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<\/p>\nUSA Today<\/strong> (11\/27\/18<\/a>) warns Democrats that efforts to address climate change might “whisk them out of power” again.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cDemocrats Will Push on Climate Change,\u201d declared the lead story on the front page of the November 27<\/a> USA Today<\/b>. (The online version<\/a> bore the more verbose headline, \u201cOnce Democrats Take Charge of the House, Addressing Climate Change Will Become Top Priority Again.\u201d)<\/p>\n You might think the story was about the Green New Deal<\/a>, the nascent environmental and social justice agenda that would include a special congressional committee on climate change, championed by incoming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and endorsed by at least a dozen co-sponsors.<\/p>\n You\u2019d be wrong.<\/p>\n The real point of the 925-word story, by Gannett<\/b> Washington reporter Ledyard King, was conveyed in the print edition\u2019s subhead: \u201cPolicies Could Carry Risk for Leaders of New House.\u201d<\/p>\n Featuring a classic \u201cbalance as bias\u201d reporting frame, the piece alternated between dire, scientifically validated descriptions of climate change risks and President Trump\u2019s dismissal of them, and between illustrations of Democratic clout and predictions of the futility of their cause.<\/p>\n King led with a warning that set the tone for the rest of the article:<\/p>\n Capitol Hill Democrats who soon will run the House of Representatives are prioritizing climate change nearly a decade after their attempts to slow global warming helped whisk them out of power.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n By \u201cattempts to slow global warming,\u201d King is referring mainly to the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the bipartisan carbon cap-and-trade bill known as Waxman\/Markey. The legislation, which would have set a national limit on greenhouse gases and created a market to buy and sell emissions permits, passed the House in June 2009, but was not taken up by the Senate. It has lain dormant since Republicans took the House in 2010.<\/p>\n USA Today<\/b> portrayed today\u2019s Democratic leaders, backed by \u201cenvironmental groups that poured tens of millions of dollars into their campaigns,\u201d as challenging the Trump administration\u2019s \u201caggressive efforts to undo Obama-era climate rules.\u201d King cited as motivation the release of the latest National Climate Assessment<\/a>, which warns of \u201cextreme weather, worsening health conditions, the spread of new diseases, increasing drought and famine, and economic decline.\u201d<\/p>\n But then the piece veered from this empowerment narrative to sow doubts about the political wisdom of addressing climate change\u2014rejoining Dems\u2019 plans with Trumpisms and unattributed (and unchallenged) Republican talking points, a pattern it repeated throughout. King returned to his lead\u2019s unsubstantiated assertion that fighting climate change was why Democrats lost power eight years ago:<\/p>\n The quandary for the party leaders when they take back power January 3 is how aggressively to pursue an issue that contributed to the Tea Party wave that fueled the Republican takeover of the House in 2010.<\/p>\n How prepared are they to address opponents\u2019 arguments that \u201calarmist\u201d climate change policies would increase energy prices and reduce consumer choice? How willing are they to take on a president who was elected\u2026.on\u2026[a] platform that promised to \u201cbring back coal\u201d as part of an energy independence agenda?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Not so much, he concluded. The Dems are mostly<\/p>\n content to build a case through\u2026the power to subpoena administration records, knowing that any major legislation they could pass probably would be vetoed by the president.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n King \u201cbalanced\u201d the broad evidence that climate change effects \u201care already being felt through stronger hurricanes, more intense wildfires, melting glaciers and loss of habitat\u201d with Trump\u2019s absurd labeling of global warming as \u201ca hoax perpetrated by China\u201d and his easily refutable quote that the 2017 Paris Accord \u201cis less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n The story zigged to quote a climate-change expert explaining the significant power Congress will wield to \u201cforce records into the light of day [and] pressure the EPA to withdraw rules or Congress to pass laws\u201d if those records show the agency was unduly influenced by the fossil fuel industry. It then zagged to the ultimate failure of Waxman\/Markey, which was \u201cportrayed by opponents as little more than an energy tax that would hit consumers\u2019 wallets.\u201d For a third <\/i>time, it raised the specter that that bill and other efforts to address climate change \u201chelped fuel the Tea Party wave that propelled Republicans to take control of the House in 2010.