Senate And Obama Kill Climate Bill

The climate bill is dead.  The Senate refused to ratify the landmark legislation, after the House had voted for it.  The landmark bill would have curbed carbon pollution, and was the centerpiece of President Obama’s environmental agenda. How could something like this not pass the Senate, especially in view of the greatest environmental disaster this nation has faced?  This is a failure on the part of the United States to confront global warming.  It is a failure of the Obama presidency in its inability to usher this legislation through the Senate.  Especially after the President was successful in stewarding his health care and financial legislation through Congress.  What was apparent during the process was Obama’s refusal to layout his own plan, which allowed the Senate to bicker over the details.  He pursued a strategy of backroom negotiations, supporting huge new subsidies to win over big polluters. It allowed opponents to use scare phrases like “cap and tax” to hijack public debate. And most galling of all, it has failed to use the gravest environmental disaster in the nation’s history to push through a climate bill – to argue that fossil-fuel polluters should pay for the damage they are doing to the atmosphere, just as BP will be forced to pay for the damage it has done to the Gulf.  The President has shown no urgency on this issue, and very little willingness to lead, despite a June poll showing that 76 percent of Americans believe the government should limit climate pollution. With hopes for an economy-wide approach to global warming dashed, Congress is now weighing a scaled-back proposal that would ratchet down carbon pollution from the nation’s electric utilities. It has come to this: The best legislation we can hope for is the same climate policy that George W. Bush promoted during the 2000 campaign. Even worse, the “utilities first” approach could wind up stripping the EPA of its newfound authority to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.  The President has the Senate have failed us in doing the right thing for the environment.  It only further illustrates the hold that the energy lobby, and its money have over the planet.