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At the America’s Future Now conference, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins of Green for All made a strong and enthusiastic pitch for a comprehensive climate bill this summer. It was a persuasive and compelling speech, clearly done without the knowledge that Chuck Schumer basically completely undercut her this morning by ripping that climate bill apart:
Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) confirmed that Majority Leader Harry Reid will move an energy-only bill next month, based on a template authored by Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, and predicted that Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) will have a chance to offer their much farther-reaching climate change legislation as an amendment to the base package.
“Kerry has a proposal that has pretty broad support,” Schumer said. “He’s going, in my opinion, going to get a chance to offer it in the form of an amendment.”
OK, that’s the end of the climate bill right there. Kerry and Lieberman would need 60 votes to pass their amendment, in all likelihood. While it was unclear if they could get cloture for their weakened version of a cap and trade bill, there’s almost no chance they get it as an amendment.
So what we have left is an energy bill, and as I’ve said repeatedly, if it’s based on the Bingaman ACELA bill that passed the Natural Resources Committee last year, it’s basically worse than the status quo. More clean energy would be produced if we did nothing than if we passed that bill, according to independent studies. I could envision a clean energy and efficiency bill similar to what nearly passed the Senate in 2007 being worth it, but the Bingaman bill isn’t that.
Nobody can credibly call that bill, with some additions in response to the BP oil disaster, anything close to a “comprehensive clean energy solution.” It’s about as embarrassing as any major legislation that this Congress has tried to pass. I’ll wait for the details, but this is pretty bad.
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Schumer is a classic insider candyman – when he’s good he’s very good but when he’s bad, he’s among the worst there is.
IMNSVHO
Jeff is a putz. Crap. I’m calling his office.
They do seem intent on trying to outdo themselves, don’t they?
And I still just can’t believe this is a DEMOCRATIC Congress, with larger majorities in both houses than have been seen in a generation or two.
This Democratic Party ain’t the Democratic Party I used to wholeheartedly support. This Democratic Party ain’t getting my vote, my dollars, or my volunteer hours.
Assholes.
Once in a lifetime opportunity here to push through a super forward momentum clean energy bill with TONS of public support and….*crickets*…
WTF? No, really, I mean it. WTF??? We’ve missed every fricking opportunity we’ve had here. The new meme seems to be “it’s politics – nothing moves fast – everything passes inch by inch”. Bull! Tons of support, everyone wants it and nothing happens except to make things worse for us and better for the corporations.
We so desperately need a third party…
I’d settle for a second one.
I agree with OldFatGuy!
Schumer Spox:
Too late!
Ditto!
Oh yea inch by inch unless of course it lines the pockets of their pals and then it’s on a fast trac. All these Corp. stooges need to be tar and feathered and rode out of town on a rail.
Chuckie is as corrupt and slippery as they come.
Crack of the day!
They have all become like Bush. I remember when I first became literally incapable of listening to Bush, and I mean literally. I would turn it off, leave the room, whatever it took to get the sound out of my ears. Now, with maybe less than a handful of exceptions, I have to turn them off. My arm just reaches for the remote and poof.
It’s about all they want to do is pass “reform” with the “reform” being worse than the status quo, like with HIR.
Even I liked that one.
Obama calls the shots – not Schummer.
Another corporate welfare bill – called “energy” to get Gulf PR – is the Obama way. Just as public option was going to be the reason to cut that welfare check, a “climate” amendment” is the reason to go along with this welfare for corporations payment. And like public option’s success, climate will likewise not make it into the final bill. This game is getting old.
Carbon trading/carbon tax are veto’d by the corporations that control Obama, and natural gas that we actually have in abundance gets no support from Obama – not even Picken’s low hanging fruit of “use it for trucks and power plants” idea gets no purchase despite its billionaire advocate as current power companies prefer coal.
We get more nuke – little ones developed for warships will now power cities – rather than the modern safe designs that have been developed – by GE and overseas – over the last 30 years of no activity in nukes in the US. We don’t even get thorium development to replace U-232 and friends – we like bombs for peace I guess.
And green – bio/wind/storage plus transmission unification and improvement (the southern Ca production after all these years can still not get permits for transmission because of not in my backyard rules that kill it is a world without federal preemption of local rules) get nowhere.
OBAMA has even screwed the whales – he ran to the left of Hillary so when she went save the whales he spoke of stopping “all scientific killing for research” by Japan – and now this week is pushing for legalizing the whale killing – dropping the pretense of “scientific killing for research” in exchange for recording the DNA of the dead whale. We had a chance for a left of center president in Hillary – albeit a DLC person that did not hate corporations – but we got the con man.
This is the worst of all possible worlds, and the leadup to Obama’s “Nixon goes to China” moment after the mid-terms, when he guts Social Security as only a Democratic president could.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pierce-brosnan/mr-president-dont-give-wh_b_603706.html
A report on Obama’s kill the whales efforts
The pols that have been in office multiple terms have got to go. That’s the best chance we have. They have campaigns and lie to voters to get us to vote for them and then do the bidding of the corps. We need a huge “it’s time to retire” campaign for them. Forget the letter D or R after their name and vote for all new incumbants. What difference does it make, they don’t follow through on their promises any ways. We are still in Afghan and Iraq, Guantanimo is still open, no Public Option, the stock market is a glorified casino, our military budget is out of control and put us in the poor house, etc. And BO is serving scrub’s 3 term.
Lets see, Japan wanted our military base out, BO tried to move it to another spot and that didn’t work out and a couple of weeks ago they came to an agreement to leave it where it was, if I am not mistaken. And if any of you follow the “Whale Wars” stories on Animal Planet like my family does then maybe that is what BO gave Japan to get them to concede. They want to mess with good ole Captain Paul and the Sea Shepard crew, wow, what a mess.
I wanted to include http://animal.discovery.com/tv/whale-wars/
What do you know, another bill that doesn’t have everything Hamsher’s lemmings want and all of the usual responses to follow. This is just another great example of more impotent rage and tears from the toddlers of the left.