Obama and climate change legislation

President Obama has just spoken to the nation in his first address from the Oval office on the perils of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and has, according to this article in the Washington Independentdisappointed many (including one of the writers of the "Democracy in America" blog in their the live-streamed comments about the speech) by not calling for the passing of radical legislation to tackle climate change and polluting big-business in one fell swoop.

One can see the attraction of claiming the moral high ground in this area, but there is a significant problem as noted in this interesting article by Ezra Klein in the Washington Post - Presidents' involvement in policy polarises opinion (there's even a graph!):

To test this, Lee looked at "nonideological" issues -- that is to say, issues where the two sides didn't have clear positions. In the Senate, only 39 percent of those issues ended in party-line votes. But if the president took a position on the issue, that jumped to 56 percent. In other words, if the president proposed the "More Puppies Act," the minority is likely to suddenly discover it holds fervently pro-cat beliefs.

In other words for a climate bill to be passed by the Senate (the House passed one in June of last year) it has to have Republican support to get over the 60-seat filibuster-proof majority. That support from a few Republicans would be unlikely to happen if Obama decides to actively call for a bill to be passed. The Tea Party movement would probably consider any Senator a RINO.

Republicans and the Tea Party

As noted in a previous post, the Tea Party movement is having an effect on Republican nominees and their policies; they are lurching to the right. Specifically Meg Whitman the billionaire former boss of eBay has become the GOP nominee for the governor's race in California, and the multi-millionaire former boss of HP Carly Fiorina has become the GOP nominee for the California Senate seat.

In addition, the Nevada Republican Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, is the Tea Party movement's favourite, and defeated the moderate candidate to be the challenger for the seat belonging to Harry Reid, the incumbent Democrat and Senate majority leader. As noted in this article here (one which also briefly covers a successful Democrat in Arkansas) the Sharron Angle is the Obama team's favoured Republican candidate too as it will make Harry Reid's chance of keeping his seat higher:

Ms Angle’s controversial policies include privatising Social Security (pensions) and closing the federal departments of energy and education, among others.

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The key problem, as noted here in the "Democracy in America" blog is that they have moved to the right to avoid being outflanked by other candidates in the race and to get the support from the Tea Party movement types of the Republican party. California is generally a "Blue" state, and is more liberal than most places in the US. It'll be interesting to see how they fare in this year's mid-terms, and particularly whether they can move back to the middle to get the independent voters and at the same time avoid being called a "Republican in Name Only" or RINO.

In other US-related news, Congress is likely yet again not to be able to pass a bill to take action on climate change. Scathing stuff from another post from Democracy in America, especially since over two-thirds of US citizens support action (although they don't want to increase taxes, just spending). In other analysis here, Senator Graham who originally helped write the bill he is now objecting to is now saying that there is not enough provision for further off-shore drilling (of the kind which is spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico).

More significantly for G&P students is the analysis of the Grist article linked to above which says that the Republican party has moved away from anything which smacks of limiting big-business (actually they say it much less kindly than that). In their analysis and in the this article here Senator Graham has been trying to find a way out of supporting the bill, and has finally found it.

Whether the Republican party and the actions of politicians will continue to be driven by the Tea Party movement away from anything resembling the centre ground will be interesting to see, especially in the impact on the mid-terms in November.

It is also a useful illustration of how Congress does (or doesn't) work as a key part of the legislative process. A bi-partisan approach to some of the key issues in American politics today (health-care reform, climate change) is just not possible it would seem.