaking on CNN after Dems lost the Governors’ mansions in Virginia and New Jersey, but prior to passage of the House bill, Democratic political guru James Carville noted that Democrats might “lose both chambers” if they could not pass a healthy care bill in this session. The father of one of this generation’s most famous political aphorisms (“its the economy, stupid”) may have proven to be a soothsayer yet again. Although, I’m not sure even Carville saw this coming.

Massachusetts is the Test Race – Are Democrats Divided?

If the Stupak-Pitts amendment is an issue that plays with the progressives and gives some daylight for potential challenges from the left side of the party, Massachusetts will be an early – if imperfect – example. Can Congressman Capuano – who voted against the amendment and for the bill – survive an attack on that vote from state Attorney General Martha Coakley?

One startling aspect of the burgeoning Democrat in-fighting is that it was only this past weekend, amid the ouster of the Republican candidate in the special New York 23rd Congressional election (at the urging of establishment GOPers like Palin and Pawlenty) that observers were asking whether there was a fatal schism on the right. Now the question may be turning on its head.

What should not be surprising to anyone is that as major issues in Massachusetts politics and national health care play out, the legacy of Ted Kennedy continues to loom large.

Flickr photo used under a Creative Commons license from BarackObama.com

Olympia Snowe’s support of the finance committee draft puts health care back in play, but without a public option. The Graham-Kerry compromise climate bill would start to cap carbon, but also allow coal to cash in. Can Obama’s progressive base settle for incrementalism? If Arriana Huffington speaks for the movement, HOPE may not hold out in the face of so little CHANGE during the 2010 mid-terms. </p>

After so much bad news on health care, the White House and Senate Dems are clinging to Senator Olympia Snowe’s support of the Finance Committee draft bill. While the bill does deliver on some of the key provisions the White House wanted – including insurance company restrictions on applicants with pre-existing medical conditions – it does not include a public option. What’s more, with CBO costing the “bipartisan” bill out somewhere north of $800 billion, there is little doubt that as amendments are made and more scrutiny is placed on estimated Medicare savings, a $1 trillion price tag is going to put Snowe’s support at risk (to say of nothing of some already-reluctant Democrats.

Similarly, the climate bill strategy that Senators John Kerry and Lindsey Graham proposed in their New York Times Op-Ed may make passage more likely as some pundits have argued. But, it cannot please progressives to see so many giveaways already – before the Senate has even begun trading horses in earnest. The Graham/Kerry compromise promises to make America “the Saudi Arabia of clean coal,” polishes the drills for more domestic drilling, and lifts restrictions to allow for faster proliferation of new nuclear plants. Not exactly the kind of thing that will warm hearts among hardcore conservationists.

But, a health care bill that restricts companies from discriminating against pre-existing conditions and a cap-and-trade regime (even one with a price collar and a lot of allowances) mean something to the progressive base, right? Not necessarily.

Arianna Huffington, a thought leader of the progressive movement, lambasted Obama and the incremental approach over the weekend on This Week and again on NPR’s On Point. Huffington’s argument is that “No Child Left Behind” is a cautionary tale that the Obama White House should study well. In her reckoning, the Act made no real progress in improving American education, but it gave the Washington establishment cover to say, “we dealt with education,” sapping momentum for any real and renewed action on the issue in the Obama administration.

Could the same happen to Obama’s health care and climate agendas if the Dems take pennies on the dollar for all of the political capital POTUS has invested? And will their base settle for the incrementalist approach anyway? He might have been able to argue the “old college try” if hopes had not been so high, promises so lofty, and the stage seemingly so well set (including the sort-of supermajority in the Senate). Instead, with little more than promises on progressive hot-buttons like Iraq and Afghan deescalation, Gitmo closings, repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” health care and climate change, patience among progressives is wearing thin.

The political calculation is tricky. The White House – and Dems facing fights in the 2010 mid-terms – might be better to take outright losses on these watered-down bills, hold their line, and position the GOP as obstructionists in order to reenergize the progressive base.

