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Washington Watch for June 20, 2010

06/20/2010

Spill solution is practical and political
By GERARD SHIELDS
Advocate Washington bureau
Published: Jun 20, 2010 - Page: 7B
 
During the economic crisis last year, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is … an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”
 
Emanuel’s comment resonated last week as both President Obama and Louisiana coastal restoration advocates held up the Gulf oil crisis to further their agendas.
 
Obama used a good chunk of his 18-minute speech to call on the nation to move toward clean energy. What Republicans heard was Obama pushing his legislation that would tax carbon pollution as part of a climate change bill.
 
Greenhouse gases such as carbon are considered a major contributor to ozone damage. The so-called and controversial “cap and trade” legislation has already passed the House but has stalled in the Senate, which is struggling to get the votes.
 
Under the plan, polluters would buy “credits” from companies that meet pollution standards. In his speech, Obama said the legislation finally makes clean energy “the profitable kind of energy for America’s businesses.”
 
Obama expressed resolve in calling for a move toward clean energy such as wind and solar while also calling to an end to the nation’s “century-long addiction to fossil fuels.”
 
Mentioning the might of plane and tank manufacturers during World War and the accomplishment of getting a man to the moon, the president said the country is running out of oil reserves and must get its act together in changing the way it consumes energy.
 
“Countries like China are investing in clean-energy jobs and industries that should be here in America,” Obama said. “Each day, we send $1 billion to foreign countries for their oil.”
 
Republicans said they weren’t fooled by what they said is Obama’s intent to push the climate legislation, which he hopes to get approved by the end of the current congressional session in December.
 
U.S. Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-Quitman, usually soft-spoken, was angered by Obama’s comments that the nation’s oil reserves are low, and called it misleading.
 
Pointing to Alaska and Western states, Alexander said there are plenty of untapped oil reserves in the nation.
“It’s obvious he’s going to use this as a tool to push cap and trade,” Alexander said.
 
Republican leaders in the House and Senate say they also see through the president’s intentions.
 
“The White House may view this oil spill as an opportunity to push its agenda in Washington, but Americans are more concerned about what it plans to do to solve this crisis at hand,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, said in a statement.
 
House Minority Leader John Boehner, of Ohio, was more blunt, saying Obama was trying to “exploit this crisis to impose a job-killing energy tax.”
Louisiana coastal restoration advocates took advantage of Obama’s call for shoring up the Gulf Coast as an opportunity to further its call for the sharing of offshore revenue sent to the federal government.
 
Obama said he asked Ray Mabus, the secretary of the U.S. Navy and former governor of Mississippi, to develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration  Plan.
 
Before Obama could even deliver his speech, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., wrote him a letter on what she called a comprehensive outline to restore and protect Louisiana’s coast.
 
The foundation of Landrieu’s lobbying has been to increase federal revenue-sharing with coastal states.
 
Landrieu met with stakeholders in the coast earlier in the year, who called for an immediate and dedicated stream of revenue to save coastal wetlands.
 
During the current crisis, Landrieu has lobbied to move up federal revenues set to arrive in 2017
“In the face of the current oil disaster in the Gulf, the consequences of federal inaction are grave,” Landrieu wrote.
 
Gerard Shields is chief of The Advocate’s Washington bureau.