Senator Graham's "Half-Assed Energy Bill"
I’m late to the game on this piece, but I’ve been looking at a story from the New York Times since last week and it just keeps breaking my heart.
On June 12, John Broder reported that the images of gushing oil in the Gulf of Mexico may push the Senate into acting on energy legislation, but not climate change legislation this summer.
Broder quoted South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who now favors focusing on exclusively energy legislation, as saying:
There’s nowhere near 60 votes to save the polar bear.
Save the polar bear? Shame on Senator Graham. He has been one of the more articulate spokespersons on the need to address climate change because it’s not about the polar bears: it’s about our national security.
But leave that aside for a moment, because now Senator Graham favors legislation that focuses exclusively on energy and ignores the climate challenge.
Did I miss something? Is this the same Lindsey Graham who, only four months ago, said:
I don’t think you’ll ever have energy independence the way I want it until you start dealing with carbon pollution and pricing carbon. The two are connected in my view—very much connected. The money to be made in solving the carbon pollution problem can only happen when you price carbon in my view.
So if the approach is to try to pass some half-assed energy bill and say that is moving the ball down the road, forget it with me.
If Senator Graham has the courage of his convictions from four months ago, he should fight for them today and not accept some, as he so eloquently put it, “half-assed energy bill.” More than polar bears are at stake.
