Senator (of Massachusetts) John Kerry published a post at The Democratic Daily (where I’m helping out Pamela) about energy. Be sure to read it. I disagree with Senator Kerry on quite some issues, but energy is not one of them.
Excerpt:
It’s amazing to me that some people still refuse to see the gravity of the situation staring us in the face, with the best science telling us we may only have a decade to act before the climate crisis reaches a dangerous tipping point. But there are the same interests throwing up the same roadblocks. Take CAFE standards – I and many others are demanding that the standards be raised to 35 mpg by the end of the next decade, with light trucks and SUVs included in that and other mandatory requirements for medium and heavy trucks. And we want to close the loopholes that allow automakers to miss even those targets. But the Bush Administration has written to Congress that they are opposed to ANY numerical requirement in the statute. Think about that for a moment … they say they want fuel economy to get better, but they don’t want to put any numeric requirements about what that means. And they want medium and heavy trucks exempted from even that!
Another area where I’m pushing is to require that at least 20% of our electricity come from renewable sources by 2020. This has been a part of my energy plan since 2002, and I mentioned this over and over (and over) during the campaign in 2004. There has been significant support for this change now in Congress, but there are still the powerful interests arrayed against it.
Dogmatic refusal to consider new approaches to this crisis can have such enormous consequences, it boggles the mind how people can do it.
It is quite interesting to note that with a different Republican President, Kerry might accomplish quite some of his goals: Rudy Giuliani, for instance, has already said that he wants to do something about global warming (and related problems / issues) and wants to make America energy independent (as have quite some other candidates of course). It seems to me that, over time, the two parties will grow towards each other on this issue (it will be quite problematic if they don’t).
I am wondering what Senator Kerry’s thoughts are about that.
As I said, I agree with Kerry on this issue: it is about time that something is done about it.
UPDATE
Senator Kerry answered my question:
Michael
I welcome all efforts to fight global warming from anyone. My bill is a bipartisan bill (with Olympia Snowe), so I know there are some Republicans who believe in action on this, in fact Newt Gingrich seems to be moving in that direction, but they’re vast outnumbered by the flat-earth caucus on this issue.
Trust me, I’ve debated Jim Inhofe on this – the widespread denial of the science hasn’t abated. I’ll wait to see some action before I comment any further.
Even George Bush has said some things about dealing with global climate change, but then his Administration turns around and promises to veto anything that would move us forward.
A big thank you to the Senator for the (rapid) response. Let me just say: very true, some of them talk the talk every now and then, it’s time for those people to walk the walk as well.
