Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson has been holding up the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation in order to further water it down. For a while, Peterson was just looking for more cash for abribusiness, to further weaken the EPA's authority to regulate carbon. Now, he is upping the ante:
Since Memorial Day, Peterson has stood in the way of quick passage of the legislation sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), demanding changes to a number of provisions he views as harmful to the agriculture community.
Now Peterson, who because of his demands has gotten himself face-time with Waxman, Markey and Pelosi, is being approached by Democrats beyond his committee who are eager to take advantage of his access to the top Democrats.
"Now an even bigger impediment to the bill than agriculture is the electricity allowances," Peterson explained on Tuesday, citing another of the measure's provisions.
Peterson said the Waxman-Markey formula for distributing allowances to electricity producers heavily favors populous states over rural ones, meaning rural-state consumers may face a disproportionately high increase on their utility bills compared with consumers in urban areas.
Curious to see what was being done about Peterson escalating his attempts to water down the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation, I went over to the League of Conservation Voters website. Here is what I found:
- On the front page of their website, the LCV features a TV ad urging people to call Congress, and asking them to "strengthen and pass" the climate bill. That's good. The bill does need to be strengthened.
- However, there is absolutely no information on the LCV website about Collin Peterson's obstructionist efforts. They have no press releases on the subject. There isn't a single blog post mentioning either Collin Peterson or the Agriculture Committee.
So, the LCV wants to strengthen the climate change bill, but isn't taking any public action-or even making any public mention-of Collin Peterson's ongoing, and escalating, efforts to weaken it. Further, this public blackout on Collin Peterson is made all the more strange since, more than four years ago, the LCV named Collin Peterson to its "dirty dozen" list, and vowed to take action against him:
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the national political voice of the environmental and conservation community, today named Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN) to its 2004 "Dirty Dozen" list. PetersonÆs record shows a blatant bias toward corporate polluters and special interests over Minnesota families.
"Rep. Collin Peterson has repeatedly voted to let corporate polluters off the hook, earning a place on our æDirty DozenÆ list," said LCV Senior Vice President for Political Affairs Mark Longabaugh. "We plan to let North Star state voters know about Rep. PetersonÆs record of siding with special interests over Minnesota families."
Given this, why is the LCV apparently doing nothing to Collin Peterson as he is escalating his efforts to weaken the most important piece of environmental legislation in decades?
As I wrote on Monday morning, there is a bizarre lack of public condemnation from climate change activists and organizations when it comes to Democrats, like Collin Peterson, who are currently weakening Waxman-Markey (the American Clean Energy and Security Act). Why aren't green groups doing anything about Collin Peterson's attempts to weaken the American Clean Energy and Security Act? I thought we were supposed to be strengthening the climate change bill, not putting our hands in our pockets while Collin Peterson watered it down further.
If someone can show me an action that some green group--any green group--is taking against Collin Peterson, maybe we can start using that as a rallying cry. Until then, it seems like we are in the middle of a greenout. |
