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Today's Top News
Kerry on Climate Bill: 'We're Prepared to Compromise Further'
Democrats, Obama Willing to Scale Back Energy and Climate Change Bill
WASHINGTON - Key Senate Democrats offered, during a White House meeting with President Barack Obama and skeptical Republicans on Tuesday, to scale back their ambitious plans to cap greenhouse gases across multiple sectors of the economy.
Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman said on Tuesday that President Obama insists on pricing greenhouse gases, but could also agree to a more limited climate and energy bill than what they previously drafted. (AP) Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman told reporters after the 90-minute West Wing meeting that Obama held firm in his calls for a price on greenhouse gases. But they said the president acknowledged that he could agree to a more limited climate and energy bill than any the senators had previously drafted.
"We believe we have compromised significantly, and we're prepared to compromise further," Kerry said.
"The president was very clear about putting a price on carbon" and curbing greenhouse gases, he added.
Lieberman said a couple of Republicans in the meeting promised to keep talking about the prospect of a less-ambitious climate program that includes a price on carbon, though he wouldn't name names.
Kerry and Lieberman released a climate bill last month that capped greenhouse gases emitted by power plants, transportation and trade-sensitive manufacturers.
Reaction to their bill has been lukewarm, and the duo said they would keep talking to senators on both sides of the aisle during the coming weeks to try to find a deal that could win 60 Senate votes.
Asked whether a power plant-specific bill was in the cards, Kerry replied, "There are any number of varieties. That could be one of them."
Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman confirmed on Monday that he's drafting legislation to cap greenhouse gases just from power plants.
Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, Judd Gregg, Richard Lugar, Lisa Murkowski, Olympia Snowe and George Voinovich also attended the White House meeting, but left with a very different message than their Democratic counterparts.
"We've got to take a national energy tax off the table in the middle of a recession," said Alexander, chairman of the Senate GOP Conference.
Gregg, who previously has backed emission limits just on power plants, urged Democratic leaders to focus solely on an energy bill that includes incentives for renewables, but no price on carbon emissions. "Our goal should be reducing our dependence on oil from people don't like us," he said.
Obama's meeting with the senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, ran overtime. It was originally scheduled to last less than an hour.
The White House press office also abruptly canceled a brief pool spray during which TV cameras and reporters were to be shuttled in for remarks by the president. White House officials said the cancellation was because of "scheduling considerations."
A White House statement released after the meeting acknowledged tensions in the room.
"The president told the senators that he still believes the best way for us to transition to a clean energy economy is with a bill that makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America's businesses by putting a price on pollution - because when companies pollute, they should be responsible for the costs to the environment and their contribution to climate change. Not all of the senators agreed with this approach, and the president welcomed other approaches and ideas that would take real steps to reduce our dependence on oil, create jobs, strengthen our national security and reduce the pollution in our atmosphere."
Obama indicated he saw "a strong foundation and consensus on some key policies.
"There was agreement on the sense of urgency required to move forward with legislation and the president is confident that we will be able to get something done this year," the White House added.
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55 Comments so far
Show AllAnother Washington turkey that will financially punish working people and enrich the wealthy. That is the template being used in Washington. Why not take the government funds generated by the carbon tax and distribute it to the people using a progressive financial measurement tool? The pain of increased energy costs would not then be borne most heavily by working people. Instead, the government seems hell bent on robbing the poor and giving to the rich. That's fruitcake economics. If the people have too little money to spend then the depression will reach up and grab the rich too. If there's a brain in Washington will it please make itself known!
The DC electeds will not allow "the depression to reach up an grab the rich".
Just like it has for the past quarter century, the US Government will continue its reverse Robin Hood mission and keep extracting more wealth from the working class and giving that wealth to the rich until the working class has no wealth.
Rather than implementing cap and trade, which creates another commodity that speculators can make a killing on at our expense, a cap and dividend system proposed by Senators Cantwell and Collins would provide money for the common good.
Back in 2004, I remember how Kerry ran a very lame campaign conceding to Dubya on a lot of things. I'm glad I voted for Nader in 2004.
Kerry's middle name is capitulation.
I remember watching both Dubya's and Kerry's convention speeches that year. The way Kerry lamely conceded to the corporate media and being too nice was more than enough to tell me that he wouldn't stand up to the neocon Republicans. Heavens knows what happened to the young John Kerry who used to be a brave anti-war fighter back in Vietnam. Even on Kerry's legislation to improve fuel efficiency, he allowed even his own party along with most Republicans to crush it. Climbing up the political ladder sure has a way of spoiling almost anyone and those who aren't spoiled get marginalized to irrelevancy.
