An Agenda For Anthony Weiner

[sandnsea]

Just after the budget deal was announced and promptly trounced by Rep Weiner, he quickly tweeted: “Our fights can’t just be just to stop their horrible ideas. Don’t we need to have our own agenda?”

Well, first, Mr. Weiner, perhaps if you’d done more to support Speaker Pelosi’s agenda in 2009 and 2010, you wouldn’t be in a position to have to worry about stopping “their horrible ideas.” Instead, you and many Democratic Representatives like you decided to try to stop the “horrible ideas" of the Democratic President. Now, isn’t the biggest “horrible idea" you’re trying to stop the repeal of all of the President’s policies that you used to call horrible?

What’s truly horrible, Mr. Weiner, is that you have a national audience that you could use to advance an agenda, any agenda, and yet you choose to shoot spitballs at the President instead.

But since you want an agenda, how about trying this one on for size? How about every time you get on the air or on your Twitter page, you get excited about the Energy Revolution? Don’t think we’re having one because it wasn’t called the Al Gore Eco-Green-Carbon-Free-Utopia Initiative?

Well, think again.

One of the first acts of this President was to support California’s air quality standards, which was followed by an increase in federal fuel efficiency standards directing Detroit to produce cars that can achieve 35 miles per gallon by 2020, along with a massive investment in energy programs through the ARRA. This was all in just four months.

• $2 billion for advanced batteries & electric vehicles
• $.85 billion for alt fuel, fuel cells
• $8 billion for high speed rail
• $11 billion to weatherize and upgrade America’s homes
• $4.5 billion to modernize our electrical grid, most earmarked for Smart Grid investments
• $1.6 billion to renewable energy
• $3 billion to study carbon capture
• $2 billion for science innovation, including fusion, energy physics, nuclear and more

In April of 2009, the EPA responded to the Supreme Court decision supporting the Clean Air Act, and issued a proposed finding naming specific greenhouse gases that endanger human health and the environment: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. This finding was signed in December and became effective in January 2010. As a result, a number of regulatory actions were issued in 2010, including vehicle emission cuts, GHG permitting thresholds, and a schedule for setting GHG standards for refineries and fossil fuel power plants.

In December 2009 at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the President led the world to an unprecedented agreement to take necessary actions to limit warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. While this was widely criticized at the time, there are clear indications from the President’s recent trip to Latin America that most nations took their commitments seriously. In 2009, Brazil  led the world in biofuel investments with “ mixed product strategies” including ethanol, biodiesel, and algal-based fuel investments. Last year they raised their ethanol mandate to 25%.  Countries like El Salvador are already feeling the effects of climate change and have moved the issue to the top of their agendas. El Salvador has committed to a 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and is empowering the entire country to help reach that goal.

Latin American countries are also finding a green partner in China. While the US is still engaging in preliminary grid demonstration projects, China has become Chile’s largest importer of copper, 60% of which is used in the power industry. That use is expected to rise as China increases access to rural areas and implements “plans to upgrade its grid for transmission of new energies like solar and wind power and to improve efficiency.”

The President’s recent trip to Latin America targeted El Salvador, Chile and Brazil in large part because of these countries' commitment to clean energy. Brazil is not only a global leader in biofuel, they are also the leader in deepwater drilling and have been at the forefront of many developments in the field. They also happen to have much tougher deepwater regulations than the US, being one of two nations that requires a remote control switch that can close a valve in the event of a blowout. And while many would prefer we not drill in these locations at all, the fact remains that one-third of our oil comes from these wells. It only makes sense that we engage Brazil in an energy dialogue, which was a key announcement of the President’s Latin American trip.  The Strategic Energy Dialogue will include drilling safety meetings with the Department of Interior, new bilateral biofuel research for jet fuel, $3 million for biofuel development in seven Latin American countries, and ongoing initiatives to bring the public and private sectors of both countries together to implement new technologies.

This brings us to the President’s most recent initiative in the Energy Revolution, the transformation of the federal fleet to all advanced technology vehicles — such as hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles — beginning in 2015. In addition, UPS, AT&T, FedEx, PepsiCo and Verizon have agreed to partner in this effort to replace their fleets with advanced technology vehicles, which will also lead the way for smaller companies to join and take advantage of group purchase opportunities.

CNN reported the latest initiative as the President continuing his "clean energy push.” Hmm. That sounds like an agenda to me. An environmental agenda. A jobs agenda. An energy independence agenda. A climate change agenda. How do people like Rep Weiner miss this?

Regardless of whether they don’t understand, or it doesn’t have a flashy name to slap on a T-shirt. or it just doesn’t meet their superior ideals, one thing is for certain. If you want to be on the winning side in politics, then you have to support your party’s agenda  instead of beating up the President for having the audacity to actually have an agenda, whether it meets your lofty principals or not.

[Born_A_Truman]

I like Anthony. I don't understand where he was during POTUS' State of the Union address where he layed out his "agenda".

[jaxx]

Well done sandnsea. That needed to be said. Sometimes I wonder at the Dems busting their asses to make snide remarks about the President....he gets enough of that from the wingers.

[Dagnabit]

Awesome post! Lots of great info, thanks so much.

[Cha]

Awesome rebuttal to Anthony Weiner's Tweet, sandnsea..it's like he or anyone else who tweets ,twits ,or twitters doesn't even have a clue much less read whitehouse.gov where there's a wealth of information on such a lovely "agen-dah".

[StevenLeser]

Great article sandnsea!