Enviromental Defense Fund Urges Kirk To "Stand Up For Common Sense"
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) released an ad today pressuring GOP Rep. Mark Kirk to support the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation (the spot will appear on cable stations in the region). It notes that while Kirk "has had a record of safeguarding our ...
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) released an ad today pressuring GOP Rep. Mark Kirk to support the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation (the spot will appear on cable stations in the region). It notes that while Kirk "has had a record of safeguarding our environment ... some extreme voices are pressuring Kirk to block clean energy legislation, even thought it would jump start our economy and cut oil imports." Watch it:
Back in March, the North Shore Republican said he thought "this may not be the time" to tackle climate change in Congress. But as Grist's David Jenkins reported last month, he and several other environmentally-minded GOP members came back to the negotiating table:
It is not obvious in the press, but there are actually quite a few Republicans in Congress who take climate change seriously, and whose input could help produce a balanced climate bill that is capable of garnering more bipartisan support. [...]
Rep. Mary Bono Mack (CA-45), the lone Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee to vote in favor of the bill on Thursday, recently joined Mike Castle (DE), Vernon Ehlers (MI-3), Mark Kirk (IL-10), and John McHugh (NY-23) to outline a set of climate principles and encouraged House leaders to find common ground on the issue.
Unfortunately, these thoughtful, stewardship-minded Republicans and others like them are being hamstrung on one side by GOP leaders who are intent on poisoning the debate, and on the other, by Democrats who have been reluctant to give them a seat at the negotiating table.
EDF isn't the only advocacy organization pressuring Kirk on the Waxman-Markey bill. The Environmental Law and Policy Center also started an online action campaign last week that aims "to help him make the right choice."
Comments
Unfortunately, W-M is a failed attempt to curb the worst fo global warming. A vote for W-M is a vote for status quo in emissions for at least a decade. It's an upside down world.
At http://energycommerce.house.gov the 5/21/09 markup transcript,
Line 2309 Chairman Waxman: But if this overall bill becomes law, the business decisions that will be made will be to build new power plants burning coal. Now, that ought to be good news for those from the coal areas and for the utilities that want to use coal in the future.
Or Boucher, the tool of the utilities Edison Electric Institute:
Line 2399 Boucher: First of all, we have obtained the provision of 90 percent of the emission allowances to electric utilities without charge, and that was truly a major step forward that helps to cushion any effect on electricity rates because of the process by which emission allowances are allocated. Secondly, we have obtained 2 billion tons of offsets that will enable the emitting entities to obtain their reductions while continuing to use coal. Utilities will be able to continue their existing fuel mix by taking their reductions off site by investing in agriculture, by investing in forestry and through other steps, 2 billion tons of offsets available every year for that purpose. The target for emission reductions by the year 2020 has been reduced from the original target that was set in the draft that Mr. Waxman circulated down to a target of 17 percent. I continue to have some concerns about that target. I believe a lower number actually is appropriate, and under the agreement that we have achieved, I intend to work at future stages of this process in order to obtain improvement and I believe that is potentially possible.
We also have bonus allowances for carbon capture and sequestration deployment by utilities at the time that these technologies become available and those bonus allowances are valued at somewhere between $75 and $100 billion, depending upon what the then-current value of emission allowances happens to be. We have embedded within the legislation our separate bill that assures the flow of $1 billion annually in research, development, and demonstration funding to the development of carbon capture and sequestration technologies and the Electric Power Research Institute tells us that with that level of assured funding, we can count on available, affordable and reliable carbon capture and sequestration technologies being made available by the year 2020.
Yesterday or so Quigley was praised for calling out "clean coal" and now Kirk is to be a hero for voting for a clean coal bil. Chalk that up to ill politics.
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