Passing the Recovery Test or: The Basic Political Reality for Climate Legislation in 2009
If lawmakers who care about climate change want to achieve anything meaningful politically this year, they must ask themselves one fundamental question: will it pass the Recovery Test?
According to Talking Points Memo, GOP lawmakers are already laying the groundwork for efforts to delay climate legislation that could be introduced into Congress in 2009. As the GOP's strategy becomes clearer, so to do certain fundamental political truths likely to rule Washington politics for the coming year and beyond.
According to TPM, Republicans are laying seeds of dissent and dissatisfaction regarding Obama's new senior aide for energy and the environment, former Clinton-era EPA head Carol Browner:
"By holding up Jackson and Sutley [Obama's nominees for EPA chief and head of the Council on Environmental Quality], Senate Republicans are doing more than just signaling their discontent that they won't get to question and vote on Browner -- although Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) suggests to the Times that Browner be called in for a "quasi-confirmation" hearing. They're previewing their strategy to knock down the climate regulation bill that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), environment committee chairman, will release later this year.
Here's how it might look: After Boxer's climate bill emerges, Republicans would immediately protest the involvement of Browner, a White House adviser who was never fully vetted by the Senate."
This is the tactical explanation of the Republican plan, but it also sheds light on GOP strategy. It seems that Congressional Republicans will continue to make a wedge issue out of climate change. This strategy crystallized in the summer with the debates over the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act and continued with the summer's drilling debates. Before the financial crisis, when gas and energy prices were rising through the roof, energy security was quickly becoming one of the defining issues of the political landscape. Obviously, the financial crisis and subsequent bailout were political game changers, but it seems that Republicans will stick with the strategy of co-opting the issue of energy independence while disregarding global warming.
This is, undoubtedly, an effective strategy the GOP. As recent Pew Research Center polling shows, the economy is the reigning issue of the day, and the party that wants to stay in power and enact its agenda must speak to economic concerns first, second and third. If the Republicans continue to hone in on the one issue with which they can really paint a picture of liberal elites working against the pocket books of working Americans, this will seriously damage the Democrats. The GOP will be telling a story that essentially boils down to "Democrats want to raise your energy prices in order to solve an abstract future crisis. We simply don't want to do anything like that." The GOP spin will paint Democrats as out of touch with average voting Americans, while the Republicans are the party that truly shares their economic concerns.
It's not hard to see why Republicans would be eager to launch such a strategy. The Democrats picked up a substantial amount of seats this past November. Many of these new Democratic legislators are joining others elected in 2006 who represent centrist districts made up of voters who harbor resentment towards Washington politics and are not particularly progressive. Climate change is the perfect issue to widen the gap between these two factions of the Democratic caucus--liberal Democrats from urban areas and the coasts who are motivated to take action on climate and the more centrist Democrats from states whose constituents either actively oppose or simply don't much care about action on global warming.
This GOP strategy points to some political truths that will rule Washington D.C. for the near future: in the coming year and likely beyond, every political proposal will be judged primarily through the lens, "what does it mean for economic recovery?" If lawmakers who care about climate change want to achieve anything meaningful politically, they must ask themselves the question, "How can we create climate legislation that directly contributes too, or at the barest minimum does not impede, economic recovery?" Anything that does not pass this "Recovery Test" will no doubt be rejected as a viable legislative strategy for the near future.
I like the political analysis.
Posted by: PJ Park at January 25, 2009 3:58 AM