Politics as usual: follow the money

In a must-read blog [2], the Center for American Progress’s Brad Thompson, explains climate champions Waxman and Markey are having a struggle to get their clean energy bill out of their own committee. Thompson blames the industries that want to keep polluting and the Representatives who do coal and oil’s bidding in Congress. He writes,

In a moment of candor, ACES co-sponsor Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), the chair of the subcommittee in question, explained that fellow Democrats acting as representatives for climate polluters [3] were holding up the bill: If we can reach agreement with the coal sector, with the steel, with the auto sector, with the refining sector on our committee, which is very representative of the Congress as a whole, then we believe that’ll be a template for passage in the Senate, as well.” [E&E link is subscription-only]

Thompson lays out the facts about key Democratic members of the Energy and Commerce Committee that have strong ties to coal and oil interests, including:

Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA: $50,942 from steel), Rep. Baron Hill (D-IN: $113,033 from auto), Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT: $177,946 from coal), and Rep. Gene Green (D-TX: $330,613 from oil). The trade publication E&E News has identified 13 members [4] of the 34-member subcommittee as swing votes. Thompson points out that the “maybe” Representatives have received an average of $678,570 in lifetime contributions from dirty fuel interests, as opposed to $149,397 for the nine “yes” votes. [E&E link is subscription-only]

And hat tip to climate champion Brad Thompson for the excellent work including nifty charts that tell the whole Mr. Smith Goes to Washington story (so that makes Markey and Waxman our Jimmy Stewarts, right?)

The good news is: thousands of climate activists, including thousands of business-owners (PDF) [5], are contacting their representatives to tell them to strengthen the bill. We know these calls matter, so keep `em up [6]. If you have a friend in a swing district, please recruit them to help us at this key moment in history. And now I leave you with this new video we produced that dramatizes how the pollution lobby is hurting our future: