Thank You Senator Graham

Hello Reader,

If you have followed my posts in the past, you have hopefully noticed that for the most part I try to avoid commenting directly on politics. I have also attempted to steer away from fluffy opinion-based posts in favor of academic and informative posts. I fully intend to stick to this formula as much as possible. However, in this case I need to tread dangerously close to both of those boundaries.

Essentially, I wanted to thank Senator Graham (R) from South Carolina for taking a stance on climate change legislation that was covered by a New York Times article today. To very briefly summarize the article, Sen. Graham has been working with Sen. Kerry (D) and Sen. Lieberman (I) on comprehensive energy and climate policy legislation. However, Sen. Graham recently announced that he would stop working on the bill due to the political wrangling in the Senate to simultaneously address immigration policy and climate legislation, which are both expected to be tough issues for gaining bipartisan support.

Now, you might expect that it is odd that I would applaud Sen. Graham's move to stop working on climate legislation. However, this is one of the few definitive public announcements regarding aggressive action on climate change legislation that I can remember. The U.S. federal government has fallen behind the governments of most developed countries and even many states on putting together comprehensive climate change legislation. Even China has moved ahead of the U.S. in the climate policy arena.

In addition to international and state pressure to regulate climate change in a manner that makes sense for the U.S., the court ordered E.P.A. ruling about the need for the E.P.A. to regulate greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide) under the Clean Air Act will mean that GHGs will be regulated soon whether or not Congress acts. Unfortunately, the manner in which the Clean Air Act is structured GHG regulation will likely be clunky and inefficient. Read this as wasting taxpayer dollars and causing hassle to business owners and citizens that could be avoided by new legislation.

Thus, it seems imperative that the U.S. Congress address climate change and energy policy before the legislators are side-tracked by elections and ultimately break up at the end of their term this year. Otherwise, it could take an entire extra election cycle or two to implement any effective climate change legislation if it happens at all. In the meantime the effects of climate change will continue to move toward undesirable consequences, and the E.P.A. will continue to do its best to regulate GHG emissions under the Clean Air Act. It seems as though that such a scenario would be a lose-lose situation.

Therefore, I would like to thank Sen. Graham for his tough action in the Senate to bring the spot light on climate and energy policy. Far from viewing this as the obstructionist narrative that the Democratic leadership have (rightly or wrongly) constructed about the current Republican strategy in Congress, I see this move as a bold statement about the urgency of addressing an issue with huge consequences that only grow larger the longer we wait to respond to them.

It is in the best interest of all parties, people, and businesses to have a new set of climate change and energy legislation in the U.S. before the end of the year. Even if you do not believe that climate change is occurring and no matter your party affiliation, I highly recommend that you urge your Senators to ensure that there is new legislation to regulate GHG emissions by the end of the 2010.

For my part, I hope that Senators Spector and Casey from Pennsylvania will take this as my personal request as a constituent to ensure just that.

Sincerely,
Sean Diamond

This post refers to:
Graham Pulls Support for Major Senate Climate Bill
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: April 24, 2010
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/politics/25graham.html