Coral Davenport has been investigating what’s behind the change as the energy and environment correspondent for The National Journal. FRONTLINE spoke with her about the dramatic reversal she’s seen in Congress, and what political options are still on the table for those pushing for action on climate change.
In 2008, Obama campaigned pretty actively around the issue of climate change, proposing a cap-and-trade system that would put a ceiling on carbon dioxide emissions. What’s behind his quieter stance this election?
… In this campaign, the public perception has shifted so much. The Republican Party has shifted so far to the right that it has denied the science at all.
Another reason is the biggest issue in this campaign: the economy and jobs. Republicans have sold climate regulation as something that will hurt jobs, that it will probably increase the price of fossil fuels. So within the Obama campaign there’s a sense that [this is a losing battle].
[Obama] campaigned on this aggressive, detailed [cap-and-trade] plan, and they torpedoed it. It passed the House, just barely, and died in the Senate. And in the midterm elections, Republicans campaigned on cap-and-trade to the point where it became politically toxic. …
Part of Obama’s campaign promise was to pass cap-and-trade and use that money for the government to invest heavily in clean energy research; $150 billion was his campaign pledge.
What ended up happening was that in 2009, soon after Obama was elected, Congress passed the stimulus, with $50 billion … to invest in clean energy. The first big solar company to get funds was Solyndra, which later went bankrupt. And so this campaign promise of clean energy spending became politically toxic, it became something [used] to attack the idea of clean energy spending.
Democrats who had supported cap-and-trade retreated. It became fodder for campaign ads. It was portrayed as an energy tax that would hurt the economy. And then a lot of Democrats who supported cap-and-trade ending up losing their jobs [in the midterm elections].
So if cap-and-trade is no longer an option, what options does Obama have to address climate change if he’s re-elected?
He doesn’t have a lot of options. He cannot go back to cap-and-trade; that has no chance of passing.
One thing he could and probably will do is use the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] to roll out new rules limiting coal-fired power plants that would require coal plants to rein in their pollution of C02 emissions.
It’s very unpopular. He’d probably not want to talk about this on the campaign trail because it could lead to the closure of coal plants in Ohio, Virginia, Colorado and Pennsylvania — all swing states. …
What are the chances Congress would take up the issue, and in what way?
Cap-and-trade is dead, but there is one policy that does have some bipartisan support. It’s kind of a long shot, but it’s a carbon tax. Economists say the most effective way to address the issue is to put a tax on greenhouse emissions. Republicans like the idea in exchange for an end to other taxes they don’t like.
In the next year, Congress is expected to take up a sweeping tax code reform to clean up the tax code and help the federal deficit. So a lot of old tax policies will be on the table.
So if they frame this as not an environmental issue, but as a good tax policy, as part of the mix, as good fiscal policy, that could be one opening in the next year or so that would be tremendous environmental policy that economists say would be the most effective.
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Alternatives to Cap and Trade are a greenhouse gas emissions tax or direct regulation. Americans the a strange lot, they would rather pay more to the big oil companies and their Arab friends than an extra 10 cents per gallon to go to developing clean energy so their grandchildren might have a future.
Someday people will look back and wonder why the government didn’t do more to combat climate change. They will have this documentary as evidence to use against organizations like Heartland, Koch Industries and Exxon. Kooks like Singer and Monckton will probably be dead by then. The district attorneys can still go after their estates.
Reblogged this on Climate Force.
I was very disappointed that Climate Denial Crock of the Week was not the featured element of the Frontline program. Peter, you do a much better job than the Frontline pussyfoots at debunking the devious profit-at-any-cost crowd.
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Last week in a audio segment at WNYC’s On The Media there was a segment featuring Katherine Hall Jamieson discussing propaganda techniques in the media. I was reminded of this when Frontline chose to “imprint” the Ted Kaczinski/Unibomber image with the odious Heartland message at the beginning of the show. Their repetition of the image was chilling.
Why? Ms. Jamieson explained that in post-ad campaign focus groups when pollsters and psychologists went to debunk rotten and lying ads with a verbal overdub over the lying images of the ads, that the result was counter-intuitive. The subjects of the study actually became more saturated with the lies presented visually than they were dis-abused of the lies by the verbal overdub. It was a curious result bu verifiable.
So was Frontline guilty of inappropriateness with the repeated insertion of the offensive Unibomber/Enviro image? Or was something more devious going on?
Keep in mind that billions of dollars are spent annually by government, corporations and the persuasion industry on how to manipulate the public at a subconscious level. Perhaps we’ve just seen an example of the fruits of their labors.
Generally when you reach out to the parts of the public who are in collective denial about the issue, you need to show both sides of the coin.
And with that this Frontline episode done a great job. This is possible the most unbiased addition to the “climate debate” i know of.
There remain several important questions. For instance who is DonorsTrust or DonorsCapital? Why is it that these people get away for so long with attacking government work – “without out evidence”, which do work with is integral to our long term planing?
It becomes clear in this movie that there is indeed a conspiracy and financial interests involved. But exactly the opposite what is claimed. It is not the Scientist who are wrong doing, it is the concerted affords by a handful of people with to much money and who are wrong on climate change.
At the end John Hockenberry ask the denier from CEI what is if he is wrong. And he answers “Then i am sorry”. And that is by no means a justification for what they are doing to all of us, to the planet and for most to future generations.
One key in energy transitioning messaging is to show that clean economy has to offer more jobs than coal and with just a margin of the incentives for oil, gas and coal thrives in most parts of the world.
Another important factor is energy security which is projected to grow in a more decentralized energy infrastructure.
And on the bottom line, if we do not change the way we generate energy in our world, our civilization will fail in the future. The fossil-model we adapted is no longer compatible with our environment.
Re: “The fossil-model we adapted is no longer compatible with our environment.”
No kidding:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=79468
And yet the business as usual is proceeding in collective denial.
More on Climate messaging & Psychology here http://climatestate.com/climate-state-blog/videos/item/why-climate-and-psychology-2.html
To get an idea of just how much effect money and lobbying has on the American people and the political system, we just have to look at this BBC poll about what if the rest of the world could vote.
The results are staggering.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20008687
In betrayal, it is always the spouse that is last to find out. Time to wake up.
What? No comment about this from Omnologos? I wonder why not?
The program could have done a more thorough job tying Americans for Prosperity (AFP) with Koch Industries (they are in essence one and the same), AFP’s effect on the Tea Party and the AGW ‘debate’, and what Koch Industries has to gain or lose from changing our energy infrastructure. But it was great to see a program like that on national TV.
Unfortunately, as the link becomes more and more obvious to the public as a whole, the FF industry will simply move more and more to the Donors Trust model of funding.
A decent entry to the discussion is the film ‘The Billionaires’ Tea Party’ (can be found on Netflix), which I’m pretty sure is the film ‘(Astro)Turf Wars’ renamed:
http://www.astroturfwars.com/
And just to tilt at windmills one final time, the third party debate last night was the only debate this cycle that actually covered meaningful answers to our deep-rooted governmental problems:
Frontline did a better job than I thought they would do..I think PBS is in someways more dangerous than Fox…the Nature program shows all those beautiful creatures and never mentions the dangers humans/global warming have placed on them..so all the Liberals are lulled into mindlessness