Speaking of capitulation, when I see small business owners conceding shamelessly to their hostile corporate rivals ready to take over and crush their businesses, I notice that they never tire of deluding themselves into believing that they are climbing the ladder to fortune thinking that they will be as rich as the ones up there even as they get pushed further down into poverty. The trouble is like sports celebrities, political celebrities even when they lose get too big a consolation prize which would be far beyond what us average Main Street folks would get even on winning. Their spoiled luxury shield must prevent the word capitulation from entering their mind let alone putting them to shame. Even when Kerry did admit that he ran a lame campaign and let others get the best of him, it still sounded too scripted.
P.S.: I thought his name began with an F. My dad, albeit a social conservative by nature, would designate that nasty f-word as Kerry's middle name. :)
Hi Jennifer - I have a different take on Kerry during the Vietnam war. I think he was always Skull and Bones who related to the uppah class and his role was to deflect and contain the widespread smoldering rebellion among the troops. Remember troops in large numbers were failing to follow orders, deserting, smoking pot and some were even killing officers. It was an explosive situation. He used his cred from the hearings to assume control of Vietnam Veterans' dissent. He acted as a ponderous wet blanket on the popular movement. He was shockingly vacant and unapproachable. The dissent did not grow as it should have based on the massive disaffection that was present among thousands of young men trained in the use of arms. The dissent was never turned toward potency in protecting Vets' needs, medical or otherwise, nor toward gaining political support to end militarism.
In 2004 he was a cardboard place-holder on the Democratic side of the election charade. He ran an unbelievably inept campaign, failed to contend stolen votes, and got George Bush elected. I believe he always was, is still is, a cold phony and a stealth conservative who steps in to play a role when called upon.
This duplicity continues as he conspires to contain any interference with the prerogatives and interests of oil and coal companies. He steps in to play his deadpan role. As usual, he does this in the guise of representing the exactly what he is trying to contain.
Joe
Joe, the first paragraph interests me. Thanks for shedding further light on Kerry during Vietnam. That description matches one of a typical pol taking credit on good news. If he was that bad, it would explain why he was mum on Iraq.
Kerry is a bum ...
He was an impediment to the public option. He killed aid to the states over taxing Hedge Fund managers as ordinary income rather than capital gains ...
The further we get from 2004 the more this guy is a corporate shill ... He is not to be trusted on anything ...
I don´t who in this picture I´m more repulsed by, Senator Koward or Senator LIEberman. Two mobsters out to stab the American worker in the back while destryoing the environment in the process.
They're equally repulsive.
Chelsea
The corporate socialist conservatives will continue to bend people like Kerry until we get a watered down version of a climate bill to match the watered down version of health care. Compromise is not another name for surrender, even in Massachusetts.
Wall Street should be licking its chops on developing derivatives of cap & trade products. I'm sure once they see that this is a boondoggle for them, it will be greased and flow through congress like oil.
Where is the legislation that demands solar panels on every roof? And, units to produce hydrogen power from grey water with byproducts of hospital grade oxygen and pure water being installed with every new building, grandfathering all existing buildings by 2050? And, hydrogen powered transportation made mandatory by 2030, leaving fossil fueled transportation models to be relegated to the Smithsonian in the display of other Industrial Age relics? We don't need Cap & Trade, that's for Wall Street's enrichment, we need meaningful CHANGE!
"Scale back their ambitious plans"
Now THAT'S FUNNY!
Since when did this clown Kerry have an ambitious plan to cap greenhouse gases--or do anything for humanity/ planet for that matter?
He's a freaking DLC corporatist--what a joke!
we should rather be working on educating the new cops they'll send after us when there's no more seafood and they really start to limit the oil. We need those cops to understand that they'll do better to shake us down than to bust us. We'll have a much better chance of influencing them than of influencing our congressmen. Those of us still alive will be alive because of what we have in our garden. That's what those cops will be looking for. And when the penalty for not giving over the percentage of your production demanded is not ugly enough to get you to prefer to starve to death than go to prison, they'll make the prisons even nastier. And they'll want us to like them as well, like in Catch 22.
The Floridian peninsula is under dire threat from elitist/capitalist-induced climate-alteration and ecosystem toxification.
Its shores are now facing toxification from the greatest oil spill in history. It's battered regularly by hurricanes intensified by a petro-fried atmosphere. And at the rate the "american way" is melting the Greenland ice, Florida may have only two to four decades before half of its land area is submerged.
