Criminals Hate Regulations-- Who'da Thunk?

 

You know who hates rules and regulations? Criminals-- and not just the Mafia. It includes the exploitative class and the conservative political parties that represent that class' interests. It's why I've never voted for a Republican. And it's why I've never identified as a Republican... despite knowing how corrupt and worthless the Democratic Party has become over the course of my lifetime, especially since Bill Clinton helped usher in a take-over by the Republican wing of the Democratic Party in 1992.

But even most of the worst of the conservaDems tend to back at least some regulatory protections for workers and the environment. Republicans don't. Many of them will drown in an anti-Trump tsunami in two weeks but they were willing to make that bargain with the devil in order to wreck the American regulatory infrastructure and to pack the courts with the kinds of right-wing zealots who will uphold that for the aforementioned exploitative class.

Last week, The NY Times published a look at the GOP wrecking ball by Eric Lipton. Don't forget, he morons who attend Trump rallies may love chanting "lock her up"-- whether about Hillary, Kamala or Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer-- but those with the money and power behind the GOP are more concerned with allowing their criminal proclivities to run rampant without government interference than with the theatrics of Trumpism. Lipton clearly laid out how desperate the handmaidens of America's criminal class are "scrambling to enact regulatory changes affecting millions of Americans in a blitz so rushed it may leave some changes vulnerable to court challenges... In the bid to lock in new rules before Jan. 20, Mr. Trump’s team is limiting or sidestepping requirements for public comment on some of the changes and swatting aside critics who say the administration has failed to carry out sufficiently rigorous analysis. Some cases, like a new rule to allow railroads to move highly flammable liquefied natural gas on freight trains, have led to warnings of public safety threats.

Every administration pushes to complete as much of its agenda as possible when a president’s term is coming to an end, seeking not just to secure its own legacy but also to tie the hands of any successor who tries to undo its work.

But as Mr. Trump completes four years marked by an extensive deregulatory push, the administration’s accelerated effort to put a further stamp on federal rules is drawing questions even from some former top officials who served under Republican presidents.

...If Democrats take control of Congress, they will have the power to reconsider some of these last-minute regulations, through a law last used at the start of Mr. Trump’s tenure by Republicans to repeal certain rules enacted at the end of the Obama administration.

But the Trump administration is also working to fill key vacancies on scientific advisory boards with members who will hold their seats far into the next presidential term, committees that play an important role in shaping federal rule making.

...The Environmental Protection Agency, which since the start of the Trump administration has been moving at a high speed to rewrite federal regulations, is expected to complete work in the weeks that remain in Mr. Trump’s term on two of the nation’s most important air pollution rules: standards that regulate particulates and ozone that is formed based on emissions from power plants, car exhaust and other sources.

These two pollutants are blamed for bronchitis, asthma, lung cancer and other ailments, causing an estimated 7,140 premature deaths a year in the United States, according to one recent study. The agency is proposing to keep these standards at their current levels, provoking protests from certain health experts and environmentalists who argue that the agency is obligated to lower the limits after new evidence emerged about the harm the pollutants cause.

Scott Pruitt, who served as the E.P.A. administrator in the first 17 months of Mr. Trump’s tenure, set as a goal before he left office to get these new standards adopted by December 2020, even though the agency had previously expected they would not be finished until 2022.

The agency also is rushing to complete a series of regulations that will almost certainly make it harder for future administrations to tighten air pollution and other environmental standards, including a limit on how science is used in rule making and a change to the way costs and benefits are evaluated to justify new rules.

Mr. Trump has played a direct role in pushing to accelerate some regulations. Among them is a provision finished this summer, nicknamed “bomb trains” by its critics, that allows railroads to move highly flammable loads of liquefied natural gas on freight trains. Mr. Trump signed an executive order last year directing the Transportation Department to enact the rule within 13 months-- even before it had been formally proposed.

The change was backed by the railroad and natural gas industry, which has donated millions of dollars to Mr. Trump, after construction of pipelines had been blocked or slowed after protests by environmentalists.

But the proposal provoked an intense backlash from a diverse array of prominent public safety officials. Among them were groups representing thousands of mayors, firefighters and fire marshals nationwide and even the federal government’s own National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates fatal transportation accidents.

The gas is stored in 30,000-gallon rail tanks at minus 260 degrees to keep it compressed. But if accidentally released during an accident, it would rapidly expand by nearly 600 times as the temperature rises and cause what is known as a “boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion” that if ignited could not be quickly extinguished, potentially resulting in widespread injury or death if it occurs in a populated area, the firefighters warned.

“It is nearly certain any accident involving a train consisting of multiple rail cars loaded with L.N.G. will place vast numbers of the public at risk while fully depleting all local emergency response forces,” Harold A. Schaitberger, the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, wrote in a letter opposing the proposal.

The Transportation Department still adopted the rule and rejected proposed speed limits for the trains, generating a petition for a court review by 14 states and the District of Columbia.

“Studies on how to safely transport liquefied natural gas by rail are still ongoing, and this administration has rushed to implement a rule that will needlessly endanger people’s lives and threaten our environment,” Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, said.

