Green is the recent black – for elegant ecologists and eco-intellectuals, that is.
But the green movement also has the potential – in the form of the climate and energy bill – to be even more divisive than the health care debate.
On the one hand, we have environmental activists who live, breathe, dress and eat organically. The other side, which has major political implications for the 2010 midterm elections, is a bit more complex to define.
In the case of cap-and-trade (slang for climate and energy bill), who are the enemies – the miners? Factory workers? Farmers? These constituencies are much harder to complain about, and they represent many voters who can be alienated.
In June, after months of complex backroom negotiations, eight Republicans and 211 Democrats voted for a 1,200-page bill that both sides say will transform the country’s economic and industrial landscape.
President Barack Obama reaffirmed his determination to address the country’s climate change commitments at the United Nations last week, but he neglected to say that the climate change bill is stalled in the Senate.
Democrats might try to apply the “big business” mantra in their arguments for the bill, but it’s not Wall Street or K Street (Washington’s lobbyist corridor) or insurance companies that they’re dealing with. This is the heart of America, companies like General Motors and the coal companies that built cities built by rock-solid Democrats.
This is another laudable way for Democrats to further divide their party between elites and pragmatists.
Health care reform and caps and trade are two very essential issues, but the proposals are politically flawed, a consequence of the need to take into account the politics and vested interests of the status quo.
And energy makes health care look like a kids’ business.
A basic thing – a direct carbon tax – would be the fairest way to deal with this problem. It has as much chance of flying as a lead balloon, especially since Republicans have adopted an ideology that says we have no obligation to pay for anything, and Democrats have one that says there is a seemingly endless supply of the super-rich waiting to be soaked up.
While health care reform has generated concern and intensity on both sides across the country, cap and trade is even more divisive because it picks winners and losers.
The main losers are states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Virginia, with Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan being damn close to losing.
The bill’s winners come primarily from the New York, New England and Pacific Northwest areas.
Many House members who voted for the bill in coal and oil states, as well as the agricultural and industrial Midwest, waved their hands at the policy promises.
As the bill now heads to the Senate, members such as Jay Rockefeller and Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Bob Casey and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Jim Webb of Virginia, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas are too scorching a seat – especially Lincoln, who faces a complex re-election next year.
Senators should take the long view to see the bigger picture. However, if trade and commerce is restricted, they may vote with a short-term parochial view for their own political gain.
And that could prevent the Senate from getting 60 votes.
