Analysis: Obama scores major victory on climate (AP)

[jefferson_dem]

Analysis: Obama scores major victory on climate
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer Liz Sidoti, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 29, 3:44 am ET

WASHINGTON – Facing a rare defeat, President Barack Obama put a big dose of political capital on the line and scored a major victory just when he needed one.

In private telephone conversations and last-minute public appeals, Obama leaned heavily on House Democratic holdouts to support the first energy legislation ever designed to curb global warming. The measure ended up passing in dramatic fashion.

In the end, the president's furious lobbying — coupled with a final push by allies including former Vice President Al Gore — carried much weight. To a certain extent, the victory validated Obama's governing style — and that could bode well for his other top domestic priority, health care. He faces an even more difficult test in shepherding the energy and climate legislation through the Senate.

Obama recognizes as much.

"Now my call to every senator, as well as to every American, is this: We cannot be afraid of the future. And we must not be prisoners of the past," Obama said in his weekend Internet and radio address. He scrapped his talk on his original topic, health care, and recorded the climate bill speech shortly after the Democratic-controlled House backed the measure on a 219-212 vote late Friday.

It was a win Obama certainly needed. Congress was getting ready for a weeklong holiday break and already health care was hanging in the balance. While his popularity remains strong, Obama's overall ratings have slipped a bit. This restive nation also is wary of some of his proposals, including deficit spending as Obama pumps an enormous amount of money into the economy and elsewhere.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_climate_analysis_8/print

[Peacetrain]

1. Interesting...shepherding is about the stint of it..219-212 is so close

in a body that we have such a majority in.. The senate is going to be tough..

[quantass]

2. It was crazy close..

If it is this close for the climate bill i fear fort he health bill...hmmm...he will need to be more aggressive in his calls and meetings because these lobbyists have more to lose in healthcare than anything else.

[karynnj]

7. The healthcare bill is thought to be the easier of the two to achieve

and in addition, the Senate can fall back back on using reconciliation on healthcare, but not climate change.

[Phx_Dem]

3. Everyone who thinks he can just ram bills through Congress, should take note of this

very close vote. And that's not even in the Senate!

[slick8790]

4. In regards to the closeness of the vote, some thoughts from someone who watched the vote on CSPAN:

The majority of Democratic "no" votes came in in the last 1-2 minutes after passage was all but assured. Nearly all republican votes had come in and when it became obvious in the last minute or so that the bill was going to pass, the number of Dem "no" votes shot up. The way I see it, these are people in moderate/conservative/swing districts who may have had the president's back if necessary, but were able to cover themselves politically and vote against it, while not affecting the overall outcome of the vote.

[Peacetrain]

5. Wow good observation on that one.. and you are probably right!

[4lbs]

6. You are correct. Once they got to the 218 necessary, almost all the remaining Democrats in the

House voted NO. They were mostly from conservative districts.

This allows them to somewhat have their cake and eat it too.

If the climate change legislation turns out well they can campaign on "we, the Democrats" passed it, even though they themselves voted NO.

If it turns out very unpopular, they can campaign that they voted against it.

[Cha]

12. I wondered about that...my

congressman, Michael Arcuri(D) voted NO.

It's conservative up here but the Planet belongs to everyone..scaredy cats.

[natrat]

8. what an incredible crock of sleazy corpoate shit-fuck obama and all his lies

Friends of the Earth Statement on House Passage of American Clean Energy and Security Act

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder had the following statement in response to today’s passage of energy and climate legislation on a 219 to 212 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives:

“It’s a shame we can’t celebrate the passage of the first-ever bill intended to reduce global warming pollution. Unfortunately, big oil, dirty coal, corporate agribusiness, and Wall Street lobbyists neutered this bill and it now fails to deliver the transformational change that is needed. This bill will produce nowhere near the emissions reductions that are needed to solve global warming, and—astonishingly—it will eliminate existing EPA authority to fight pollution from coal-fired power plants. It will not put us on the path to a clean energy future, but it will lock us into a system that rewards polluters with massive giveaways and can be gamed by Wall Street; it is therefore likely to empower entrenched interests that stand in the way of progress.

“Despite the best efforts of environmentalist Reps. Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, the sad reality is that the House of Representatives remains so corrupted by special interests and special interest cronies—like Reps. Rick Boucher and Collin Peterson—that it is thwarting the will of the American people. Americans have indicated time and again that they support clean energy and want to protect our climate, and President Obama was elected on a promise to bring transformational change to this country, including a solution to global warming. Unfortunately, the President failed to boldly advocate such change as this bill moved through the House. He must be more vocal as this issue is debated in the Senate. With the future at stake, the Senate must produce a stronger bill.”

http://www.foe.org/flawed-climate-and-energy-bill-passes-house

[beachmom]

9. Ah, environmental groups are divided on this bill. MANY supported it.

And take your bad attitude and bad language elsewhere.

[jefferson_dem]

10. Easy there...

While the bill may not meet the purity standards of the likes of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, other environmental groups (read: Sierra Club) ... and environmentalist citizens ... fully support the measure as a step in the right direction.

[Cha]

13. What a crock...you don't know

how to go about getting anything you want..you just made that whole argument NULL AND VOID.

[Cha]

11. They wanted it..they thought

it would be a good place to start and to build on..I do trust them to know more than the ones who didn't want it.

I still have to find out why my congressman(d) voted against it.