Blue Dog Congressional Dems Backing Away From Climate Plan, With Assist From GOP

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON -- Nancy Pelosi keeps a small statue of a coal miner on her desk. Miners "need not fear" that Democrats would ever tolerate a climate-change bill that abandoned the coal industry, the Speaker of the House of Representatives told The Washington Post. "You can't." Ms. Pelosi's admission highlights the growing resistance from within the Democratic Party to the Obama administration's efforts to forge a cap-and-trade system to fight global warming.

"There seems to be a disregard, an indifference on the two coasts to manufacturing," Ohio Senator Sharrod Brown, a Democrat, said recently, referring to liberal Democrats who tend to cluster along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. "But manufacturing is the ticket to the middle class for a large part of the country. We've got to focus our attention on it when it comes to taxes, trade, energy and other issues."

EDIT

In a little-noticed vote last week, the Senate moved to prohibit the passage of any climate-change legislation by a simple 50-vote majority. Instead, the bill will require the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Twenty-six Democratic senators joined with their Republicans counterparts to pass the ruling.

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee called it "the biggest vote of the year." It served as a warning shot to the administration. So-called Blue Dog Democrats from the heartland, who are more fiscally conservative than their coastal counterparts, and Democrats in states with coal mines or coal-powered power plants, are prepared to join with Republicans to veto the administration's efforts to slow global warming, if they feel those efforts go too far.

EDIT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090410.IBBITSON10ART2244/TPStory/Environment

[robinlynne]

1. Didn't they (coal mining companies) pay for the Dem COnvention, along with aT&T?

[villager]

2. The environment routinely gets sold out by Democrats, too...

mostly, they talk a better game about those issues than Republicans do...

Sandbags along the coast, anyone...?

[NickB79]

3. Did anyone really believe politicians would act to curtail global warming?

:rofl:

The scale of what we have to do to save ourselves is so beyond what most Americans believe that it isn't even funny anymore. And when the American populace realizes just how bad climate change is becoming, and how much worse it could become, it will be too late to implement meaningful changes.

[hatrack]

4. Just remember this simple rule . . .

Americans will do whatever it takes to protect the environment, provided it doesn't cost ANY money or inconvenience them in ANY WAY AT ALL.

[excess_3]

8. most people are not willing to sign a blank check

how about some guarantees, I would suggest...


1. there will be no unjust enrichment
2. price increases due to this legislation is
limited to, xx for electricity, xx for gasoline, natural gas, etc.
3. no money will move out of state or out of country
4. the law 'sunsets' in five years
5. (some others I can't think of just now.)

[hatrack]

10. They've already signed a blank check

They've already bought all that a destabilized climate has to offer them - think of it as involuntary participation in a really shitty timeshare contract.

Included in the deal - special bonus items that haven't been delivered yet. Some of them may be nice for some participants, but for most the Secret Surprise Package will contain largely unpleasant surprises.

Further payments - counter-payments might be a better way of putting it - may help blunt the worst features of the enforced timeshare vacation. They may help provide a full fridge, ability to drive to the beach and reliable staffing & maintenance. However, since those who have money will be expected to underwrite the counter-payments, while those without money almost certainly will not pay (what would they use for money?), it's likely there's going to be a fair amount of . . . squabbling among the resort's guests.

[excess_3]

11. two bads don't make a good

>since those who have money will be expected to underwrite the counter-payments<

totally incorrect

Big Carbon has arranged things such that the poor
have to pay the rich

the do-nothings and deadbeats are already standing in line at
the climate bail-out window.

tax on jet fuel for international flight...
zero, not a penny.
for domestic (US) flight, four cents a gallon.
not a typo, --> 4 <-- cents


send your money to Senator Lugar's farm
http://lugar.senate.gov/newsletter/2007/05/feature.html

[XemaSab]

5. Hey Nancy:

You were sent to the House to look out for the best interests of your constituents. I promise you there are NO coal miners in San Francisco. On the other hand, parts of the city WOULD be under water with virtually any sea-level-rise scenario.

:banghead:

[IrateCitizen]

12. Your post raises an important question.

You said, "You were sent to the House to look out for the best interests of your constituents."

Who are there constituents?

When it costs over $1 million to run for a House seat, and significantly greater fundraising prowess to gain broad support within one of the two parties, I think instances like this demonstrate that Nancy Pelosi and many other "progressives" and "liberals" undoubtedly look out for the best interests of their constituents -- if by constituents you mean the big-money donors who bankroll them and the relationships-of-power that party leaders depend upon to maintain their power.

The "rabble" -- you and me -- don't figure into that as "constituents".

[phantom power]

6. Perhaps...

when the flattening of the Appalachians has been completed, and the coal miners are starving to death, along with most of everybody else, in the new climate-decimated biosphere, Nancy can get on her knees and beg that small coal miner statue for forgiveness.

[quidam56]

7. Appalachia is turning into a toxic waste dump third world America

We can't stand anymore of the progress and prosperity thanks to Mountaintop Removal. They are bombing, blasting and bulldozing Appalachia right into 3rd world America. http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=138 Fake Noise talking heads sure isn't helping any...

[pscot]

9. Seems like the President isn't pushing very hard

on climate change. Neither the House nor the Senate budget resolutions haave Cap'n trade provisions in them, and the Pres has been very quiet about it.

[Nihil]

13. Hey ho, it's only politics - not anything serious ...

> In a little-noticed vote last week, the Senate moved to prohibit the
> passage of any climate-change legislation by a simple 50-vote majority.
> Instead, the bill will require the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

> Twenty-six Democratic senators joined with their Republicans counterparts
> to pass the ruling.

> Democrats ... are prepared to join with Republicans to veto
> the administration's efforts to slow global warming, if they
> feel those efforts go too far.

I wonder what definition of the word "Traitor" they acknowledge?