Even while the challenge is underway, the Transportation Department has moved to enact another rule easing safety standards, in this case removing a requirement intended to limit the number of hours truck drivers are allowed behind the wheel and to mandate rest periods.

Certain drivers who carry agricultural products would now be exempt from this federal mandate in a standard that would again be adopted as an “interim final rule,” meaning it would be put in place before any public comment is accepted, under the plan announced by the agency.

“Fatigued truck drivers remain a stubbornly high cause of fatal highway accidents,” said James Goodwin, a lawyer at the Center for Progressive Reform, a nonprofit group that tracks regulatory actions. “The law permits agencies to take short cuts when there are extraordinary circumstances that call for them. That is not present here.”

Earlier today, progressive state Rep. Jon Hoadley, a congressional candidate who appears to be beating Trump lackey Fred Upton, told us that Upton "continues to tout his supposed victories for the Great Lakes while also enabling corporate polluters to contaminate them along with our groundwater. As Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, he held one of the most powerful positions in Congress and due to his inaction or enacted obstacles, at one point he was deemed 'the worst threat to planet Earth on Earth.' Michiganders need a leader who will actually fight to protect our precious natural resources and hold polluters accountable."

Beth Doglio is in a hot D vs D contest in Washington. Beth is the environmentalist and workers' champion in the race and her opponent, Marilyn Strickland, is an establishment Dem who was president of the Chamber of Commerce and supported... well all the kinds of anti-environment and anti-worker policies conservative and the Chamber support. Not quite as bad as a Republican of course, but... close. Beth told me that "We have to draw a line in the sand when it comes to large new fossil fuel infrastructure that locks in emission for decades to come. I was standing firm leading the fight to stop the seven coal export terminals dead in their tracks, while my opponent openly supported a proposal to site the largest methanol plant in the world in urban Tacoma before it was vetted. Residents of Pierce County rejected it." Both of these women have track records. Beth's is golden; Stickland's is... a lump of coal.

Julie Oliver is rewriting the political history of Texas with her amazing run in a gerrymandered R+11 congressional seat. This morning she told me that her opponent, "Roger Williams consistently toes the party line that he favors limited governmental regulation, unless it benefits his own business, one of the most protected industries by regulation in the state of Texas-- automobile dealerships. But unless Williams or his donors are the beneficiaries of regulations, he fights hard to ensure laws and regulations lose their potency or are eliminated altogether. Williams filed what has to be the shortest bill introduced in Congress, 'This bill terminates the EPA effective 12/31/2018.' He doesn't care that his constituents in Johnson County are fighting for clean water or that his constituents in Burnet County are fighting for clean air; Williams is a loot-the-coffers kind of Republican who is using his position of public trust to enrich himself and his donors. Last week, the Houston Chronicle reported that Williams used his position on the Financial Services Committee to strongarm banks into meetings with his wealthy donors, while ignoring the pleas for help from constituents who have been laid off due to the pandemic."

Adam Christensen, a progressive running against a crumbling GOP power structure in north-central Florida, is aiming at replacing Trump lickspittle Ted Yoho. Earlier he told us that "The Trump administration has constantly attempted to deregulate guidelines that save people’s lives. They actively attempt to deregulate safety standards for railways, pollutants and more. Representative Ted Yoho and my opponent Kat Cammack want to continue these deregulations to help their wealthy donors even if they result in harm and even death to our people. Pollutants are causing Americans to develop dangerous diseases such as asthma and lung cancer. Americans are dying because Republicans like the current administration, Mr. Yoho and Ms. Cammack refuse to stand up for our planet and our people. They will only stand up for power, greed, their donors and their wealth. They are standing by and allowing phosphate mines to sue Union into oblivion. It’s time we stand up and fight people and greed like this. I know that when we win we will stand up and fight for our planet, our people and our future."

Here's How You Can Help Build Our Green Coalition

Blue America is working with our allies in Congress' Sustainable Energy And Environment Coalition Caucus [SEEC PAC], including old friends we've helped get elected and reelected like Matt Cartwright, Ted Lieu, Pramila Jayapal, Bonnie Watson-Coleman, Alan Lowenthal, Judy Chu, Ilhan Omar, Jim Himes, Barbara Lee, Earl Blumenauer, Steve Cohen, Raul Grijalva, Jerry McNerney, Nanette Barragan and Katie Porter.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), chair of Congress' Natural Resources Committee, told us yesterday that "Within the halls of Congress, no group is working harder than the SEEC Caucus to advance clean energy, climate change solutions, and environmental justice while protecting our air, water, wildlife, and public lands from the Trump administration." He further pointed out that "This work is powered by a grassroots network of people pitching in what they can to support this critical work." Blue America and SEEC PAC have teamed up to raise some last minute campaign contributions for candidates both our groups have endorsed:

• Nate McMurray (NY)
• Beth Doglio (WA)
• Marie Newman (IL)
• Julie Oliver (TX)
• Mike Siegel (TX)
• Kathy Ellis (MO)
• Audrey Denney (CA)
• Cathy Kunkel (WV)
• Jon Hoadley (MI)
• Kara Eastman (NE)
• Georgette Gomez (CA)
• Dana Balter (NY)

Let's face it, our planet is at stake in November. If we are going to build a better future for this generation and the next, there is no time to waste.