Photo credit (CC) JD Lasica, socialmedia.biz

The news that President Barack Obama had been selected as the Norwegian Nobel committee’s 2009 peace prize winner was met with a near-unanimous non-partisan international response: “Huh?” Even in the President’s own acceptance speech, the chord struck was not so much disagreement as shock.

It is good to see that there are still some surprises in the world, and – in particular – in politics. Still, truly shocking political events – and reactions to them – are rare. Careful observers can see most Hill happenings coming from miles down the road and months ahead of schedule. We know some things will happen already, still our political and media culture waits out the inevitable before allowing events to capture headlines, ride roughshod over public opinion and exert themselves on political discourse.

Borrowing a page from Maureen Dowd’s “imaginings” playbook, this trip to 2010 explains how Washington’s worst-kept secrets will effect the climate change bill by collaring the President and Congressional Dems, and threatening our collective energy future.

FEBRUARY 10, 2010
WASHINGTON, DC

REACTION MIXED AS SENATE CLIMATE BILL GOES TO FLOOR
Critics Assail Compromises While Some Laud Any Action in Time of Political Turmoil

The Senate will likely take up floor debate of its climate bill this week after the proposed legislation was released from committee with considerable compromise put in place to help win votes from reluctant Senators who are facing election-year political pressure and mounting disappointing news about the economy and the war in Afghanistan.

The White House and Congressional Democratic leaders had hoped to have a climate change bill in place before the global climate change conference held in Copenhagen last December. Instead, American negotiators went to the United Nations conference with only the promise of continued domestic effort on greenhouse gas reduction, and observers felt that the Copenhagen conference’s result was all too similar to the Kyoto agreement it was supposed to build upon. While the world left Denmark with a resolution that features very strong aspirational emissions targets, there remains no enforcement mechanism in place, and it is unlikely that the world’s leading emitters will ratify any of the agreement’s most restrictive standards.

The Copenhagen failure took much of the momentum away from domestic climate change legislation, and action on energy and environmental reform has been further hampered as time gets closer to 2010’s mid-term elections and bad news on the economy mounts. Consistent with moribund projections, holiday sales figures were down for a second consecutive year, and the markets took a tumble as cautious investors reacted to retailers’ figures.

The tumble followed earlier market reaction to early January’s fourth quarter earnings announcements, which showed that in spite of stirring signs of economic strength, real recovery is still far from solidified.

The combination of slow sales and low earnings had brought markets back to a point where many observers felt valuation had leveled off from last fall’s slight recovery bubble. But, as final confirmation of double-digit unemployment became reality with last week’s announcement of jobless figures, the market dropped further.

All of the disappointing economic news made it impossible to get a climate change bill to the floor of the Senate without strong trade protections put in place for the domestic industries that are the most energy-intensive.

The protections spurred objections from global trading partners and concerns from observers worldwide that embedding carbon leakage tariff adjustments into the legislation amounts to protectionism and may further stunt economic recovery. Still, Senate negotiators had to include the provisions to win support from Midwestern Democrats who want both to claim progressive credentials by voting for a climate bill, but also needed any such bill to deliver not only protections – but also dollars – for heavy-emitting industries that employ their constituents.

The bill is expected to be debated next week after hearings on the President’s dismissal of General Stanley McChrystal are complete. In late 2009, Obama dismissed McChrystal from his post as commanding general in Afghanistan amid a very public disagreement about troop levels and strategy. The President has faced immense criticism from all sides after dismissing McChrystal. Republicans have criticized him for putting his own “yes man” in charge of executing the plan that McChrystal concocted because he subsequently adopted the recommendation to elevate troop levels. From his left, Obama has faced accusations that escalation is the wrong course and is a repudiation of the “call to action” that he received with his Nobel Peace Prize award last October.

