Congress is recessing and we are too (sort of)

Greetings Of Peace and Politics readers. Whew! It's been a busy month here at FCNL and on Capitol Hill, what with Congress working feverishly on health care, climate change, and a myriad other issues. While it looks like the House and Senate probably won't wrap up health care before they depart in August, both Congress and FCNL are going to slow down considerably over the next few weeks.

Today is the last day for this year's crop of first and second year interns, and until September only Maggie and Stephen will be in the office to contribute to the blog. That means we'll be on semi-hiatus. Please keep reading though, and come back to us in September! In the meantime you can listen to the latest podcast. If you want updates on what's happening at FCNL you can check our website.

On a more personal note, it is with a tear in my eye that I bid farewell to this blog. It's been my pet project for most of my time at FCNL, and I've loved seeing it grow. I'm just heading across town to George Washington U. to work on my master's in Media and Public Affairs though, so I will continue to read, listen, and write in the comments.

Cheers!

Caroline

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The Climate Bill Won't Work

Find out why (and Devin's more nuanced analysis of the bill) on this week's podcast:

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Green Schools and Fuel Efficiency...The Earth Wins this Week

In the last few weeks, climate change, energy and the environment have been front-and-center in the news. While the climate change bill that is moving through the House is not as good as it should be, there has been progress on a couple other key related issues.

A couple weeks ago, on May 14th, the House passed a "Green Schools" bill to provide $6.4 billion annually for the next five years to fund green school building and renovation projects. The bill passed 275-155; now it is up the Senate to pass a similar bill. To make this even better, the House bill has provisions to make sure that the money is focused especially on schools with low-income students.

I agree with Ben Chandler, a Democrat from Kentucky: "It will give much needed money to our schools struggling with huge budget deficits and deteriorating facilities while encouraging energy efficiency and creating jobs for Americans that cannot be shipped overseas."

Funding education, the environment and jobs with one program--how could anyone oppose it during this time of crisis? Some argue this spending just adds to the deficit. This reminds me of a study by the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities which shows where the U.S.' budget deficit really came from: tax cuts (especially for the rich) and increases in military spending (especially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Check this out in the most recent issue of FCNL's Washington Newsletter.

The good news is that this bill is likely to pass in the Senate, and Obama will most certainly sign it, especially considering that his childhood middle school was named one of the top ten greenest schools in the country in 2007.

To top off this good news, Obama announced tougher fuel efficiency standards on Tuesday, May 19th. The new energy standards will finally match the fuel efficiency standards that California fought with the Bush Administration about for several years. According to NPR: "The new standards would cut greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and light trucks 30 percent by 2016. Cars would have to get 39 mpg, light trucks 30 mpg." It's about time that the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House was more concerned about the environment than corporate interests!

I hope these new initiatives by the Federal Government start a trend of continuing environmental progress.

Lobby your Representative to make sure that this progress continues by improving the climate change bill that is in the House of Representatives.

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Baby Steps in British Columbia

Over the past few weeks I've been ruminating more and more about how I would like to live in another country, one of those socialist ones, where I would have health care paid for (this longing largely sprung out of a struggle to pay for wisdom teeth extraction -- even with health insurance!!), and things like this would happen:

Voters in British Columbia have reelected Gordon Campbell, who promotes carbon tax, as premier of the province. Campbell specifically noted that his election is a vote of support for the carbon tax policy.

Now, why can't we do that in this country? What drives me crazy about the debate over climate change (and health care for that matter), is that somehow supporters of carbon tax (or single payer health care) are made to feel like crazy extreme leftists (or - gasp! - socialists).

How did affairs progress to this state? Can the U.S. begin to behave a bit more like Canada? Or do I need to face the fact that I'm just too progressive for this country and move? Somehow I think, for the good of everyone, that the former should happen.

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The day after Earth Day

Yesterday was one of my favorite days: Earth Day! But today is the day after Earth Day, so why I am still talking about it?

On April 22nd ever year, it is popular to talk about how great the environment is and how much we should be doing to end climate change, protect endangered species, promote clean energy, and the like. And on April 23rd, we move on to other things and we all pat ourselves on the back for being such good environmentalists on Earth Day.

Along the same lines, greenwashing has also become a hip, new trend, as this Earth Day comic indicates. This is especially true of advertising. Every product and every company is trying to convince us that they are "green". (One of my pet peeves is seeing ads in the metro station from Chevron asking me to go green...I don't need an oil company telling me how to save the environment.) The greenwashing of politicians' speeches is also a growing epidemic. And yet, despite the cacophany of voices claiming to be green, the kind of massive, system change that we need seems far from realization.

The point of all of this is to say that I don't want to just add to the mass of people trying to capitalize on the "green revolution." So I am going to ask us to do something different this year. On this day, the day after Earth Day, I am asking us to take seriously the plea to make every day Earth Day.

Yesterday, Obama made his Earth Day speech proclaiming: "My Administration is also working to achieve a comprehensive energy and climate policy, one that will lessen our dependence on foreign oil, make the U.S. the global leader in clean energy technology, and prevent the worst impacts of climate change. "

The President is encouraging action. And Congress is moving toward action on climate legislation....Finally! A first draft of climate change legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 was released. Now WE must act! The proposed legislation needs to be improved by leaving out the carbon trading and simply capping carbon emissions. Congress also needs to ensure that the revenue from this system is returned to consumers. Take the opportunity today to show that you care about the earth every day by writing your members of Congress, encouraging them to pass climate legislation with these improvements.

Write your letter here!

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