That's why SEEC PAC and Blue America have endorsed an incredible slate of leaders who will act on this issue. We can't give even an inch. It's essential that we expand our green coalition in the House and continue to push Congress to take up clean energy, climate resiliency, and environmental protections.

These green leaders can become Members of Congress-- with your help. Will you maximize your donation by contributing to these dually-endorsed candidates today?

The Trump administration spent four years taking a wrecking ball to environmental regulations. They hired oil and gas lobbyists and climate deniers to lead the federal agencies tasked with protecting our air, water, and public lands. They ignored the science while wildfires destroyed communities and hurricanes slammed our coasts.

It is going to take work to repair the damage of Donald Trump. We have to rebuild protections for our environment and ensure climate mitigation is a part of those conversations. We have to reinforce the government processes that allow us to protect the American people from reckless pollution and disregard of science and fact.

Climate change and environmental protection have been among the most important items Beth Doglio has attended to as a member of the Washington state legislature. As a congressional candidate, she told us that she's "So proud to have the endorsement of SEEC. My Govenor-- Jay Inslee- founded SEEC when he served in Congress. As a State Representative, I worked with  Governor Inslee to pass landmark policies addressing environmental issues in Washington. We passed a suite of climate policies moving our state to 100% clean electricity, making our existing commercial buildings more efficient and building our mass transit and vehicle/ferry electrification systems. We are on track to meet our greenhouse emission reduction goals in statute. I can't wait to work with SEEC membership to pass bold transformational policies that make the visionary Green New Deal our future."

Progressive Democrat Kathy Ellis told us this morning that she's "running for Congress in a largely rural, 30-county district in Missouri that's been decimated by climate change and deregulation. Our local economy is almost entirely based on the environment, whether it’s through farming, hospitality, or our incredible state parks and riverways. And yet, over the last ten years, we’ve seen the damage that a climate-denier congressman can have: our farmers have struggled greatly because of intense flooding on their farms, our local economy has suffered as a result, and deregulation has caused great pollution of our beautiful waterways-- all while Jason Smith votes against every bill that would tackle these problems. Having the support of SEEC means a great deal to me, as a pro-environment and pro-science candidate. Missouri’s 8th District deserves-- and desperately needs-- a representative who is ready to fight each and every day for legislation that will protect our environment, create jobs, and tackle some of the root causes of climate change. I’m ready to be that person, and I’m honored to have SEEC in this fight with me."

Syracuse area progressive Dana Balter was endorsed early on by both Blue America and the SEEC Caucus. She's a big fan of the fact that the Caucus "s leading the fight in Congress on bold, smart, and strategic clean energy policies. They've also played a critical role in opposing and highlighting the dangers of anti-environmental actions taken by the Trump administration. Rebuilding our economy from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic gives us the opportunity to make a significant investment in clean energy jobs-- and the SEEC Caucus is working to make that a reality. Their leadership is invaluable, and I am deeply honored to have their support in this race."

It's going to take a strong green coalition in the House fighting every day to pass comprehensive climate legislation and hold Congress to account as climate change knocks at our door.

That's why SEEC PAC and Blue America endorsed green leaders running in close House races around the country. They're ready to act on climate on Day 1-- but first, they need your help to win their races!

Split a donation between SEEC PAC/Blue America endorsed candidates today to give these candidates a boost with less than 3 weeks before Election Day.

Mike Siegel just added something I want to share: ""I'm honored to have the support of SEEC and Blue America as we build a broad national coalition to combat climate change and build the renewable economy we need. As a Democrat running for Congress in the heart of Texas, I know how important it is that we take bold, courageous steps to address climate change and environmental degradation, even when those steps require difficult conversations with workers and businesses that depend on fossil fuel revenue. The Texas 10th Congressional District is already suffering from the impact of our fossil fuel economy. We have a coal plant in Fayette County that has been polluting the air and water for 40 years; we have widespread fracking operations that release chemicals into our groundwater and methane into our air; we have a Houston region that has suffered five 500-year flood events in five years; and we have Bastrop county, which was devastated by a massive wildfire nine years ago. These natural and unnatural disasters can all be traced to fossil fuel emissions. Even though Texas is built on a fossil fuel economy, we can't put our heads in the sand and pretend that change is not needed. I'm running for Congress to build an unparalleled coalition of unions, environmentalists, ranchers and farmers, progressives and activists of all types, to fight climate change, to create jobs in a renewable economy, and to address the legacy of pollution and environmental injustice. Thank you, SEEC and Blue America for your belief and support, and I look forward to joining with you in the days, months and years ahead, for the good of our planet, and for the good of our nation."

Why Can't The Conservative Brain Grapple With Science-- And Will The Climate Crisis Destroy Us All Because Of That Flaw?

 

Audrey Denney is running for Congress in the northeast corner of California (CA-01), where the state meets Oregon and Nevada. It's a largely rural district with the most exposure to Climate Change-induced wildfires anywhere in the state. She told me yesterday that the Trumpist incumbent, Doug LaMalfa "does not believe in human induced climate change. He has recently called climate change policies 'radical.' He either has been bought and paid for by the oil and gas industry (as his FEC reports show)-- or he doesn’t have the capacity to wrap his mind around science. He has also been quoted as saying abortions cause breast cancer-- so I am leaning toward both."