The elitists/capitalists of course see a bonanza in the mass relocation of communities inland. Any great change is another great opportunity for elites to extract resources from the people and the planet.
"A White House statement released after the meeting acknowledged tensions in the room."
Who exactly creates the tension? Is it the elites, voted back into business as usual by 100 million USans in 2008? I think that Ted Rall is onto something with that learned helplessness idea. But there's also to petro-opiate factor.
In its current form the Bill is a massive sellout to coal, nuclear, and bio fuels all inimical to the Earth community of beings. So now Kerry asserts he is willing to dilute an already bad bill for further corporate giveaways. I am so glad I voted for Nader in 2004, my instincts were absolutely right then, and they are right now. Kerry is not now, nor has he ever been an environmentalist. Piss on the man.
If Nader were president, this would still be happening.
Because North Americans put too much faith in individual "leaders" to "save" us from ourselves.
In a corrupt sytem such as ours, potentially transformative leaders like Nader are doomed to be mocked and marginalized. Until we have publicly-funded elections, until we have politicians who can actually get elected without have to beg large corporations for money, until we start prosecuting publicly and aggressively our corporate criminals (rather than give them more bailout money and a slap on the risk), our "democracy" is a sham.
Most importantly, and most unlikely, North Americans need come to terms with the fact that our 20th-Century fiesta of cheap fossil fuels and material overabundance is drawing to a close. I'm not optimistic they're prepared to accept that reality. They've been coddled for too long by generations of politicians promising them endless gain with no pain.
To cite a blogger that I admire: "a large majority of Americans surveyed agreed that the energy situation was a crisis and something needs to be done, but very few of them were willing to accept a solution that involved gasoline prices going up. The temptation to promise people that they can have a green energy future and still fill their tanks for less than $3 a gallon will be immense; those groups that do this can count on being flooded with recruits, while those that admit that in any realistic green energy future most Americans will no longer have cars at all will find themselves trying to talk to people in an incomprehensible language that might as well be Umbrian".
A bad system is one thing and I agree that the current one needs to be abolished and replaced. However, in the case of Kerry vs Nader, Kerry is showing his anti-environmentalist colors "boldly" and shamelessly while Nader would never do such a thing even while in office. Win or lose, giving up on Nader or for that matter countless people like him trying to make a difference in office cannot go on. There isn't a difference between Kerry and Dubya as far as governing is concerned but there is a huge difference between Nader and Kerry/Dubya as far as governing is concerned. Nader has proven that he would use his powers as president to help the people while Kerry/Dubya have shown that they would abuse their powers to help their corporate cronies.
These profligate clowns who can't balance the budget, who piss away money on weapons and war, who squander our tax dollars by the minute should not be in charge of environmental policy. All they care about is filling corporate coffers with our tax money. They are corrupt to the core and haven't a decent idea among them.
Anyone here still have any questions?
The task before all of us is to aggressively get out into our communities and at every moment speak out against the entrenched corporate hacks that control our political cesspool.
Do it in the grocery store lines, at the crosswalk, in casual conversations and wherever you may be.
Crash whatever gates are necessary.
Time is up.
Here is a classic to use as your opening salvo:
Supporting Democrats is a serious political disorder, like alcoholism or returning again & again to an abusive spouse who repeatedly lies to you. It's easy to fall off the wagon, to make excuses & rationalizations for it.
Even many whose views are developed enough to recognize such truths as the fundamental rottenness of the 2-party system & the complicity of Democrats in all of the Republicans' major crimes, are still unable to draw the logical consequences of these insights. (Those so naive that they still conceive of Democrats as being the "opponents" of Republicans are another case altogether.)
The central point is this: capitalist society permits the Democrats to be one of the 2 allowed parties for a very definite reason. It's not because the Democrats "serve the people." It's because in a subtle but effective way, they help the capitalists keep the populace under control by providing them with the illusion of possible change. TPTB don't want the people "served." They want them managed, or controlled.
It is the job, the central social function of the Democrats to always be dangling before the people's noses vague pseudo-hints of possible change, so as to keep them from bolting from bourgeois politics altogether. It is the Democrats' intention to never deliver meaningful change, but rather to keep dangling hints of it alluringly forever. This produces control -- a populace habituated to remain safely within the lines required by ruling class interests.
This is why the Democrats NEVER paint a picture of US history that's the slightest bit accurate -- they want a brainwashed population every bit as much as the Republicans do. This is why they NEVER are willing to set forth an honest socioeconomic analysis of why things are as they are -- they much prefer that people not understand such things.
