Fitzsimon File

Though it has been overshadowed in many ways by the health care debate, climate change legislation has already passed the U.S. House and is now before the Senate as President Obama prepares to head to the world climate summit in Copenhagen.

Climate change experts said at a N.C. Policy Watch Crucial Conversations luncheon Wednesday that one key struggle now is to keep the current cap and trade bill alive without weakening it further to appease corporate interests at the expense of the poor, who will be disproportionately affected by the proposal, just as they stand to suffer the most if nothing is done.

Dr. Steve Jackson with the N.C. Budget and Tax Center said that it is vital to have significant help for low-income families in the legislation, including substantial investments in training for displaced workers and income supports to offset the increased costs of electricity and transportation.

Current proposals give half of the relief for poor families to utility companies to pass on to their low-income customers, a requirement that be difficult to enforce since much of the burden falls to state regulators, not always the best friend to consumers.

Despite the attacks from many Republican lawmakers and the global warming denier faux think tank industry on the right, the cap and trade plan is hardly a radical proposal to address climate change that threatens the future of the planet.

Former Senate staffer Todd Wooten, who now runs the Southeast Climate Resources Center at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke, told the crowd that the cap and trade concept originated with President George H.W. Bush and his White House Counsel, C. Boyden Gray.

There are advocates in the environmental community who don't think the cap and trade plan doesn't do enough, but that hasn't deterred the vigorous opposition from a coalition of polluters and ideologues in Washington and in North Carolina.

Not too long ago the far right refused to even acknowledge that global warming is happening, even occasionally producing some pseudo science they claimed proved it. That got them nowhere.

Step two in the grand disinformation plan was to admit that global warming was real, but dispute than any of it is manmade. That flew in the face of the vast majority of scientific opinion, bringing the distorters to step three.

Keep pushing on the manmade front, but fall back on the old standby, that the climate change proposals will increase taxes. There is apparently a tax increase behind every tree . One leader of Americans for the Prosperous says the climate change bill will rob you of your prosperity.

Then there are the giant corporations with their battalions of lobbyists who care far more about profit than ideology, and want to make as much as they can for as long as they can. The corporations also provide major funding for the ideologues and the offshoot groups that have sprung up like wildflowers to work against reasonable climate proposals.

All that makes it remarkable that legislation has already passed the House and is very much alive in the Senate. But the majority of people agree with Wednesday's speakers that something must be done soon to slow the warming that threatens the future of the next generation.

Doing nothing is simply not an option. Let's hope lawmakers reject the pleas of the polluters and the ideologues who insist on putting their heads in the sand that may not be there much longer.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.