Denney, whose campaign leans heavily on talking with voters about the Climate Crisis said that "Climate change is not a threat in the distant future. It is taking the lives, homes, and livelihoods of people who live in my district today. We lost 93 lives in 2018 in the Carr and Camp Fires and we lost at least 15 lives last week in the North Complex fire. In 2018 the Carr fire and Camp Fire alone emitted nine times as much CO2 as the state of California was able to reduce our emissions by that year.  Our federal forests are MASSIVE carbon sources-- but have the potential to be carbon sinks-- actually helping us turn the dial back on climate change. Forty-one percent of my district-- and fifty seven percent of the state of California-- is federal forests. And the vast majority of them are in desperate need of vegetation management work and forest restoration work to bring them back to a state of health. This is the only way we will reduce our fire risk and be able to mitigate climate change. If you do not think this work is critically important than you are not paying attention. Or perhaps live in one of the few places that is not shrouded in smoke from the West’s fires... Only by restoring our forests to health by doing the critical thinning, selective logging, and fuels-reduction work, will we be able to lessen our wildfire risk and mitigate the dangerous result of climate change. We can create economic incentives to find new industry utilization for the woody biomass removed from our forests. This will look like manufacturing sustainable building materials like cross laminated timber (CLT) and processing woody biomass into low carbon transportation fuels. We can set policies in place to support the career and technical education programs and apprenticeship programs that will be necessary to build the required local workforce. All of these opportunities mean high paying jobs and more economic opportunity for the real people of California’s first district."

Yesterday, Ron Brownstein's Atlantic column asks a simple question millions of Americans probably have asked themselves at one time or another, Why is it that Republican officials still don’t care about Climate Change?. He begins by introducing us to Mary Nichols, who's been "part of the struggle to prevent catastrophic climate change for about as long as anyone in American life. For years, she’s directed California’s pathbreaking efforts to reduce carbon emissions as the chair of the California Air Resources Board-- a position she held first in the 1970s before taking it up again in 2007. Nichols has also served at the federal level, working as the chief regulator for air pollution at the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. And yet even Nichols has never seen anything that crystallizes the dangers of climate change more clearly than the historic outbreak of wildfires scorching California and other western states this year. 'Yes, absolutely,' she told me earlier this week, when I asked her whether this year’s fires are the most tangible danger to California that she’s seen from climate change. 'It’s not suddenly going to reverse itself … to years when there’s no fire season, or it’s not going to happen until October. The changes are going to be real, and they are going to be long-lasting.'"

Then he introduced us to Carol Browner who served as the EPA administrator for both of Clinton’s presidential terms and later worked as Obama’s first White House adviser on climate. "When she looks at the confluence of extreme-weather events battering the United States in recent years-- not only the wildfires, but also the Gulf Coast hurricanes, Midwest flooding, and the Southwest’s extreme heat-- Browner likewise sees stark evidence that climate change is disrupting American life earlier and more powerfully than almost anyone expected when the debate over these issues seriously began about three decades ago. 'What we have now is the absolute environmental demonstration or evidence of just how dramatic the impact of climate change is going to be. This is not going to stop,' Browner told me. 'There is going to be something next year, and the year after, if we don’t get on it.'"

Environmental scientists and policy experts around the country agree that the massive wildfires are just the latest indicator that climate change has thrust the U.S., and the world, into a dangerous new era. But it’s far from certain that the growing recognition of that threat can break the stalemate over climate policy in Washington. The accumulating evidence about climate change’s destructive power represents an irresistible force for action. But it’s colliding with an immovable object: the unbreakable resistance to any response among both Republican voters and elected officials.

Polling shows that, overall, a growing share of Americans believe climate change is happening, that human activities are driving it, and that the threat is manifesting right now. But as on many issues, the gap on all of these questions is widening between voters in the Republican coalition and other Americans. Annual polls by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication show that although the numbers have increased markedly for Democrats, Republican partisans are no more likely than in 2008 to believe that human activity is causing climate change, and they express even less concern about its impact now than they did then. (Belief in human causation has declined somewhat among independents, but concern about the effects of climate change has increased substantially.)

These attitudes within the GOP coalition both reflect and reinforce Republican officials’ rejection of any effort to reduce carbon emissions. [The Donald], echoed by many prominent conservative commentators and congressional Republicans, continues to dismiss the evidence that climate change is even contributing to the spike in extreme-weather events. With Joe Biden offering the most aggressive climate-change agenda of any Democratic presidential nominee in history, the conditions for the long-stalled debate over the issue in Washington are becoming as combustible as the dried forest floors of California.

Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale climate program, says that in the past, even those Americans concerned about climate change tended to see it as a remote problem. “It was distant in time, [in] that the impacts won’t be felt for a generation or more,” he told me. And it was “distant in space”-- “this is about polar bears and maybe some developing countries, but not the United States … not my friends, not my family, not me.”

Seen through that lens, he said, climate “just blended in the background with 1,000 other issues out there... so we can deal with it later. That’s where more of the country was in 2007 and 2008. Now we skip forward to today, that’s not true anymore because of the [weather] events we’ve been talking about.”

