Today, Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman are busy talking up their American Power Act, a piece of legislation that would do a great deal for American power companies, but do precious little for planet Earth’s environment. Even in the face of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling disaster and the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion, the bill would expand offshore drilling for oil and increase the burning of coal.
Expanding the supply of oil and coal encourages inefficient energy consumption at the same time as it rewards deadly oil and coal industry safety lapses and outrageous amounts of pollution. There’s no serious way to claim that drilling for more oil and mining for more coal will have a positive environmental impact.
The idea behind the American Power Act is that it’s going to attract a lot of Republican support, so that it can be passed. It’s a depressing manifestation of the Democratic Party’s lack of resolve, that just one and a half years after huge wins in the presidential and congressional elections brought the party solid control of both the legislative and executive branched of the federal government, the Democrats are still offering insipid legislation as a way of begging for Republican support.
The strategy of caving in to Republican demands isn’t working, either. Not one Republican has expressed support for the Kerry-Lieberman bill.
Senator Kerry justifies his bill by saying that “our planet can’t wait for the perfect bill”. The implication is that the Kerry-Lieberman bill is good, that it makes progress. That argument requires us to believe that expansion of offshore drilling up and down the coastlines of the United States and increasing the amount of coal being burned is a step in the right direction.
It’s a load of bull. The Kerry-Lieberman oil and coal bill is a step backwards. Kerry’s right that the planet can’t wait – so why is he seeking to delay genuine progress with a fake climate bill?
“After a devastating oil spill this should be an easy vote,” Senator Kerry says. Yes, this vote should be easy for any U.S. senator with a scrap of integrity.
It’s an easy vote NO.
Take action: Call the congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121 two times, asking to be connected to your two U.S. senators. Tell them that you want them to vote against the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act, and make sure to tell them why you want them to vote against it: Because we need a genuine climate bill that reduces offshore drilling and coal mining, not a bill that will make climate change worse.
I will not support any candidate that does not have a statement against off-shore drilling. Let me qualify that as, it must be within the sought office’s influence, or they might be aggressively reform and fix the current system(but I’m very skeptical about this). Do these guys follow the news?
“Throw in the towel” Kerry and chicken-hawk, blowhard, everything for Israel Lieberman going to bat for Big Oil, how convenient . . .
And now we’re learning that the gusher is a lot more than the 5000 barrels per day that BP has been estimating. It’s more like 70,000 barrels per day (plus or minus 20%). Even BP admits that their 5000 barrels per day estimate was likely low and it could be as much as 60,000 barrels per day. Anyone still wondering why it took so long for BP to release video of the broken pipe and the oil gushing out? This is hardly a “leak” or a “spill”.