Power for the People

I read a great article today - Power for the People: Energy For the 99 Percent by Kate Gordon on the blog ClimateProgress.  It's definitely worth taking a few minutes to read.  The article lays out the two versions of our future that we have to decide between.  One version is the 'business-as-usual' option, where we continue to rely on fossil fuels and the corporations who provide those fuels.  These corporations are the most profitable companies in the world's history -- in just the first nine months of 2011, they made $101 billion in PROFITS.  Too bad that's not enough for them:

"Today Washington politicians publicly bicker over renewable energy credit programs that will only cost taxpayers $2.5 billion while the oil-and-gas industry quietly pulls in$7 billion in annual subsidies. But even that is not enough for Big Oil. These companies are now lobbying hard for even more federal government support, for even more of the public’s waters and lands to be opened up for drilling rigs or pipelines, and for even fewer health and safety standards to govern those projects."

Climate change doesn't care about corporate profits.  We can't just pay off the laws of physics to delay the intensification of global warming.  Instead, we need to opt for a cleaner, more just, and more sustainable future now, before our world becomes unrecognizable and unable to support us.  It needs to look something like this:

"Picture an America where at least half of our electricity comes from renewable sources such as wind, solar, wave, and geothermal. Sound impossible? It’s not. Other countries, especially in Europe, are already on track to get there.  Germany has set a goal of 45 percent renewable energy by 2030 and Denmark is hoping to be completely fossil-fuel free by then.

In this America the air and water are clean. The oceans and lakes are healthy enough to support a range of uses, from a vibrant commercial fishing industry, to family trips to the beach in summer, to offshore wind production that powers our economic growth. Our most precious public lands are protected from mining and drilling but remain open for recreation and tourism, which alone create 388,000 jobs on Interior Department lands and 224,000 jobs on Forest Service lands."

The most important point about these two futures is that they are being decided right now.  The House of Representatives is trying to vilify the EPA and strip it of its power to regulate pretty much anything.  The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act are vastly popular among the public, and yet the majority of the Republicans in the House are trying to undermine our safety to save a few bucks for their political campaign donors.  The approval of the Keystone XL pipeline is another huge game changer in the trajectory our future will take.  Over 12,000 people protested the pipeline at the White House on Sunday.  If you haven't looked into this issue much, please do so here.

Civic action will be necessary if we are to overcome the powerful, well-funded reach of the largest corporations to ever exist.  We need to counteract their selfish, profit-driven interests with the biggest people power movement to ever exist.  Get involved, stay informed, let your elected officials know where you stand, and help actively choose which future you want.

  

Again, Supreme Court defers to EPA

On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously blocked the case of American Electric Power Co. et al. v. Connecticut et al., ruling that the group of states that brought the lawsuit (California, Connecticut, Iowa, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) cannot ask the courts to force power companies to cut greenhouse gas emissions.  That authority belongs to the EPA under the Clean Air Act, as determined by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts et al. vs EPA on April 2, 2007.  

The EPA is planning to release these regulations by May 2012, but is facing immense pressure not to do so from Democrats representing coal and oil states as well as from virtually every Republican.  State governments and environmental groups are pushing for regulation of greenhouse gases from every possible angle, and aren't having much success.  Having lost the push for Congressional action in 2009, and having already waited on EPA regulations for the four years since the 2007 Supreme Court ruling, they were appealing to the judicial branch to force immediate action.  Having this case thrown out means that those pushing for regulations will have to keep waiting, as the ruling on Monday further reinforces the 2007 decision that the court won't intervene when a federal law already exists that mandates regulation of greenhouse gases by the EPA. 

The maddening thing about this is the gridlock -- every year of inaction will push our world closer and closer to the tipping points of uncontrollable climate change.  The judicial branch is deferring to the EPA, the EPA was waiting on a climate bill from Congress, and Congress is being controlled by special interests in the oil industry who want to maintain the status quo and, therefore, their power.  The Obama administration is under attack because its EPA is attempting to exercise the very authority reinforced twice now by the Supreme Court.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich), the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (which oversees the Dept. of Energy), stated in a Washington Post op-ed that EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions is an "unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs."  His co-author, Tim Phillips, is the president of Americans for Prosperity -- the front group for the infamous Koch brothers (Koch Industries is a major player in the business of refining and distributing petroleum and natural gas).  Does it bother anyone else that the Chairman of the ECC is presenting his opinions on the role of the EPA and the future of energy along with the president of a group that would benefit immensely from a lack of greenhouse gas regulations?  

This is no coincidence.  In 2010 alone, Upton received $20,000 in contributions from Koch employees.  Before becoming Chairman, Upton was known as a moderate Republican who in 2009 said "we need to reduce emissions."  This is in obvious opposition to his statement in the aforementioned op-ed that regulations are unnecessary because "this presumes that carbon is a problem in need of regulation. We are not convinced."  Oh, really?  What happened in 18 months to change your mind?  Perhaps $20,000?  

Until we can get the special interest money out of government, we won't be able to unlock the gridlock.  Campaign finance reform:  our last best hope.