\u201d<\/p>\n The piece wrapped up by concluding that \u201cthough the effects and predicted consequences [of climate change] have grown more dire\u2026some House Democrats are content with modest efforts to address global warming.\u201d King concluded, \u201cEven if the House did pass an aggressive plan, it\u2019s doubtful the GOP-controlled Senate would take it up.\u201d The not-so-subtext: History, or USA Today<\/strong>‘s version of it, is bound to repeat itself.<\/p>\n USA Today<\/b>\u2019s piece distorted important facts and lacked historical context. First and foremost was the insistence that the 111th Congress\u2019 efforts to forge climate policy had an important role in the rise of the Tea Party and Republicans\u2019 victory in the 2010 midterm elections.<\/p>\n The case for climate change having a direct impact on the 2010 election is weak. Most obviously, the Democrats suffered losses because the electorate was older, whiter and less Democratic compared with 2008. When asked<\/a> what the most important issue facing the country was, 63 percent of voters said it was the economy\u2014understandably, since unemployment was still at 9.8 percent in November 2010 as the effects of the economic crisis lingered on. Eighteen percent more named healthcare as the top issue (with voters split on whether to repeal Obamacare or not); 8 percent picked immigration and 7 percent the Afghan War, accounting for 96 percent of voters.<\/p>\n Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin pointed out in the New Republic<\/b> (11\/5\/10<\/a>) that voters blamed Wall Street (35 percent) for the state of the economy more often than they blamed President Obama (23 percent) or his predecessor, George W. Bush (29 percent). \u201cBut these Wall Street\u2013blaming voters supported Republicans by 56\u201342 percent,\u201d Teixeira and Halpin noted\u2014suggesting that Obama\u2019s Wall Street bailout (and failure to prosecute bankers) drove independents to vote for Republican candidates.<\/p>\n The New York Times<\/strong> (6\/3\/17<\/a>) reported that the cap-and-trade vote catalyzed fossil fuel interests’ efforts to solidify denialism as the Republican Party’s official stance on climate change.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s true that the attempt to pass climate-change legislation did solidify the Republican Party\u2019s climate denial position, as a New York Times<\/b> investigative piece by Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton (\u201cHow GOP Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science,\u201d 6\/3\/17<\/a>) documented last year. The billionaire oil baron brothers David and Charles Koch, backers of conservative think tanks and advocacy groups, were galvanized by the cap-and-trade vote to pour their money into campaign support for far-right, fossil fuel-friendly Republicans.<\/p>\n The Koch network, the Times<\/b> reported,<\/p>\n put pressure on any Republicans who were considering taking climate action or even acknowledging climate change\u2026. Republicans who asserted support for climate change legislation or the seriousness of the climate threat saw their money dry up or worse, a primary challenger arise.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n While it\u2019s not the case, as the Washington Post<\/b> (12\/2\/18<\/a>) recently claimed, that Donald Trump was responsible for \u201cplacing climate change skepticism squarely in the GOP\u2019s ideological mainstream\u201d\u2014the George W. Bush administration had a systematic policy<\/a> of suppressing scientific research that showed humans were warming the planet\u2014it is true that not so long ago, it was possible for a mainstream Republican politician to talk about addressing \u00a0global warming, as evidenced by 2008 presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, among others. As the Times<\/b> noted, the Waxman\/Markey cap-and-trade bill, far from a radical proposal from the left, was modeled on a market-based, Reagan Era Republican idea. Cap-and-trade was employed successfully to cut smokestack emissions that cause acid rain under the first President Bush.<\/p>\n King writes of the \u201cTea Party wave\u201d without mentioning the fossil fuel money behind it. But treating that spending against climate action as the definitive cause of the Democrats\u2019 defeat is dubious, given that, as Time<\/b>\u2019s Bryan Walsh (11\/3\/10<\/a>) noted, \u201cDemocrats who voted against cap-and-trade were three times more likely to lose then those who voted for it\u201d\u2014and seven of the eight Republicans who voted for it were re-elected. (The other, Mike Castle of Delaware, retired to make an unsuccessful bid to run for Senate\u2014and was replaced in the House by a Democrat.)