In Yale’s polling, the share of Americans who say that climate change is affecting weather at least somewhat reached nearly three-fifths in 2020, up from about half in early 2013. But Leiserowitz said more disruptive weather events aren’t the only things moving attitudes on climate. Another important factor is the broad, diverse chorus of voices expressing worry about it. Ten years ago, he noted, Americans might have heard concern about the climate only from “environmentalists and liberal politicians like Al Gore”; now it’s much more common to hear concerns raised by public-health professionals, business executives, and even faith leaders, such as Pope Francis.

The result has been an undeniable, though not overwhelming, shift in public opinion. In Yale’s latest national survey this spring, slightly more than three-fifths of Americans said human activities are causing the climate to change, a new high. The share of Americans who say they are very worried about climate change’s impact is relatively modest, at 27 percent. But it’s nearly double the level it was in 2008; overall, about two-thirds of respondents are now either very or somewhat worried.

Americans’ attitudes about the imminence of the danger have changed more drastically: 45 percent in the latest survey described climate change as a threat to Americans now, a big increase from 33 percent in 2008. The share who say climate change won’t be a problem for 25 years or more is at 42 percent, down 10 points compared with 2008.

Yet, on all of these fronts, the movement has not been symmetrical. Democrats are expressing much more concern than they were a decade ago, and most independents slightly more. Republicans, meanwhile, are either no more or even less concerned. (Rigid GOP attitudes largely explain why the overall shift in public opinion on many questions hasn’t been more dramatic, despite the quickening pace of weather disruption.) Since 2008, for instance, the share of Democrats who say human activity is causing climate change has spiked from 70 percent to 85 percent; among Republicans, it’s virtually unchanged, at just 37 percent. And although nearly half of Democrats now say they are very worried about climate change (almost double the level in 2008), only about one in 14 Republicans is equally concerned. That share is essentially unchanged from 12 years ago.

This pattern of public attitudes looks very similar to opinions on racial-equity issues: Compared with a decade ago, substantially more Democrats of all races accept that systemic racism against Black Americans is a serious problem; however, many Republicans are even less likely to agree it exists compared with 10 years ago. The divergence between the parties on climate, as on race, reflects the larger resorting of the electorate along lines of culture rather than class. (Republicans, as I’ve written, increasingly rely on a coalition of older, non-college-educated, evangelical, and rural white voters, while Democrats depend heavily on young people, people of color, and college-educated white Americans.)

Just as many Republican voters have cheered GOP attacks on public-health experts during the coronavirus crisis, portraying them as “elites” who look down on and want to control ordinary people, they have embraced similar accusations against climate scientists. “Climate change is an issue... where most people don’t know that much... and in those circumstances-- especially for an abstract, seemingly far away, invisible problem like climate change-- they look to their leaders to help guide them through that incredibly complicated landscape,” Leiserowitz told me. “Republicans who began talking about climate change as if it was a ‘hoax’ had an incredible impact on other Republicans.”

Many environmentalists have hoped that more and more exposure to the furious effects of weather disruption might soften resistance among Republican voters and leaders to acting on climate change. But in dramatic polling last year from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Washington Post even Republican voters who acknowledge that their communities are facing more extreme weather overwhelmingly reject the notion that climate change is significantly contributing to those events.

Detailed results provided to me by Kaiser underscore an astonishing gap between the parties. Among people who agree that their communities are experiencing either more hot days, more floods, or more droughts, at least three-fourths of Democrats say climate change is a “major factor” in those events; but at least seven in 10 Republicans in each case say it is only a minor factor, or does not contribute at all. Slightly more than seven in 10 Democrats living in places experiencing more wildfires consider climate change a major factor in causing them; three-fourths of Republicans see climate as little or none of the cause. Even after this summer’s searing events, an Economist/YouGov poll released yesterday found that although three-fourths of Biden supporters said “the severity of recent hurricanes and Western wildfires is most likely the result of global climate change,” fewer than one in five Trump voters agreed.

Those contrasts offer very little reason for optimism that even if Biden wins, any meaningful numbers of congressional or state-level Republicans will feel pressure to support measures to reduce carbon emissions. Among other reasons for pessimism: In both presidential and Senate elections, Republicans are more and more reliant on the states that produce the most fossil fuels, which tend to be the same states with large populations of non-college-educated, Christian, and rural white voters drawn to Trump’s message of racial and cultural backlash.

Across the 20 states that emit the most carbon per dollar of economic output-- a good proxy for states’ integration into the fossil-fuel economy-- Republicans now hold 35 of their 40 Senate seats. That’s nearly enough senators to sustain a GOP filibuster against climate action on its own. The final brick in the wall of GOP opposition is that fossil-fuel producers, once an important source of campaign funding for southern Democrats such as Lyndon B. Johnson, are all-in on bolstering Republican power. Over the past 30 years, oil and gas producers have directed more than 80 percent of their massive $711 million in total federal campaign contributions toward Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Gene Karpinski, the longtime president of the League of Conservation Voters, the environmental movement’s principal electoral arm, sees little prospect for GOP participation on climate even if Trump loses. “Because of the fossil-fuel influence on the Republican Party and the leader of the party still calling climate change a ‘hoax,’” GOP skepticism about “climate change is out of step with the rest of the country,” he says.

