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.