Xblog

Sadly, the link in the ad took me to the homepage for Huckabee’s campaign, rather than to a page talking about his positions on the environment. I did find a link to the newsroom where it he is, <sarcasm> in a manner that in no way is an attempt to hitch on to media coverage about the Nobel Peace Prize </sarcasm>, having a Green Day while campaigning in New Hampshire this weekend. I peaked around on the “Issues” section of his website and noticed nothing on the environment, although there was a section on “Energy Independence”. Now, that doesn’t mean he has poor positions on the environment. It does mean that his campaign doesn’t think his positions on the environment are important, and it appears they are correct.

Huckabee is far from alone though. I checked out all the major contenders for the GOP and the Democrats. I also checked out Ron Paul because it is dangerous to ignore him in the blogosphere. ;-) They all universally have an “Issues” section which provides a quick summary of their candidate’s positions on key issues. Almost none of them had the environment as a top issue. Sure, there was always something about “energy independence”, but that really isn’t the same thing. Arguably, one could significantly improve the US’s “energy independence” by damming up every river in the country, ripping open the earth up in Alaska, pulling out whatever coal remains in the country no matter what shape it is in, and conquering Canada. That won’t get you so much as a Christmas Card from the Sierra Club. I’ll give the Democrat front runners credit for mentioning “global warming”. Hillary gets bonus points for being magnanimous enough to congratulate Al Gore on his Nobel Peace Prize, although she fails to mention the IPCC shared in the kudos.

The one that really stood out was Barack Obama, whose issues page has an entry for energy, and a separate entry for the environment that links to a fairly extensive article on his plans for the environment. It goes beyond talking about climate change to concerns about pollution and conservation (I’m guessing he is pulling for an endorsement from the Sierra Club). A few strikes against him for talking about “global warming” (which I find misleads people about the issue), but as far as I could see his site was the only one that used the term I prefer: “climate change”.

What does this mean? I suspect this means the environment is going to get short shrift in the US for years to come, despite Al Gore’s efforts. You can only go after the candidates so much. The public just isn’t concerned. Obama deserves a lot of credit for having the leadership to push the issue in the face of the public’s indifference.

I gotta say, the weirdest thing for me about visiting Canada was just how different the whole debate about the environment is outside of the US. The facts on the ground are different, the priority is different, the news is different, etc. It is a testament to the power of whoever influences the debate in the US that the story can be so different.

To understand just how different the context is, think about all that Canada has in common with the US: Canada has soldiers deployed overseas largely in response to 9/11 (Canadian forces are in Afghanistan, US is sadly primarily focused on Iraq), concerns about globalization and the impact of that on the economy and the job market, you’ve got debates about diversity and minorities, government scandal, etc.

Despite all this, in Canada the top political issue, and the one that put the current government in jeopardy almost as quickly as they took office, is the environment, with global climate change being the focus of discussion. The debate isn’t whether “it is real” or whether we should do anything about it, the debate is about what is “enough”. Seriously.

One of the best ways to get a proposition supported in California is to have George W. Bush go against something that Californians think should be addressed by the federal government, and then put in something that addresses the matter at a state level. This puts voters in this terribly quandary of having to support a state solution to what they feel is a federal problem or having to give Bush ammunition along the lines of “even California agrees with me”.

I find it helpful in such cases to ignore the larger context and focus on the specifics of the measure. There’s a lot to worry about here. For starters, there is this silly provision in the proposition that says that oil companies can’t pass on the increased costs to their customers. How the heck is that supposed to work? What kind of bizarro world do you have to live in to effectively legislate losses in to businesses? Well, it helps if oil companies are making huge profits right now, but of course the day will come when they aren’t, and then what will happen?

Then there’s the fun matter of even the impartial legislative analyst not being clear as to what the proposition means (and on important stuff like how much to charge as a severance tax). Even if this bill passes, you can anticipate years of court battles over this, which will cost California and oil companies a pretty penny without making any progress.

Then there’s the silly slogan about this proposition reducing our dependence on foreign oil (economics 101: if you pass a proposition that increases the costs of domestic production of a product while not impacting foreign production, will that increase or decrease the use of foreign production?). There’s a not too subtle implication that this will help get us unentangled from the middle east. I’ve got news for you: most of California’s “foreign” oil comes from within the US, Mexico and Canada. The middle east factors in mostly in that their supply levels effect the prices from our primary sources.

I like the notion of encouraging alternative energy initiatives. Given the strategic importance of energy, I think it even makes sense to fund some initiatives from out of government coffers. It just seems to me that given the purported goals of this bill, it’d make more sense if we were to slap import duties or additional transportation fees on oil imports, rather than on local oil production. As it is, California’s local supply of oil is very precariously positioned against demand, so much so that minor bumps in the supply lines cause major shifts in fuel prices, which is very disruptive to the economy.

Sorry Bill, I think I’m going to give this one a pass.