But others see some cracks in the resistance. Kenneth Medlock, the director of the Center for Energy Studies at the Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston, says the terms of daily discussion in Texas and in neighboring states have changed since Houston was deluged with historic floods during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. “Even in the Gulf Coast, the conversation around extreme-weather events and the like is more the norm than it was five years ago,” he told me. “Up until Harvey happened, nobody really wanted to address the elephant in the room, which is that the climate is changing and this is a real risk.”

Even with that evolving dialogue, Medlock doesn’t expect big changes among Republican elected officials in Texas. He predicts that, to the extent that they acknowledge climate change, they would be more likely to talk about fortifying communities against its effects (an issue he considers important too) than to talk about reducing carbon emissions. But Medlock anticipates that position will become more and more untenable for Republicans over time-- not because their voters necessarily demand more action, but because the business community and institutional investors will keep moving ahead without them to cut carbon.

The dialogue among elected Republicans, he told me, “has kind of quietly shifted.” He explained that the Baker Institute, which is based at Rice University, is involved in several initiatives aimed at reducing net-carbon emissions in the region. “What’s really interesting about [those] efforts is that when we talk to state lawmakers and federal lawmakers [including Republicans], there’s no resistance,” he continued. “You open the conversation with, ‘The world is changing; consumers and investors are demanding lower carbon footprints; this is an economic opportunity for Texas...’ and immediately the conversation becomes very lively. So, in some ways, it’s about how you approach the conversation.”

Sean McElwee, the Data for Progress pollster who analyzes progressive causes, sees a similar opening. Although most Republican voters still recoil from measures presented as addressing climate change, more are open to promoting clean-energy sources, he says. (Yale’s polling has found that too.) “When we do testing … clean energies are very popular among Republican voters, and people are really interested in the jobs framework,” he told me. Just as important: Relatively few Republican voters intuitively embrace arguments from Trump and others that defending oil, gas, and coal is a culture-war statement against “elitists” promoting solar and wind energies. “I don’t think voters have an allegiance to coal and oil the way Republican politicians have,” he said.

Browner, the former EPA head, is also a voice of relative optimism. “If Biden wins and they start moving forward” with a climate agenda, she told me, “there will be Republicans calling. Maybe I’m a minority on this, but when they see you are serious and you want to do something, they want a seat at the table.”

Even if Republicans remain obdurate, unified Democratic control of Congress and the White House is more likely to produce climate action than the last Democratic trifecta in 2009 and 2010, most experts I spoke with said. At that point, the House Democratic Caucus still contained a large number of southern and rural “blue dog” members who resisted cap-and-trade climate legislation the chamber passed in 2009. (Forty-four Democrats voted no.) Now the House Democratic Caucus is overwhelmingly centered on urban and suburban districts where acting on climate is popular. As Karpinski said: “If you look at 2018, the key reason why Nancy Pelosi is now the speaker [is because] it’s mostly suburban and some of the semi-urban districts. It’s a combination of young people, communities of color, and suburban women. They are the most supportive of this issue and want action.”

If Biden wins and Democrats gain the Senate majority, he could drive a big part of his climate agenda through a coronavirus-relief stimulus package; his plan includes massive spending to promote renewable power, electric cars, and energy-efficiency upgrades for homes and businesses. Obama did the same thing in the stimulus package he signed to counter the Great Recession, tucking in huge investments in clean energy (that Biden as vice president was assigned to oversee).

But to secure Senate approval for measures that directly limit carbon emissions, Democrats would almost certainly have to end the filibuster, which empowers what I’ve called the “brown blockade” of Senate Republicans who represent the fossil-fuel-producing states. (Unable to overcome a filibuster, the Senate never considered the cap-and-trade climate bill the House passed in 2009.) And even if Democrats do end the filibuster, serious climate legislation could face a tight squeeze to reach a simple majority, with Joe Manchin, from coal-producing West Virginia, and possibly other Democratic senators having to take a very tough vote.

All of those outcomes are impossible to predict. But what’s clear is that the tension will grow between a sluggish political system locked in a partisan standoff and a climate system that is poised to generate disruption at an accelerating pace. “This is not some ‘new normal’ that we can plan around … it’s a system that continues to spiral out of control,” says Vijay Limaye, an environmental epidemiologist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “There definitely is a signal in these record-setting months that … we are heading into a new era when we will see records set, and they will fall just as quickly … It’s hard for people to wrap their heads around now, but as bad as things have been this year, unquestionably, they will get worse.”

Nichols, the veteran climate regulator, is just as stark in her warning: Even today’s extreme weather may soon seem like the (relative) calm before the storm. “The rate of change is accelerating, so it is absolutely possible that we’ll see more visible signs of bigger storms,” as well as higher temperatures and sea-level rise, she said. “All of those things could happen much faster.”





She explained that the famous apocalyptic scene from the movie The Day After Tomorrow still isn’t likely to happen, where big waves wash over the skyscrapers of New York City. “But bigger storms and more damage and loss of property and loss of life as a result absolutely is likely going to continue-- not just in a gradual slope, but at a rate of acceleration that is greater than was predicted before,” she said.

