As the Huffington Post reported, one of the first things the Democratic leadership did this week was to dump the Green New Deal.
Instead the “revived” committee on climate change will be headed by Rep Kathy Castor. The “six-term congresswoman dismissed calls to bar members who accept money from fossil fuel companies from serving on the committee, arguing it would violate free speech rights.”
If this sounds like something out of an old episode of Veep that’s because it is. Check out the “Green Jobs” task force, which was a running joke in Season One. When Julia Louis-Dreyfuss did it on HBO, it was funny. Now, it’s just sad.
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I’m just going to say, I don’t really trust the tone or level of information from the HuffPo’s reporters. Alexander Kaufman is another suspect one. I just don’t trust this take at all:
Cap and trade worked pretty darned well for the ozone layer and acid rain. I don’t care about the provenance of an idea if it works. We would be in a much preferable situation now, had Waxman-Markey passed. And you can talk about the “Democratic Party” — whatever that is — losing the thread on climate legislation in 2009-10, but the fact is that there was hardly any *activist* energy on the left. I know; I remember it well; I was there. The activists kinda went home after health care; climate change just didn’t capture their collective imagination.
Point is, I’d get some other perspectives than just HuffPo and some lefty voices on this. I’m a big fan of Ocasio-Cortez and it’s amazing the impact she’s having, even before taking her seat. But I also know that Pelosi was the reason cap-and-trade passed the House. I don’t see her as an enemy without more and stronger evidence. I’d rather strengthen AOC’s hand than weaken Pelosi.
It’s up to us to demand the Green New Deal and make it happen. Don’t ask what Pelosi or AOC are doing; ask yourself what you’re doing.
Gee, Charley, why not just tweet “fake news” and save yourself all that typing.? Are there any facts in dispute here?
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After his election in 1932, FDR met with labor leaders, many of them Socialists, they showed him plans that they wanted the new President to implement. Roosevelt told them: “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”
Pelosi and AOC will do what we want them to do, we just have to make them do it.
AOC has a lot of potential, and she’s demonstrated her ability to handle herself well. However, she’s still a freshman congresswoman, and Congress still operates on the seniority system. Coming up with Green New Deal doesn’t eliminate those realities.
Aside from the realities of Congress, this article actually quotes environmentalists who are happy with the choice of Castor. At issue, if the article can be believed, is that Castor took money from oil interests; therefore, she can’t be trusted. While this is of concern, it’s not necessarily the end of the world.
Probably the biggest misreading of the 2018 mid-terms is that progressives now have a mandate. Moderates could argue that they have a mandate as well. Progressive did well, and have more influence, but the more moderate wing of the party as represented by the New Democrats is almost as numerous as the Progressive Caucus.
http://bluemassgroup.com/2018/12/octavio-cortez-gets-it-in-the-back-from-nancy-pelosi/#comment-412942
I’m all for moderates–I just want the fossil fuel money kept away from the committee on climate change. There is considerable evidence that special interest money has an effect on legislation, wouldn’t you agree?
I would agree, though the effect is far more complicated than quid pro quo. I wouldn’t mind seeing Castor return the money.
I would also agree that this push by the younger and more progressive wing against corporate contributions is a good thing, and that going forward, it is something, at the very least, to criticize.
I’m not all for moderates, but they also occupy a large part of our big tent and America at large and may not be or be able to behave as progressives.
It is unclear how to understand this statement while taking seriously, for example, the continuing good regard for the Presidency of FDR… no stranger to money, himself. People who have money, or who take money, need not be of poor character. Those who would refuse oil money need not be, necessarily, of nobler character.
We are already giving these people immense power and influence. Either they will use it wisely or they will not. I don’t think, on the whole, this money or that money is what will tip them into the unwise use of their power in any given circumstance…
I agree. I fear that the relegation of cap-and-trade to not-invented-here status is one of a number of things that is going to challenge the Dem coalition over the next few years. “Keeping fossil fuel money away” seems more symbolic than pragmatic, and the evidence is zero that Pelosi is not one of the good guys here.
I also fear that we are in for a period in which the newly empowered left goes “my way or the highway” on things, and that anything short of that will be an excuse to deem Pelosi et al. as “no different than Trump” and send us down the Ralph Nader road to perdition again in 2020.
There will be disagreement. Democrats are a Big Tent party. Unlike the GOP, we are a coalition and have always been so.
The influence of the Left has increased, but it’s not dominant. The more moderate wing of the Party, if FiveThirtyEight is correct, is about as numerous and thus about as powerful as the left wing. There’s no reason to assume that they will be our equivalent of the Tea Party or Freedom Caucus or that they won’t be able to work with Pelosi.
I understand the disappointment, and I shouldn’t be too cavalier about dismissing it. So I appreciate Bob’s pushback. The proper response is all-hands-on-deck, get-it-done-now, no excuses.
However, there is a habit of mind on the left which conflates adherence to a particular policy solution or strategy, with the principles motivating that policy. And then any heterodoxy on policy detail is equated to a betrayal on principle. You’ve always seen this on health care, eg. It’s also a habit on the left to take on Democratic leaders for straying, while leaving Republicans (!) and the media alone, chuckling at “Dems in disarray”.
In any event Ed Markey, who has been tilling this garden for 40 some years. who knows the threat we face, and who has passed significant climate legislation, seems relatively sanguine about the committee structure. Also Jim McGovern. So we’ll see.
To me the critical work to be done is still in getting the public interested and alarmed. And picking a prominent fight is one way to do that, so what the heck do I know?.
I wish I had written this:
It depends on how seriously you take the underlying issue. Llimate change is regularly described in” life or death” terms, as a near impossible task that will require unprecedented sacrifices.
These sacrifices don’t seem to include having a few members of Congress give up contributions from oil companies.
Either Congress is full of tacit climate deniers or full of people who desperately want to keep the contributions coming.in, and are willing to finesse almost anything else.
I agree that keeping fossil fuel donation recipients off the committee makes sense, and I don’t think that’s a First Amendment issue. However, I think the Green New Deal is pretty vapory.. At its core it’s a proposal to form a committee. I’d prefer transit expansions, direct money for home heating/hot water conversions, establishing EV charging stations nationwide, converting the federal vehicle fleet to EVs, grid conversion, clean power generation. It feels like the GND is a plan to talk about things we already could do. Less marketing and more action would be my preference.
Plus why a special committee? There’s already a Natural Resources Committee which seems to have jurisdiction over these proposals.
My guess: insurgents and/or protesters often see the status quo as part of the problem, not the solution, and a special committee would seem to jump over that status quo.
My belief: we need to address the problem, not wasting time trying to recreate the way we make decisions to address the problem. Congress may need to change how it does business, but the insurgents have no idea how hard it is to change deeply ingrained processes or the unintended consequences that always result.
I was reading about Drawdown yesterday. As DRikeo suggests, there is no lack of plans or actions we could take to address global warming. The GND is marketing, but like Medicare For All, I think a label is important, even if the action is what ultimately counts.