As long as a large chunk of voters can be deceived by the seemingly "nicer guy" act of the Democrats, there is no hope whatever of coming to grips with the core problems of our society. The most dangerous trends -- a wasteful consumer society, environmental destruction, grotesque social inequality, and an uncontrollable propaganda/war machine -- cannot even be approached within the framework of bourgeois politics, because they all serve ruling class interests. This is what is really being protected, when people opt to support Democrats just because they seem less blatantly cruel on TV.
- Hat's off to RichM
"Hat's off to RichM"
I was wondering about him. Although I didn't back to this site until May, I haven't seen his posts much. I miss him. :(
However, what you write equally resonates with me and in some ways you remind me of RichM. I hope he is ok and returns well.
He's one of the best in concisely articulating the futility of supporting the Democrats and pointing out the true nature of this bi-partisan con game.
We use to banter about on a political board a few years back. I learned a lot from him with my major criticism of him being that he should write more and be even more provocative in where he places his writings. He's quite astute.
I have read RichM's posts from the archives in 2008 and 2009. I even used some of his ideas to fight the Obamabots on Alternet and in the real world even as I took heavy beatings from many but didn't mind having known their ways. I was also thinking that through the years, not much has fundamentally changed other than the same patterns of both parties having worsening effects. I know RichM is strictly socialist while I believe in both socialism and regulated capitalism. He and I had a lot of discussion about that and he recognizes the difference between regulated and unfettered capitalism. Since he lived through the 1960s and 1970s while I wasn't even born until 1981, I think he knows the tricks of capitalism through experience that I have never been exposed to throughout my life except when I was in Europe. I like the way RichM structurally puts the Obama/Dubya apologists to shame and thoroughly deconstructs the myth about the two parties. I rarely voted for a Democrat or a Republican even on a local election as it was. Even the last somewhat credible Democrat, Dennis Kucinich, killed the last of what very little trust I had in him or anyone labeled as a D or R after I later read about how he caved in to Barrycare while I was out of this miserable country for a while. I look forward to learning more from the posts here in conjunction with life experience as it keeps coming. Thank you for your posts. :)
mcoyote, JenniferBedingfield-- I'm always glad to see a RichM comment, hope we'll see more, and hope all is well with him.
Meanwhile, if it hasn't already been recommended, see: A comment: Revisiting George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in 2010*
* http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/1984-j12.shtml
Spot on! "...dangling before the people's noses vague pseudo-hints of possible change..." That's exactly the job of Kucinich, Grayson, et al and they have been doing it well. Many posters here keep demanding/hoping for the Democrats to "grow a spine". It's the left that needs to grow a spine and QUIT supporting these con artists. The Democratic Party is so thoroughly compromised and corrupt that it is hopeless.
This is an Interview with the leader of Canada's own Green party. Yes the one I have voted on for the last several elections.
http://rabble.ca/news/2010/01/elizabeth-may-interview
Me too, GWNorth.
Kerry Ketchup, professional Washington milk toast and worse.
Enough to make one wanna throw up.
"There was agreement on the sense of urgency..."
Yeah right. How reassuring.
Why not give in to the right, it's only the future of the planet at stake, no big whoop!
they have to compromise to get anything passed
they need 60 votes or nothing gets done
For me, 'compromise' has become a dirty word. What it really means is Not-Good-Enough.
Fine the polluters until they yelp. Then fine them some more. Require that the fines be paid by shareholders, not consumers. If they want dividends paid on investments, they MUST STOP POLLUTING to avoid the fines.
It's not a tax. Calling it a tax implies that they can pay and keep on polluting.
It's a penalty for gross negligence.
But they didn't need 60 votes just to pass more corporate pork and war gravy for those corporate welfare queens and warfare kings.
The old 60 vote BS. How come we always need 60 votes to pass stuff we were promised, but simply majorities to knife us in the back?
John Kerry refused to defend himself when he was swift-boated in 2004. Barack Obama refuses to defend himself when he is racially maligned and insulted by the Republicans. How can anyone vote for people who won't even defend THEMSELVES from attack let alone defend the people?
It's good that the so-called "cap and trade" legislation is failing. This is just another scheme to allow the Wall Street bloodsuckers to make money on the misery of others (this time the entire planet). If carbon is to be reduced it has to be legislated down without any phony capitalist manipulation. There should be caps but no trades, period.
