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WHAT NOW? MOMENTUM SLOWED (2/3) ©                     You Are Not Powerless: Act!

1/2/2017

3 Comments

 
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                                                                                        If your opponent is of choleric temper, irritate him.

                                                                                                                                                    ---- Sun Tzu


I try, often as not, to refrain from raising problems without suggesting something by way of useful answers. There are those times, of course, when anything approximating an upbeat response is simply beyond the ken or need wait for events to catch up. Regarding the incoming Trump administration, any definitive answer to WHAT NOW for clean energy and climate sustainability will require patience.

While waiting, I thought it beneficial to review some of the options available in the interim for responding to the challenges The D and his denizens will pose to the clean energy and climate communities come the afternoon of Jan. 20. I previously outlined where the incoming Trump administration would likely strike its initial blows, e.g. the CPP; clean energy programs, e.g. Department of Energy budget; and monitoring activities, e.g. NASA. This installment and the next two will focus on the several defenses available for maintaining national regulatory and policies/program frameworks contributing to the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Strategic advantage currently rests with Trump and the Republican Congressional majorities. Their energy/environmental themes of deregulation and all of the above, are playing well from Maine to Nevada; and, they allow the newly nominated heads—of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Departments of State, Interior, Energy and likely Agriculture—to cast climate change as a collateral and inconsequential consequence of economic growth.

Notwithstanding polls and pundits, neither the threat to the global environment nor the significant economic and social benefits attendant to decarbonization is viewed by the incoming Administration as warranting curtailment of its promised assault on Obama era initiatives. The current political reality is the Trumpeters have fairly won the opportunity to govern their way—at least for the moment. History suggests the first two years of a newly elected administration affords the greatest opportunity to make good on campaign promises—particularly when coupled with Congressional majorities.

The debate over decarbonization will not be decided in the early rounds of the Trump administration. Although the administration’s opening gambits will require response, the clean energy advocates and climate defenders must not let themselves be cast only in the negative.
An exclusively defensive posture will be viewed by many as evidence of bad faith and elitism on the part of the liberal establishment. These accusations were successfully levelled at the Clinton campaign and, undoubtedly, contributed to the electoral loss.

Ultimately the transition to clean energy and a sustainable environment depends upon broad bipartisan support. A singularly defensive strategy will be viewed as obstructionist, alienating those who will be needed in the future to re-establish the pace and direction of the national transition to sustainability. As will become clear later in this series, a successful advocacy strategy demands playing both offense and defense—at all levels of government.

Below are my thoughts and a bit of background on actions the Trump administration and Congress will likely undertake within the first six to nine months of 2017.  Next to each heading I have briefly stated what I believe is the appropriate reaction of clean energy and climate activists.

Executive Orders: Realistically, no action is possible.

Rescission of all extant Executive Orders and Memoranda having to do with clean energy, climate change or the issuance of environmental regulation, e.g. CPP, will begin the day The Donald becomes the 45th President of the United States.
Article II of the Constitution gives a president the power to write or rescind directives to his administration. Over 13,000 executive orders/memoranda have been issued since George Washington took office.  In that time, two have been over turned by the courts, although numerous others have been rescinded or amended by presidential successors.

As a practical matter, there is no check on a president’s exclusively executive actions. The best Congress can do is to deny implementation funding. The CPP and the authority to sign the Paris Accords owe their existence to the power of the president—not acts of Congress.  What one president wrote, another can erase.

Presidential Appointments: Encourage members of your Congressional delegation to ask tough questions 
of nominees needing Senate confirmation and to oppose those on record as wanting to abolish the agencies they have been nominated to lead.


A sitting president is faced with the task of choosing his personal White House staff and nominating nearly 4,000 individuals to serve—at his pleasure—in federal agencies and on various committees and commissions, including on the benches of the federal judiciary.

Personal staff, e.g. press secretary, White House chief of staff and various special advisors, are purely within the purview of the president.  Nominees for some 1,200 positions, however, are subject to Senate confirmation. These include: C-suite department/agency executives like Secretaries of State, Energy and Interior, the Attorney General and Administrator of EPA, all assistant secretaries, the budget director, senior economic advisors and various members of boards and commissions.

Subject to Senate questioning, nominees can—and should—be asked their opinions/philosophies, about prior experiences and any other information likely to influence their job performance. On the basis of the top nominees already announced, the Trump administration will be heavily tilted towards the fossil fuel industry.
 
To weigh in on the process, contact your Senators and Representatives to suggest questions that may be put to the nominees, either at the confirmation hearing  and/or in writing at any time before a final Senate vote.
If you have any information you believe pertinent, pass that along. If you have an opinion as to whether an appointee should be confirmed, it’s your right to express it.

Early Congressional Actions: Keep informed and communicate with your Congressional delegation, registering your opinions on the content of legislation and proposed actions. (www.house.gov and www.senate.gov)

The 115th Congress will be sworn in several weeks before Trump takes office. Much of its early agenda will be focused on confirmation hearings and queuing up legislative proposals in support of promises made during the 2016 campaign.

High on the list of conservative legislative priorities will be repeal of nearly 200 regulations—ranging from a ban on the sale of anti-bacterial soaps to stricter truck fuel efficiency rules. Repealing pending regulations can be legislatively accomplished under the Congressional Review Act (CRA/Act). 

The Act gives Congress 60 days to prevent a final regulation from going into effect. Because CRA resolutions are subject to presidential veto, they were little used over the course of the Obama presidency. With the advent of the Trump administration, Republican majorities in Congress can be fairly certain their resolutions won’t be denied by the White House.
 
