Climate Change is buzzing across the US political sphere at the moment, so are torture issues, the Afghanistan war is never too far from the media’s mind, the next Supreme Court nomination is doing the rounds and North Korea just exploded a nuclear bomb. But wait! Climate Change IS buzzing, not even a debate about its existence, at least not in the mainstream, nor its role as global conspiracy but actual Climate Change or related policy has landed.
For those of us who follow the environmental issue, the US has been a sore spot to say the least, and while Obama promised much and seemed to understand it, (by which I mean he did not flat out deny mountains of scientific evidence), but with the global recession, “sceptical” Republicans in congress etc, many of us had doubts that Obama would expend serious capital pushing it through. In some ways we were right, he hasn’t expended his capital per se, rather he has revealed his strategic cunning to begin pushing through legislation and shape the debate early on.
The two big Climate Change issues at the moment is the Waxman-Markey bill, proposing a US wide Cap and Trade policy, this one passed its first major hurdle which was making it out of comittee, it has an arduous journey ahead of it but don’t be fooled, from the Bush administration’s denial of Global warming and paltry increase in renewable energy funding, a debate on a nationwide Cap and Trade is a huge leap forward.
The second, is the fuel standards or CAFE legislation. This surprised many by its boldness. Fuel standards were first introduced after the OPEC oil crisis and were successful in the short term of reducing US consumption. Since then however, the framework for fuel efficiency standards became a patchwork with a lack of movement at a federal level, eventually this resulted in the California face off with the EPA over the latter’s refusal to grant a waiver for California for higher fuel efficiency standard than the underwhelming Bush proposals. What took commentators by surprise was that Obama passed the CAFE 4 years before it was mandated by law to be revised and with more far reaching standards than many had hoped for, essentially from 2012, fuel efficiency will be raised 5% each year. Although this would still put it behind Europe, after literally of little to no progress this is a remarkable step forward and has the double effect of changing the Canadian car market ( the two are so closley linked that major Canadian states, just match their fuel standards to the US).
President Obama undoubtedly realised that on any single front, intransigent Republicans and conservative Democrats could be enough to water down any particular piece of legislation. Which is why Obama has decided to pursue the policy on numerous fronts, in the hope to reach a more ambitious target.
While the Waxman-Markey bill will continue to endure a very tough battle, setting an ambitious target to raise fuel standards Obama has effectively passed a Climate Change and energy security bill in one:
Obama mentioned that 1.8 billion barrels of oil will be saved over the lifetime of vehicles sold in the next 5 years (this is the equivalent of shutting down 194 coal plants or taking 58 million cars off the roads for a year
In addition to this, the stimulus bill contained approximately $60 billion will go towards green projects from renewable energy investment, research as well as other environmental efforts.
As with all things Obama, the it’s not just about the legislation but changing the the whole framework of the debate. Many have noted that for Climate Change policy to be sustained across the political spectrum and over time it cannot simply rely on Climate Change as a goal, rather it needs to be recast with concomitant values that can unite people across the political spectrum. Obama no stranger to the power of words has placed his bets: Jobs and energy security.
“It’s the economy stupid” may be cliché but it’s the language that wins elections, especially in an election, Obama has promised 5 million green energy jobs and frequently discusses the clean energy market as one America can’t afford not to invest in, describing it as a cornerstone of America’s economic recovery and an excellent future market for investment.
While his first language is positive, Obama takes a more serious tone when he discusses energy security. Although discussed during the campaign, the Obama administration has continued this line and begun to back it up with investment and the CAFE standards. He’s met with considerable success with some veteran groups coming out in favour of renewable energy investment to prevent future energy wars. Democracy Corp recently found Obama had higher approval on National Security than he did on his job approval , with 50% of American’s saying Obama was doing better than Bush on national security. While this will obviously focus much more on traditional military issues, Obama has nevertheless been able to cast renewable energy and fuel standards as essential tools in strengthening America’s strategic position and subseqeuntly casting those who allowed oil dependency to continue as damaging to America’s national security *cough* Bush-Cheney *cough*.
He’s got a long road to tread, but Obama is no stranger to playing the longer game.