The Kerry/Lieberman Bill was too soft from the beginning - - the product of the fossil fuel giants, and they (Kerry, Lieberman et all) have the gall to be willing to make that bill even less effective? Yes, hold the cap, drop the trade and work to save our planet.
We have seen what folks like BP can do in the Gulf of Mexico; can you visualize the possibilities of what might happen when BP starts deep well drilling off the coast of Libya in the Mediterranean if they have another mishap there? The fossil fuel giants and the oligarchs of some, if not most of the G-20 countries seem to care about nothing except making more and more money for themselves.
Oh, God. Talk about USELESS and SPINELESS politicians. As a nation, we're notorious for being way behind other countries! See below for emphasis on that!!!!
Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman told reporters after the 90-minute West Wing meeting that Obama held firm in his calls for a price on greenhouse gases. But they said the president acknowledged that he could agree to a more limited climate and energy bill than any the senators had previously drafted. "We believe we have compromised significantly, and we're prepared to compromise further," Kerry said.
Unfortunately, the Earth is not ready to compromise.
Wow, a ray of light in all of this darkness!
Who is negotiating for the Gulf Coast habitat?
Compromise?
Put a ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the atmosphere warms proportionally.
Put a ton of carbon dioxide into the ocean and the ocean acidifies proportionally.
Keep doing it and living things die. Do it long enough and all living things die.
There is no compromise possible.
For better or worse, compromise is the American way. Recall, for example, Lyndon Johnson, in an interview shortly after he took over from the assassinated JFK: “I am a compromiser and a maneuverer. I try to get *something*. That’s the way our system works.”
Do you really want a "green dictator" who can accomplish things by fiat? If so, just remember that such a person will sooner or later be more "dictatorial" than "green".
Oh puleeeze ! To "compromise" is to concede. There is no such thing as a "green dictator" but there are such things as capitalist dictators wrecking the country and the planet ! LBJ didn't compromise on the Vietnam war btw so he lied. How come some things such as wars and tax cuts for the rich require no compromise but fixing schools, the environment, and health care need "compromises" to the point of watering it all down to nothing? Is that what you like?
No, Jill, as a matter of fact I don't like it -- but that's the way things ARE.
The politicians can compromise all they want with each other. The laws of physics don't care what the politicians say or think or do. Keep pumping death gasses into the atmosphere and the temperature will keep rising. Period. No compromise, no discussion. Gas in, death out. End of story.
You're worried about a so-called green dictator? Yeah, you go ahead and worry about that. You'll still be blithering about politics when physics dictates your life and the biosphere kills you.
Nauseating alright.
Last year R Nader put out a book, "only the superrich can save us", just the 1st 50 pages have some astouningly good ideas.
Like a sub-economy, a peoples chamber of commerce, inshort, ignoring the greed-based system and growing a new world inside the the old husk.
We spend too much time and energy opposing the status quo, when dodging, or walking away, etc, would serve us better. The system expends huge amounts to keep us convinced they're the only act in town.
Abandon repressive satisfaction.---Marcuse
Letter to My Senator....
The President is about to come forth with a compromise energy bill, that like so many of his efforts- is best termed compromised- than a compromise. Your President (My President) lacks any sense of the fierce urgency of now as he tackles the global warming crisis. Further, the tepid response the Administration is seeking- will only delay the dramatic actions needed to stay disaster.
The American people are well ahead of Washington and the special interest groups. We need a carbon tax- not cap and trade. We need significant reduction in global warming emissions- over an 85% reduction by 2050- with aggressive measure to meet intermediate targets sooner. We need to stop the use of coal fired plants. We do not need more nuclear plants. We need to price carbon fairly- to reflect its contribution to environmental damage. We need to more strongly promote renewable energy technology- even under the present state of advancement this technology can meet our energy needs.
The planet is rapidly losing its biodiversity. The climate is and will become increasingly unstable. Untold generations will suffer because an American President and US Senate lacks the vision and boldness to do what is right- and instead is intimidated by naysayers and pundits.
"Kerry on Climate Bill: 'We're Prepared to Compromise Further'"
Great. Let's start the fight by saying we're willing to give in. That should win us concessions. Opponents will be so grateful not having to fight they'll accept something, surely? - If not, we can always compromise.
Sad Democrats; at the first sign of trouble they bend over and grab their ankles...
Many Republican policies are putrid but at least they know how to stick to their guns (literally and figuratively).
I could use a little less pragmatic and a little more dogmatic when it comes to critical issues like the environment and war.
james lovelock: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25838.htm
Our corporate legislature really, really suks!
Our corporate legislature really, really suks!