“Change, yes we can!” was the slogan and ideology that swept President Obama into the hallowed halls of the White House on the 20th of January 2009. But as most politically savvy people know, a huge public approval rating and a mandate for change does not legislation make. The life and times of a presidency can be described as a story about toil, struggle, successes and disappointments. President Obama and the majority of enlightened U.S citizens may want to do something about anthropogenic global warming and runaway climate change, but getting radical environmental legislation through Congress is trickier than it looks.
American politics is essential a big game of horse trading. Sometimes you have to play nice and sometimes you have to play hard and fast, but ultimately every senator and congressmen has to keep his or her own voters happy and at the same time look after special interest groups who incidentally pump millions of dollars into their re-election war-chests. It’s not an easy game. While you do this you have try and make as little enemies on the Hill as possible, toe the party line and get as many politicians to support your initiatives at the same time. With so many political and social balls in the air at once it’s understandable that some will get dropped from time to time.
Although the presidency has no legal authority to introduce legislation into Congress, he can ultimately influence and organise members from both houses to advance his own agenda. In the run-up to the election President Obama proposed a new energy initiative that would help tackle global warming by seeing the U.S produce 25% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Unfortunately for environmentalists the new energy reform bill has hit several stumbling blocks. A series of concessions, orchestrated by lobbyists and special interests, have all but annihilated the radical green and climate change fighting intention of the bill. Both the House and the Senate have attempted to crowbar in measures that would allow utility companies to meet their requirements by adopting energy efficient programmes. Both bills also weaken the mandate by allowing companies to reach their quotas by introducing CO2 capturing facilities, building new nuclear plants or by increasing power generation from existing stations. The overall green intentions have been diluted in order to appease billion dollar corporations. Issues regarding global warming and climate change are still hotly debated by both the left and the right with vast amounts of pro and against lobbying occurring across the U.S.
In addition to this the GOP has recently announced their new energy strategy that would see the construction of 100 new nuclear plants. Although, big strides have been made to make nuclear energy cleaner and more efficient the subject of waste disposal is still unsolved. $50bn from Obama’s economic stimulus package had been earmarked for nuclear energy, but the money was re-appropriated by democrats. John McCain in a recent interview accused Democrats of ignoring its potential and he argued that “They remember Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and all those scenes in the movies that are apocalyptic about nuclear power,” rather than assessing it as a viable clean energy source.
It’s clear that some form of renewable energy bill will pass through congress, but it appears that its environmental intention will be less effective than hoped. Global warming activists have sharply criticised both bills as weak and lacking the appropriate radical approach that is needed to tackle global climate change. Only time will tell how much of the bills true mandate will survive after Congress have finished dissecting it.
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