<\/p>\n In any case, climate change legislation proposed today\u2014like the bipartisan carbon tax bill<\/a> introduced November 27\u2014is less likely to meet the same fate, because the political climate has changed. Some 70 percent of American voters believe climate change is real, 61 percent say they are worried about it, and 68 percent favor a carbon tax on fossil fuel companies, according to data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication\u2019s 2018 Climate Opinion Map<\/a>.<\/p>\n How could King have answered his own rhetorical questions?<\/p>\n How prepared are they to address opponents\u2019 arguments that \u201calarmist\u201d climate change policies would increase energy prices and reduce consumer choice? How willing are they to take on a president who…promised to \u201cbring back coal\u201d as part of an energy independence agenda?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He could have offset the argument that effective climate change policies are \u201calarmist\u201d (made by Rep. Tom DeLay in King\u2019s own November 27 story<\/a> on the National Climate Assessment) with the fact that said Climate Assessment was written by scientists working in Trump\u2019s own government. Or countered the charge that cap-and-trade schemes will increase energy prices by citing the Congressional Budget Office\u2019s economic analysis<\/a> of Waxman\/Markey, which found it would likely have minimal impact on individual household tax bills, and that a refundable energy tax credit would help blunt any rise in energy costs.<\/p>\n The notion of \u201cbringing back coal\u201d is quixotic: As The Economist<\/b> (11\/24\/18<\/a>) recently pointed out, \u201cThe environmental regulations that the Trump administration is trying to undo will not restore the coal industry to its glory days, though they might slow its decline.\u201d Citing US Energy Administration data, the magazine noted that almost 40 percent of the country\u2019s coal-generating capacity \u201chas either been shut down or designated for closure,\u201d due to the lower cost of replacements such as natural gas.<\/p>\n As for energy independence, crude oil production has exceeded imports since 2016. And with the rise of fracking, the US is on pace to be a net exporter of energy by 2022, according to the US Energy Department.<\/p>\n Despite the potential shown by proponents of a Green New Deal, the argument that Democrats as a whole \u201cprioritize\u201d climate action is dubious. In USA Today<\/b>\u2019s own article (11\/6\/18<\/a>) on Democrats\u2019 retaking the House, soon-to-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi \u201csaid the new Democratic majority would take \u2018strong legislative action\u2019 to lower the price of prescription drugs, invest in infrastructure and ‘drain the swamp of dark interest money.\u2019\u201d There\u2019s no mention of climate change.<\/p>\n Just as the environment was at best a minor factor in the Democrats\u2019 loss in 2010, it didn\u2019t drive most Democratic voters to the polls for their victory this year. As USA Today<\/b> reported:<\/p>\n According to a Washington Post<\/b>\/Schar School survey<\/a>…in battleground districts across the country\u202644 percent of voters said healthcare was the most important factor in casting their ballot, while 43 percent said Trump was the top issue driving their decision.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Curiously, King had penned a very similar piece earlier in the month that was more in line with reality. \u201cBack in Power, Democrats Want Answers on Administration’s Environmental Decisions\u201d (USA Today<\/b>, 11\/8\/18<\/a>) led off:<\/p>\n The midterm elections that catapulted Democrats back to power in the House for the first time in eight years have breathed new life into environmental priorities that President Donald Trump has been trying to roll back as the centerpiece of his economic agenda.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It explained how they hope to accomplish these priorities, quoting party leaders directly. “We\u2019ve been ignored up to this point, but as the majority, we don’t need to tolerate that,” said Arizona\u2019s Rep. Raul Grijalva, incoming chair of the House Natural Resources Committee.<\/p>\n King\u2019s November 26 piece seems to backpedal on his earlier one. By continually harping on the challenges the Democratic climate hawks face, based on a questionable, unsubstantiated analysis of the political risks, USA Today<\/b>\u2019s article seems designed to push back on a \u00a0Democratic push to do anything at all about the climate catastrophe.<\/p>\n Messages to\u00a0USA Today<\/strong>\u00a0can be sent here<\/a>\u00a0or via Twitter<\/strong> (@USAToday<\/a>). Remember that respectful communication is the most effective.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\nKOed by Cap and Trade?<\/b><\/h3>\n
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Revising History<\/b><\/h3>\n
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Rhetorical Questions<\/b><\/h3>\n
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Green Politics in Perspective<\/b><\/h3>\n
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