Jerry Brown Runs Into Trouble-- Conscious Grassroots Democrats

Do you notice that it isn't just conservatives who don't care about protecting the planet but that there's also a fault line between young people-- who believe in a future-- and lots of old people, who just don't get all that worked up over the future? For the record, I'm old-- and I very much do care about preserving our planet. I heard Alan Grayson speaking at a live event a few days ago and he talked about people who care very deeply about their friends and family and no one else and about people who care very deeply about their friends and family and ethnic group and no one else and about people who care very much about their friends and family and ethnic group and their country and no one else. But then there are people who think a little more abstractly and care about things like "humanity" and values and principles.

California's Governor, Jerry Brown, is a lot older than me. I bet he cares too-- just not as much, or as passionately, as he once did. Or perhaps he just doesn't prioritize the planet as much as other stuff governors have to worry about, like employment of reelection campaigns. Brown was boo-ed and heckled at the California Democratic Party convention over the weekend because of his refusal to hold the frackers accountable. The next day California Democrats unanimously approved a platform that calls for an immediate ban on fracking. On Monday, David Dayen-- a Californian originally from Bucks County, PA-- penned a powerful piece for Salon about the price politicians are having to pay for refusing to stand up to the frackers. "[T]his weekend’s convention in Los Angeles," he reported, "exploded into an unusually vocal battle over fracking, revealing tensions between the elected leadership and the party rank-and-file."

Similar debates have played out among Democrats across the country, with activists no longer allowing establishment figures to talk about stopping climate change out of one side of their mouth and support what they see as a devastating attack on the climate with the other.

A few years ago, California had no regulations at all against fracking, and an unknown number of companies were already injecting liquids at high pressure to release natural resources hidden in shale rock. In California, fracking is not generally done for natural gas, but oil, most of it in the Monterey shale, a massive sedimentary formation in the central part of the state. This region contains, by some estimates, more than half of the recoverable shale oil in the United States, and as such represents a bonanza for oil companies.

“Some of our oil is dirtier than the Canadian tar sands,” said RL Miller, the head of the state party’s environmental caucus and a key anti-fracking activist, noting the intensity of energy needed to recover the thick oil out of the Monterey Shale. “In my mind fracking for that oil is as bad as the Keystone pipeline.” In addition to the environmental costs, engaging in the seismically volatile activity in a known earthquake zone unsettled many in the state, including normally conservative local farmers.

Activists sought a moratorium on fracking, but have been consistently stymied. Proposed regulations were defeated in the state Legislature in 2012, and the eventual bill that passed in 2013 was a weak alternative. It did mandate disclosure of fracking activities and the chemicals used in fracking, and would pre-test water wells near fracking sites before and after production to examine changes to water quality. But the rules won’t take effect until 2015, and an environmental impact study was similarly delayed as well.

Critics consider the bill a poor substitute, resentful that a Legislature dominated by Democrats would produce regulations with such deference to the oil industry. Many blame Gov. Jerry Brown for orchestrating the opposition to stronger regulations, and they vowed to continue their fight for an outright ban. A bill, SB1132, has been introduced that would pause fracking in the state until the release of the 2015 environmental impact report.

…Gov. Brown, a fairly stubborn politician, is unlikely to be moved by such a public display of opposition, even as an anti-fracking rally scheduled next week in Sacramento gets thousands of sign-ups. But the tide around Brown has turned. Keep in mind that the crowd at a state party convention is made up of party stalwarts, inclined to support top officials almost unreservedly. That this became the site of a backlash speaks to the intensity of opposition to fracking inside the party, an intensity that’s bound to grow over time. With California the only major oil-producing state without a tax on oil extraction, and with Monterey shale fracking on the industry’s agenda, this issue is sure to percolate in the state for the next few years, and activists have grass-roots support and the funds to act on their side.

In fact, on Sunday delegates passed a fracking moratorium in the plank of the state party platform, a useful tool for getting the Democratic-led Legislature to pass the moratorium bill.

Politicians, and not just Democrats in California but across the country, have a choice to make. They can continue an unholy alliance with the oil industry, trading environmental stability for a promise of jobs, and hiding behind rhetoric about stopping climate change while allowing fracking to flourish. Or they can listen to increasing unrest among the public, and align their stated desire to protect the planet with their actions.

Remember I mentioned that Dayen is originally from Bucks County, PA? That's a anti-fracking piece of Pennsylvania and the fracking debate there has upended the DCCC's attempt to slip a conservative ex-CIA agent, Kevin Strouse, into Congress. Steve Israel, a politician who may be in serious trouble back home because of his own wretched pollution record, recruited Strouse and immediately added them to their Jumpstarter list. His grassroots opponent, Shaunghnessy Naughton is a scientist by trade and she came right after him on it. Last week when the DCCC announced their Red-to-Blue program, Strouse was one of the only Jumpstarters to be passed over-- downgraded to an Emerging District. I'm sure there are other issues in the primary contest but Naughton and Strouse are pretty similar on nearly everything… but fracking. He's for it and she's against it-- and even the DCCC was forced to shove him aside and acknowledege they'll back whomever wins the primary. Saving the planet is paramount. Nothing else will be worth anything if we don't do that. That's why the Senate stayed up so late last night. "Climate change is real, it is caused by humans, and it is solvable," said Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI).  "Congress must act. On Monday night we’re going to show the growing number of Senators who are committed to working together to confront climate change."