The biggest message of the California wildfires may be that not only the terms but the tense of the climate debate is changing. Climate change has evolved from something that will threaten America to something that is doing so today. “The people who used to talk about how they were trying to save the world for their grandchildren need to start thinking about their children and even themselves,” Nichols said.

Kara Eastman is the Democratic candidate running for the Omaha-based congressional seat (NE-02) occupied by Trumpist stooge, Donald Bacon. The Climate crisis is a big issue she talks with Nebraska voters about constantly promising to help lead the battle when she replaces-nothing-Bacon in Congress:

Climate change-- appropriately called climate chaos by many-- is clearly the result of human activity. The wildfires on the West Coast bring this reality into dramatic relief. In order to reverse this trend we need immediate action from policy-makers from the entire political spectrum. In the past, there was an environmental consensus. Major environmental legislation from the Clean Water Act through the Montreal Protocol Treaty were passed by huge majorities on both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately, due to the extremist takeover of the Republican party, led by Donald Trump and Don Bacon, the GOP is no longer the party of the environment. On the contrary, they continue to give voice to the fringe belief that the massive climate upheavals we are witnessing in real-time today are part of some "normal" weather cycle, moreover, that these events we can see with our eyes and choke on in our lungs aren't really even happening.

Don Bacon wants to have it both ways. In front of a Republican audience, he says the the science is "uncertain" on climate, but on the other hand he claims membership to the bipartisan but largely ineffectual climate solutions caucus when he's confronted by local voters. Meanwhile, in Nebraska's Second Congressional District, we suffered from one of the hottest and driest summers on record, a year after central Nebraska suffered from devastating floods.

When I am in Congress, I will join my colleagues in putting climate front and center of the agenda. Nebraskans will be able to count on me to push a climate agenda, not simply push greenwashed window dressing. It's no longer some distant future crisis. It's here and now and we need to get to work.

Beth Doglio is in a D v D congressional general election in Washington. She's a progressive, endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus and her opponent is a ConservaDem endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce and the Wall Street owned and operated New Dems. There is no issue more important in her campaign than Climate. And Beth has a stellar record while her opponent's record is putrid and, basically, Republican. Yesterday Beth told me that "As the wildfires rage on the West Coast, lives are being lost, towns are burning to the ground, and millions of acres of land are now charred deserts. This is climate change. The stakes have never been higher and the consequences of failing to act have never been more clear. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that we have just one decade, one last chance to act, before it’s too late." She continued:

The United States must step up and must act with the urgency this moment demands. And the reality is that beyond its dangers, climate change actually presents us with a great opportunity. We can build a clean energy economy, strengthen our middle-class, and create millions of good union jobs. But we need leaders with expertise to get us there. Leaders who have stood up to the fossil fuel industry and won. Leaders who have actually passed policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and grow jobs.

As a climate advocate, I led the effort to stop the development of 7 coal export terminals dead in their tracks, while my opponent as mayor was busy working to site the world’s largest Methanol plant in her town. While she points in part to her support for community gardens as her track record on climate issues, I point to playing a pivotal role in passing legislation that significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions-- like the nation’s best 100% Clean Electricity Bill that integrates equity and labor standards with hard deadlines to remove fossils fuels from our electric sector and grow clean energy jobs. Or my first of its kind Green Buildings Law that makes our buildings more healthy and efficient at the same time it creates jobs. I’m calling for a sector-by-sector decarbonization of our economy. I am serious about and experienced in pushing for and passing emission reduction policies that will leave a safe planet for my kids.

You can ask anyone-- I love gardening and, in fact, I helped build a robust garden program at my children's elementary school-- but gardening is not what is going to get us out of this! This issue can no longer take a backseat, play second fiddle, remain an afterthought. We must have a plan, it must be ambitious, it must go far enough. I am calling for Washington, D.C. to follow Washington state’s lead and get serious about passing legislation to address the issue at scale.

New Blue America Endorsement: Beth Doglio (WA-10)

Republicans aren't competitive in Washington's 10th district-- basically most of Thurston County (Olympia) and part of Pierce County (Tacoma area). With incumbent Denny Heck retiring, the jungle primary attracted 19 candidates, including 8 Democrats and 8 Republicans. The PVI is D+5 but the three top vote-getters in the high turnout election were all Democrats. In November, progressive Democrat Beth Doglio will face off against corporate conservative Marilyn Strickland. Although Strickland is the establishment candidate, Doglio out-raised her-- $616,683 to $595,105-- despite Strickland's substantial self-funding. Predictably, the Wall Street-funded New Dems-- basically the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- has endorsed Strickland and the Congressional Progressive Caucus has endorsed Doglio. This week, Blue America has also endorsed Doglio.

