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Spinning the Two-Headed Bill

by: odum

Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 13:21:47 PM EDT


(Okay, I've acccepted this is more than a one diary issue). A long time ago there were two bills; a renewable energy bill and a building efficiency bill. Over a wild and wacky session, these bills joined together into what came to be known as the global warming bill. Advocates in each chamber joined together on the new hybrid bill, whose efficiency element was going to cost a little money. To fill this gap, there was first the fuels surcharge - which got (thankfully) dumped as being too regressive. After fits and starts, and in the 11th hour, came the new funding source; the legendary tax that primarily targeted Vermont Yankee.

So advocates moved forward, re-energized. What they didn't realize was that the old bill was gone, and what was in its place was more complicated. By appending the Yankee tax, they tapped into a surprisingly deep and wide resevoir of frustration and energy from the many on the left who have felt that VY has been given a sweetheart deal at the expense of Vermoners' environment and safety. As such, what had been a global warming bill to some was now a Vermont Yankee bill to others (and to some it was equally both).

Fast forward to the mistake in timing that was this week's decision to put the funding source back on the table (instead of holding that card until the veto session) in order to call Douglas's thin bluff at taking the issue seriously. The truth is that no matter when they would've pulled this card, the reaction on the left would have been similarly angry/frustrated/confused.

As a proponent of the global warming bill from early on, I've always looked at it AS a "global warming" bill, and have only just come to understand that many saw it otherwise. To those that saw it as a VY bill, this move is utter capitulation (and I'm not talking about the predatory Greens with their own anti-Dem agenda, such as Colby-boy), leaving those of us more firmly in the global warming camp wondering why people are talking as though the bill has been compromised. But with the narrative on the Dem leadership that's in full circulation; that they run away from controversy and cave upon meeting conflict, it's the capitulation argument that rings true for people.

A lot of lessons here. The big one is that Legislative Leadership should get out more and listen more (as should I, frankly). If they (we) had, they might have realized what they were really doing in plugging into the simmering, untended political lesion that is Vermont Yankee. It's clear that the VY tax couldn't be added as casually and modularly as one might add a sales tax increase, and that reality is just now dawning on those in leadership, as well as folks like me.

The other lesson is that Dem leadership better not give an inch on the global warming elements of the bill in the upcoming veto override session. I'm told both the House and Senate intend to hold firm this time. If they know what's good for them, they'll stick to that.

odum :: Spinning the Two-Headed Bill
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Masterful Summary...just one, little, teeny, tiny, weensy, itsy, bitsy, wee, tiny, minuscule point left to clear up and then I'm done.... (0.00 / 0)
I would only challenge one little point...and that is your continued emphasis on "the left" as the only source of opposition to the compromise....

Odum...

I am NOT the left!!!!

I am, in fact, according to my friend JD Ryan, a genuine Lite-Winger (as in Republican-Lite).  I sure as hell won't be out with a tambourine next month protesting on behalf of the endangered hemp smoking penguins.

Personally, I'm not important.  But I am the common-sense, wear-a-tie-to-work,fly-the-flag-on-holidays, join-the-chamber type of Democrat who is not likely to make tight common cause with "the left"...

so...

...if the leadership lost bland Eisenhower Republican type Democrats like me by skewing weirdly...then they got problems...because the particular type of rat which I am is usually the LAST one to jump from the establishment's ship...know what I mean?

I meant it though: the rest of your summary was great and your point about the leadership hanging tough from here on in is dead on.

---The victors called the revolution a triumph of liberty; but now and then liberty, in the slogans of the strong, means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.

--Will Durant, "The Story of Civilization: Caesar & Christ"


Two headed bill (0.00 / 0)
The leadership of the "majority" party in the legislature is like the bill, two headed. Gaye is the perpetual compromise seeker. Peter is the perpetual dealmaker. Together they are a study in perpetual bad timing and suicidal self-destruction.

When LBJ was leader of the U. S. Senate he was forever involved in complex, self-aggrandizing maneuvers which frequently became more important to him than passage of the bill he started out to support. Peter suffers from the same egomaniacal love of the deal for its own sake. This time they both promise to stand firm. The history of this multi-headed team suggests that they will either surrender or make a deal that will be, in practical terms, a monstrosity.

Before our progressive army expects a winning battle, we need new generals

Yoda

 



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