"It took Al Gore sitting down with Emanuel and going over voting lists, name by name"

[bananas]

"It took Al Gore sitting down with Emanuel and going over voting lists, name by name, to persuade the White House to throw its muscle behind the bill and pressure congressional holdouts to fall in line. On June 26th, the measure passed by the narrowest of margins, 219-212."

From the start, Obama has led from behind on climate change. Shortly after he took office, the White House seemed inconvenienced when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made climate change a top priority, moving swiftly to push a cap on carbon pollution through the House. Rep. Henry Waxman, who played an instrumental role in the legislation, was frustrated by the White House’s refusal to come up with specifics to guide the effort. “Browner tried to produce a detailed policy position,” says Eric Pooley, author of the just-published The Climate War, a definitive account of the legislative fight. “But that effort was blocked.” Obama’s top political advisers, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, pointedly avoided the legislative battle, viewing it as politically unwinnable.

So Waxman moved on his own. Working with Rep. Ed Markey, he caught the White House off guard by cutting the difficult political compromises that were necessary to gain the support of coal-state Democrats and bringing the bill to a vote. It took Al Gore sitting down with Emanuel and going over voting lists, name by name, to persuade the White House to throw its muscle behind the bill and pressure congressional holdouts to fall in line. On June 26th, the measure passed by the narrowest of margins, 219-212.

But despite having a climate bill in hand, the White House decided to put its muscle into passing health care reform. Emanuel promised climate advocates that the administration would return to global warming in early 2010. By then, however, the drawn-out fight for health care was on life support, and Democrats no longer held a 60-vote edge in the Senate. The momentum on climate legislation had been squandered. “It’s a shame, because the window really was 2009,” Pooley says. “It wasn’t going to be easy, but if you don’t even try, you’re not going to get it done – and they didn’t even try.”

From http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/183346?RS_show_page=1
via http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/22/the-failed-presidency-of-barack-obama/

[mikelgb]

1. all the heavy lifting is over

[Nederland]

2. The problem was never with the House...

...it was always in the Senate.

[Radical Activist]

3. Find a major Obama speech that doesn't mention energy.

Go ahead, try. Even his speeches about Health Care make some mention of the need for an energy bill.

I don't understand the brain process of someone who ignores a President who uses the bully pulpit to push for something in every speech he gives and then accuses him of not trying. Is there a name for it?

I think there are far, far more people on the left who are guilty of not putting in a full effort because they never believed it had a chance to begin with. Now they can pat themselves on the back for their self-fulfilling prophecy coming true.

[Radical Activist]

4. This article fails at basic logic and contradicts itself.

The writer has simply copied a narrative from other issues, which may or may not have been accurate to begin with, and pasted it into the climate change debate.

Let's compare two statements in the article. First the writer claims,

Indeed, the president has made no concrete demands of the Senate, preferring to let Majority Leader Harry Reid direct the bill – a hands-off approach that is unlikely to produce a measure of any substance.

But when it's time to blame someone for compromises in the watered down Kerry-Lieberman bill the article claims the opposite:

The White House was deeply engaged in the negotiations. "There have been almost 200 meetings or calls between Cabinet members, White House officials and senators on this issue," says Browner. "We've got everyone from Steven Chu to Ken Salazar to Lisa Jackson engaged. I've probably been up there in the Senate on this issue 50, 60, 70 times during this Congress, talking to both Republicans and Democrats."

Is the President deeply involved or hands off? It can't be both.

They correctly identify problems with the Kerry-Lieberman Senate bill.

In private, big energy firms were offered sweetheart deals to acquiesce to the climate bill, including expanded offshore drilling for oil giants like BP and taxpayer subsidies for coal and nuclear interests that outstripped those for clean energy. "Kerry-Lieberman read like an industry wish list," says a top Senate environmental staffer. "The bill invests heavily in coal and nuclear, but doesn't do a heck of a lot for efficiency and renewables."

So it was the Senate wheeling and dealing with industry lobbyists. This fits the pattern of the Senate being the main roadblock that's deep in the pockets of special interests. But this article lets the Senate off the hook and goes back to bashing Obama.

I'm seriously pissed about this bill not passing. But I'm also tired of people who obviously care less about the issue and more about finding an excuse to blame Obama for everything.
We can't win if we don't have an honest discussion about what the real obstacles are.