Passage of resolutions under the Act requires only a simple majority. For regulations already in effect to be rescinded, legislation must be proposed and passed—a significantly wider moat to cross.

Beyond cabinet confirmations and blockage of pending regulations early, priority attention will be turned to amending Obamacare and federal spending—leaving little time to act on any new stand-alone energy/environmental legislation. Congress must contend with raising the budget ceiling by March 16, and enact a FY 2017 budget or face a government shutdown. It will be possible to impact existing energy and environmental programs in either of these actions—so vigilance is necessary.

The budget battles will offer a clear glimpse into the intentions and working relationship of the Republican Congress and The Donald. They are also likely to show stress fractures within the Republican Party; tensions that could result in bipartisan support for maintaining minimum environmental protections and continued support for clean energy technologies.

Members of both the House and the Senate will undoubtedly draft and introduce a variety of energy/environment legislative proposals in the first months of the new Congress. Many will be referred to the appropriate committees for consideration in due course.  Readers can keep informed of where these proposals are in the legislative process through any number of internet sites, such as Govtrack.us and Congress.gov.
 

Beyond what the White House and Congress will be doing are the actions of the agencies themselves. Agency actions and activist reactions will come primarily in the form of regulatory proposals and law suits.  Click in tomorrow, when I will be addressing these two areas, as well as what I consider the most accessible and likely successful advocacy tool of all--public engagement.


3 Comments
Ron Davison
1/6/2017 11:05:58 am

Hi Joel,
I loved this article because it is grounded in reality and provides pragmatic explanations to where we really are at and what we can do going forward. Also that our true strength is in a community that allows common understanding and ability to organize and protect what we can be using with the rules and laws in place.

Would like to speak or email with you about energy efficiency and technologies that allow energy efficiency.

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Tom F
1/9/2017 02:13:45 pm

The only people who can save us from global warming is the government? Why is that? The evidence is compelling. Why is it only compelling to elected officials and ivory tower educators putting more children deeper in debt with phony degrees?. If the facts are so compelling then it should be bankable. Try talking to your Hollywood friends. Have them make movies showing the technical solutions that are all around us.

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Joel link
1/10/2017 01:45:05 pm


Hi Tom,

I appreciate your taking the time to comment. It has never been my intention to say that government(s) are solely responsible for combatting global warming.
I do think that government at all levels has an important role to play, however. And, I agree, evidence of a climate problem is compelling.

Many understand and are concerned about: the loss of habitats; rising oceans; the drying up of lakes and rivers; the increased incidence of respiratory problems—particularly in the young and old; and, contaminated water supplies. We can argue about whether it’s 70% of the population or 50%, what we can’t really deny that with every passing year more and more people are worried. They have a right to be.

When I say many, I am not just speaking about ivory tower professors, radical environmentalists nor elected officials. In fact, a lot of elected officials don’t feel compelled to think anything is out of whack in the world.

The people I’m including in ranks of the understanding and worried are from all walks of life, some with little or no education some with years and years. As with many societal problems the poorest people are the ones most effected and least able to do anything on their own.

Solutions exist. Private sector investors are aware of the great opportunity that new clean energy and environmental technologies offer. Not just to make money, but to create jobs and healthier neighborhoods.

All strong economies need innovation to grow and to replace older technologies no longer in demand or have become obsolete. I remember when unions tried to make railroad companies pay for “firemen” on diesel locomotives. That never made any sense to me. Neither does a promise to keep the coal industry humming away like it did in the 1950s.

Solar is not coal’s problem. The problem is natural gas,and widespread support for less polluting energy sources and the rapidly declining costs of solar and wind.

What politicians should be proposing is to re-train workers in industries of the past for new jobs of the future. I am even in favor of supporting workers while they are being re-trained. It’s a decent thing to do. We've all benefited from their labor.

Stable and supportive public policies are needed to capture the full economic and environmental benefits of a transition to a cleaner and more efficient technologies and designs. With the world population growing, it makes sense to use what we have more efficiently.
That’s what sustainability is all about.

What I want from government is what investors want from government, a steady and predictable partnership. President Trump could be very instrumental in growing the clean energy economy and encouraging even greater private investment. However, when he and his appointees go on record denying even the existence of an environmental problem and vowing to do undo existing policies and retracting regulations they compound the problem and confuse investors. The business community hates uncertainty.

What I expect of government is protection from harmful practices, e.g. pumping coal ash into the atmosphere or into the river so it leeches into my well. Do I think everything on the books in support of clean energy is a good idea? Nope.

Do I think just because a Republican or some Democrat I don’t agree with proposed something, that it’s no good? Nope again. Do I want government to act reasonably and not to let politics blind them to sound scientific judgement? You bet I do.

I also want the private sector to pull its weight, people to be respectful of nature and their neighbors and for all of us to figure out some way to cooperate. This election has shown how polarized the nation is. We need to listen to each other and figure out how to work together.

A healthy environment and economy is in everyone’s interest.

Finally, to your last point—Hollywood has actually done some of what you have suggested. DiCaprio, for example, has released his movie Before the Flood http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/before-the-flood/). We are starting to see climate change and clean energy technologies more in the movies—either as back grounds or story lines. Can the media do more? Sure?

We can all do more, when it comes down to it—and we should.

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    Joel B. Stronberg

    Joel Stronberg, MA, JD., of The JBS Group is a veteran clean energy policy analyst with over 30 years’ experience, based in Washington, DC.

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