Pundits had expected the Senate climb to be more difficult even than the House’s trials in passing the Waxman-Markey climate bill in early summer last year. Senate rules, election-year pressures and the fact that the House bill relied on heavy support from very populous blue states to win passage all spelled trouble for the Senate bill. Also, Obama’s own clout on the Hill was heavily damaged after last year’s failure to pass a strong health care bill.

Trade protections, heavy dilution of greenhouse has emissions targets, watered-down fuel and building energy efficiency standards, and huge cash handouts to utilities and the oil, gas and coal industries are just some of the elements of the final Senate bill that are drawing fire. As they did for the much-stronger Waxman-Markey bill, leading green groups like Greenpeace are opposing the Senate bill. Others insist that while the bill is imperfect, an incremental approach to energy and environmental legislation may be the best way to proceed.

Whatever the result, it now seems highly unlikely that the House and Senate could possibly agree on a bill in conference committee during this session, and any climate change legislation will likely have to wait until after mid-term elections. Of course, by that time, President Obama will be ramping up his own re-election bid and with hurt feelings among many of the constituencies that supported him in 2008 (gay rights groups and anti-war activists chief among them), Obama may choose to take on some more mainstream initiatives and leave climate change to the side for a while

Take it for what it is: my imagination. Except that we already know that most of this WILL certainly happen. What we don’t know yet, is how we’ll react.

India’s Union Budget for financial year 2009-10 did not contain any provision for expenditure in promoting clean energy and mitigating adverse effects of climate change. The Indian Finance minister failed to provide any concrete figures that his government would spend in increasing clean energy systems and moving to efficient and cleaner industrial processes including power generation.

Last year the Indian Prime Minister unveiled a National Action Plan on Climate Change just before the crucial G8 Summit in Japan which outlined eight priorities of the Indian government to increase the use of renewable energy. The action plan did not, however, include how the government intends to achieve the goals it had set up. Green groups had been waiting for the government to announce strategy to achieve these goals but the finance minister did not allocate any funds for these goals. Read the rest of this entry »

Host Sean Daily talks with environmental politics blogger Tim Hurst, editor of RedGreenandBlue.org and publisher of ecopolitology.org, about his writing and the role of new and social media in environmental politics and activism.

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While solar energy is often touted as a way to avoid fossil fuels, California Senator Dianne Feinstein believes some public lands solar projects in the Mojave Desert need to be reexamined for their potential environmental impact.

Feinstein wrote to the Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar to request that 12 proposed solar plans for the desert lands be scrapped, citing potential habitat destruction. The complaint applies to a small fraction of the 165 pending wind and solar energy leases on 600,000 acres of former railroad land.

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Given that overall US consumer spending in the fourth quarter of 2008 fell by its largest margin in almost 30 years, one has to wonder how the market for ‘green products’ will be impacted by this recession. Leading up to the economic downturn the momentum of the green economy was chugging along splendidly. The consumer demand for environmentally-friendly products was at an all-time high, even if the products were priced at a premium over standard options.

A recent survey by the consumer research firm Mintel explored the green buying preferences of Americans during this recession. The results should serve as a wake-up call to producers and retailers of green products. Read the rest of this entry »

When Does an Interest Start Being “Special”?

After years of railing against special interests, I find myself presented with a quandary.  Special interests are lining up behind the Smart Grid technology I love and, in doing so, risk saddling this cool program with the baggage intrinsic to special interests.

Even as lawmakers spent yesterday grilling everyone from members of the DOE to representatives from Google about Smart Grids, the groundwork for a Smart Grid might already have been assumed.  And, no, I’m not talking power lines and sub stations, I’m talking political donations.

The Current System is… Old.  Very Old

It’s a fact: our current system for transporting, producing and storing energy is ancient and inefficient.  Plus, as has been well recorded here on Red Green and Blue, Smart Grid technology theoretically does amazing things for how we use power as a nation and maybe even how we think about consumption.  By using less energy during peak hours, and even allowing personal rigs to feed back into the electricity grid with ease, the technology refocuses the country on conservation.

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