Politics U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Environmental Compromise (aka, Prop. 1)
posted by on November 1 at 16:17 PM
After his excellent amendments failed (like strengthening the emissions cap and raising the cost for emissions) U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) pulled his support for the Lieberman/Warner climate change bill. Grist explains Sanders’s position here.
Here’s Sanders’s opening statement, which seemed relevant to Seattle as we head into next week’s election:
Let me be as blunt as I can be in telling you where I am coming from on a compromise bill on global warming, an issue that is qualitatively different than any other issue we are dealing with in Congress.On most issues, Congress goes through the time-honored tradition of working out compromises which both sides can end up accepting. I want to see all the kids in America have health care. Other members think the Children’s Health Insurance Program should not be expanded. We compromise on 4 million more children in the program. I think a program should be expanded by $100 million. You think it should be expanded by $50 million. We compromise at $75 million. That’s the way business is done here and in other democratic societies and there is nothing wrong with that. We live in a country where people have different political views and in almost every instance members of the Senate compromise to reach an agreement.
Today, however, we have a qualitatively different situation. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. The issue is not what I want versus what Senator Lieberman or Senator Warner or Senator Inhofe may want – and the need to work out an agreement that we can all accept. That’s not the dynamic we face today. The issue today is one of physics and chemistry and what the best scientists in the world believe is happening to our planet because of greenhouse gas emissions. The issue is what we can do, as a nation, along with the international community, to reverse global warming and to save this planet from a catastrophic and irreversible damage which could impact billions of people.
In other words, we are not in a debate now between Bernie Sanders and anyone else. It’s not a debate between what I want or what you want. We are in a debate between science and public policy.
It's John Warner. Mark's not in the Senate (yet).
Interesting.
But, in the end, meaningless to the citizens of Puget Sound who will have their teenage kids paying the regressive sales tax for this bill which increases global warming emissions from now until they retire - and after.
Bad idea. Just say NO.
Science suggests that 70 miles of light rail is valuable and necessary for the future. It also suggests there will not be anywhere near enough oil to produce the emissions the extra road lanes are projected to spew, and it also suggests that as oil prices continue to rise, demand destruction will mean those roads either won't be built or will sit empty, their lanes tempting targets for conversion to rail.
Bernie's words are stirring. But they don't answer the question you guys don't - given a Democratic caucus in Olympia that has shown a deep hostility to progressive policy, and is very unlikely to float a tax measure for rail anytime in 2008 (owing to the gubernatorial election), when exactly *will* we approve light rail? In 2011 when inflation and a prolonged recession make folks even more tax-averse?
It's a bunch of misleading bullshit to link Sanders' quote with Proposition 1. Simply put, in a democracy, we need to consider that everyone does not happen to have the same arrogant "liberal" conceits that we do, and their interests need to be represented. And I don't know what hole y'all have been living in, but a previous Proposition 1 demonstrated that even *Seattle* voters have little tolerance for mass transit projects. This is the *only* way transit will go forward in this city.
So if the brain trust at The Stranger could present a scenario where a comprehensive, politically tractable transit expansion program could get through all of the necessary levels of government, I'd be all for it. But just as with the monorail, it seems like the dominant feeling is either "all the way" or "no way"... and that's the quickest route to enabling this obnoxious, pseudo-liberal obstructionism that seems to permeate every corner of Seattle politics.
If Prop 1 fails we will have no chance to vote on any rapid rail system in the Puget sound for at least two years. The above reference to nothing happening in 2008 is correct. It is an election year and Gregiore will not take up ANYTHING that is controversial.
Frankly, we may as well forget rail in he Puget Sound. No one wants to give up their dream of car ownership even if that dream ends up killing us all. Call it the effective cost of dreaming.
oh bull, Just Me.
Totally untrue.
Where did you learn your FUD tactics - Microsquelch? Or from Karl Marx Rove?
Chimes in Will in Seattle, the King of FUD himself...
My thoughts exactly Tommy. Every day is a new talking point.
And calling people who disagree with him Karl Rove disciples? Wow, where have I seen that tactic used before... kinda ironic, if it wasn't so sad.
If we know that there won't be enough oil to use all that road capacity, then why spend billions to create the road capacity?
In other words, we are not in a debate now between Bernie Sanders and anyone else. It’s not a debate between what I want or what you want. We are in a debate between science and public policy.
A cursory glance at history shows that public policy trumps science any day of the week. So I guess the good Congressman is happy to let science lose altogether.
Attack the messenger instead of the message, isn't that Lesson 1 in the Karl Marx Rove handbook?
The fact is, voting for Prop 1 RTID/ST2 means you are voting to:
INCREASE air pollution,
INCREASE water pollution,
INCREASE land pollution,
DECREASE wetlands,
DECREASE transit to auto usage (yup),
INCREASE taxes on kids in school who will pay this regressive tax into their retirement years.
Not to mention INCREASE global warming emissions.
Global Warming is NOW. (techically, it started the upcurve about 20 years ago, but we're at systemic failure rate levels now, kind of like Peak Oil)
Demand a clean ST2.1 vote and say no to the GOP-designed RTID/ST2 vote.
You call us Roveian, we shall call you the Nader of 2007. My, that was productive wasn't it?
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