Our endorsement process started with an outreach from the Progressive Caucus. Pramila Jayapal, one of the co-chairs told me that Doglio "is willing to take on power, willing to do the work, willing to push for bold ideas like Medicare for All-- even before they are popular. As a legislator, organizer and climate champion, Beth has a proven track record of standing up for working people against special interests, and delivering on policies that matter. She is not taking corporate PAC money and is directly confronting the abysmal state of for-profit health care in this country that has been only illuminated with COVID-19. Washingtonians need to send Beth to Congress to join me in moving forward bold solutions like Medicare for All and humane immigration reform, and fighting for working families, environmental justice, women and underserved communities. Beth will be a fantastic progressive partner for me in the state delegation and I cannot wait to have her strong voice in Congress." That was good enough to begin the vetting process. Basically, everything I could discover since showed that Pramila was right about her.

On top of that, the conservative running against her is exactly the kind of Democrat that has turned Congress into a cesspool that doesn't serve the interests of working families. As mayor of Tacoma, Strickland stood in the way of the $15 minimum wage campaign as well as the paid sick days campaign, which has a lot to do with why labor is backing Doglio-- and why the Chamber of Commerce is backing Strickland, who helped kill an employee hours tax on large employers that was meant to fund affordable housing.

When I asked Beth about it she told me that "If we take our talking points and marching orders from corporate special interests, we’ll constrain change to 'impossible aspiration' and never accomplish the progress this country desperately needs. Not all Democrats approach this challenge the same way. While I’m fighting for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and other bold policies to move this country forward, my opponent rejects these ideas. She even worked side-by-side with Amazon in a blatant attempt to buy the Seattle City Council and halt any possibility of progressive taxes where large, profitable corporations would pay their fair share. That’s simply not the progressive and principled leadership this moment calls for."

Today, as a candidate, Strickland apologizes for her support for building the world's largest methane plant in Tacoma. She-- and the special interests who she backed-- were eventually defeated by Tacoma activists. She has always been an enemy of environmental activists and told them to focus their energy on "recruiting 1,000 volunteer summer reading tutors for children from underserved neighborhoods" instead. Last year, as chair of the Chamber of Commerce, Strickland spent millions of corporate dollars in an attempt to unseat the Seattle City Council’s progressive majority.

Both candidates have records. We know exactly who Marilyn Strickland is and who Beth Doglio is. The former is unfit for office and the latter would make a great, and sorely-needed, addition to Congress. I asked Beth to introduce herself to DWT readers with a guest post. Please take a look and if, like I was, you're impressed, consider contributing to Beth's campaign by clicking on the thermometer above.


Why Taking on Special Interests (and Winning) Is More Important than Ever
by Rep. Beth Doglio

A pandemic badly mismanaged by Trump threatening the lives and livelihoods of the people in this country. The rightful racial tension and uprising triggered by the murder of George Floyd and so many others. Fires, hurricanes, storms raging across this country as we grapple with the increasing impacts of climate change and climate injustice. Lost jobs for 30 million people and many of them losing their healthcare as well.

Unprecedented turmoil. Unprecedented challenges.

I am a working mom, a climate activist, a longtime community organizer and state legislator running to be the next Member of Congress in Washington’s 10th Congressional District. I’m running because I am worried for my kids and their generation. What kind of jobs will exist to provide for their families? What kind of planet will we leave them? Will they have access to healthcare? Will justice for all be a reality, not just a tagline?

We’ve got a lot of work to do. And the time for incrementalism has long past-- we have to get it done now.

Bringing our country together, creating a future that makes good on the hope I see in my children’s generation, finally breaking down the systemic racism and inequality that has been in the very fibers of this country, will require solutions that weave together uplifting the working class with better wages and working conditions as well as universal access to healthcare, just and equitable solutions to climate change, and ensuring that all of these things are done with racial and social justice centered within the solutions.

I’ve spent my life fighting for local communities and taking on special interests. I’ve faced off against the fossil fuel and chemical industries-- and won. And to be clear, I’ve also lost. But with each loss, I came back ultimately prevailing by putting people and community first.

In 2018, fossil fuel giants spent record amounts-- over $30 million-- to mislead voters and defeat Initiative 1631, a ballot measure that would have implemented a modest fee on their pollution and helped move us to a clean energy future.

This is where resilient leadership, coalition-building, and the ability to craft real, transformative policy comes into play. After that loss at the ballot box, we reorganized, and I helped lead efforts to work on a suite of legislative climate solutions.

We developed Washington’s best-in-the-nation 100% clean electricity bill. This bill passed in the legislature and helped chart a course to a clean energy future. And even while corporate special interests continue to stymie progress in the fight against climate change, we in the legislature haven’t taken no for an answer, continuing to pass bold and innovative climate legislation.

Now I want to go to Congress to fight for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, a $15 per hour minimum wage and other ambitious-- and necessary-- policies to move this country forward.

Families can no longer afford a "business as usual" approach, kowtowing to the demands of giant, obscenely profitable corporations. I’m not taking corporate PAC or fossil fuel contributions because they have enough advocates in Congress, and enough is enough.

I will fight the same fights as I have as a community organizer and a member of the Washington state legislature on behalf of people and our planet. I have no doubt the same bad actors will work overtime to prevent reform on climate, healthcare, guns, and so much more. We need to elect leaders who have shown they will stand up to special interests, not work hand-in-hand to water down legislation and erode progress.

Activists and community leaders have shown how the fight can be won-- now, we just need more of them in office.