Today Sen. Dick Durbin introduces a landmark bill to bring Maine- and Arizona-style public financing reform to the U.S. Congress. His Fair Elections Now Act, which is often known as "Clean Elections" reform, is a bipartisan bill that would fundamentally change the way elections are run. That's a noble goal: to allow qualifying candidates to run using public funds, forgoing the private money chase that has defined recent campaigns. But it does a whole lot more. One issue that's near and dear to me--indeed, one of the main reasons I came to work on public financing reforms--is global warming.
It's no secret that the oil, coal, and natural gas industries want to minimize global warming-related regulations. Exxon resolutely
refuses to acknowledge or even use the phrase "global warming." For decades, these multibillion dollar companies have lobbied against any restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, or pushed to make such measures voluntary. Even as the public has come around to overwhelmingly supporting much tougher measures to curb global warming pollution, we've seen no move from Congress.
No doubt that many factors contributed to the lack of action
taken by the U.S. government. Just
yesterday, a House committee investigation revealed
hundreds of instances
in which "a White House official who was previously an oil industry lobbyist
edited government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global
warming or play down evidence of such a role." Certainly Al Gore helped raise the profile. But that's just the past few years.
The Kyoto Protocol was ratified by dozens of industrialized
nations in 1997--surely those countries recognized the threat of global warming, given that self-imposed emissions reductions are not undertaken lightly. Dr. James Hansen of NASA warned Congress
publicly in 1988 and has continued to argue for serious policy changes to
address global warming.
And yet the U.S. Congress failed to move.
Now take a look at the campaign spending. In the 9 election cycles dating back to 1990, the oil and gas industry alone spent over
$200 million in campaign contributions. More broadly, the energy and natural resources industry spent nearly $400 million over that span, an average of over $43 million. That doesn't count contributions to state and local parties. Meanwhile, environmental groups spent--get ready for it--$14.7 million, an average of about $1.6 million per cycle. And their agenda includes a host of other issues beyond global warming.
One highly profitable and polluting industry outspends its
counterpart 27 to 1, and Congress takes no action. Other countries take significant measures to address a global threat that continues to get worse. Our members of Congress--knowing where their campaign cash came from, and perhaps thinking about how hard it will be to raise even more money for the next election cycle--fail to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
And that's why the Fair Elections Now Act, to allow candidates to run using public funds for their campaigns, could make a big difference if you care about global warming.
One final note: Fair Elections-style public financing isn't
explicitly about policy changes, it's about changing the way our elections and
democracy work--and that has impacts well beyond any single issue. There's plenty more to read and learn about
that--you can start with Common Cause's new resource and action page, www.StopTheMoneyChase.org, or any
number of other good resource sites.
Cross posted at DailyKos.
