issue: Energy & Environment

Bledsoe for Forbes, “House Democrats Must Be Strategic To Win on Energy and Climate Change”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By all accounts, House Democrats return to Washington this week to begin planning their priorities for 2019 in an aggressive frame of mind. But on climate change and energy issues, rather than simply responding to Trump’s latest provocation (like those regarding California wildfires), they must step back and take a strategic approach.

This means Democrats must have the discipline to subordinate all other considerations to the key goal of creating the political and policy conditions needed to enact landmark energy and climate legislation after 2020, when they may well win back the White House and Senate. Indeed, how they handle energy and climate in the next two years will play a critical role in determining whether they gain the power to act.

Despite bright spots in Nevada and several Governors races, the mid-term elections held some cautionary lessons. The defeat in Washington State of a carbon tax referendum and several other climate-related measures in Arizona and Colorado, along with apparent state-wide losses in “ground-zero” climate impacts states of Florida and Texas, should be sobering.

The politics of climate change are complex, even for voters already suffering from its impacts. Swing voters will not respond to far-left ideological crusades or simple-minded attempts to rigidly impose “best” climate policies from above. Such approaches have largely failed as political matter for nearly 30 years now.

Continue reading at Forbes. 

Bledsoe for Forbes, “Trump’s Blowhard Tactics on Climate Change and Storms Foreshadow A Political Blue Wave”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In the last two years the U.S. has suffered from record hurricanes, rainfall, floods, wildfires and other disasters made worse by rising temperatures and sea levels. These extreme events, exacerbated by climate change, have cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

Now, as election day looms, the gross mishandling of these disasters is likely to exact a high political price on Donald Trump and other climate change-denying Republicans, helping to create a political blue wave that will swell Democratic numbers to a House majority, Florida’s Governorship, and other key prizes in the mid-terms.

There is political precedent for this. Recent history shows voters punish poor Presidential responses to natural disasters, and that such poor responses have a role in changing the public perception regarding the competence and characters of the ruling party.

Continue reading at Forbes.

Goldberg for RealClearPolicy, “The Supreme Court’s Next Climate Change Case?”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The U.S. Supreme Court is about to get a look at the latest attempt by environmentalists and their political allies to bypass legislatures and use the courts to enact their climate-change agenda. So far, they have sued America’s energy producers in hopes of having judges, not regulators, set carbon emission limits and making energy producers pay for local infrastructure projects to deal with the impacts of climate change. As the Progressive Policy Institute has explained, selling fossil fuels is not illegal, and sensible people on both sides of the aisle have long agreed that these actions have no foundation in the law.

Indeed, this litigation has already percolated up to the U.S. Supreme Court once. In a unanimous ruling authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court made it clear that Congress and the EPA, not the courts, are the appropriate branches of government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Justice Ginsburg understood, as have other progressive legal scholars, that suing energy producers over climate change is not the proper way to set American energy policy, which must balance many factors including environmental concerns, energy independence, and affordability.

Continue reading at RealClearPolicy. 

Bledsoe & Ritz for The Hill, “Democrats must bridge the generational divide to prevent climate and budget crises”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Amid the daily drama of President Trump’s tweets and scandals, it can be hard to focus on the most important issues for our future. An unfortunate consequence of this purposeful turmoil is that few serious solutions are being offered for addressing two of the greatest threats facing the United States: runaway climate change and unsustainable budget policies.

The resignation of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt may end his days of plundering the environment and public treasury, but the Trump administration will continue doing both even in his absence, risking long-term national well-being for temporary political benefits. It’s critical that Democrats offer credible alternatives, especially if they hope to inspire younger voters who will bear the burden of these problems, because we cannot afford to dither on either issue much longer.

We speak from experience. One of us is a baby boomer who has spent most of his career working on energy and climate policy; the other is a millennial focused on the federal budget. Although our two fields may seem unrelated, both these existential challenges require our generations to work together to solve.

Continue reading at The Hill.

Goldberg for RealClearEnergy, “America’s Mayors Should Not File Copycat Climate Suits”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The United States Conference of Mayors met in Boston last week, and a key topic was climate change. Mayors have been looking for ways to exert leadership on this issue, but one idea that should be tossed to the waste bin is suing America’s energy producers over so-called “climate change injuries.” These lawsuits, started by a handful of California mayors last summer, are orchestrated efforts to sue companies for doing nothing more than producing the energy we use every day. The litigation’s backers are actively recruiting mayors to file carbon copy lawsuits.

Progressives who care about climate change should not reflexively cheer or join this litigation. The lawsuits, the brainchild of a 2012 conference in La Jolla, California, of environmental activists and lawyers, are driven by private law firms. They seek to make energy companies pay for local infrastructure projects, such as sea walls. Let’s be real: Building a seawall around our coastline and making energy producers pay for it has as much to do with combatting climate change as Trump’s border wall has to do with illegal immigration — nothing but symbolism.

Continue reading at RealClearEnergy.

Bledsoe for The Hill, “Trump’s coal fixation will harm Americans’ health and wallets”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Earlier this month, President Trump ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to intervene in electricity markets to prop up failing coal power plants, falsely claiming the effort was needed to protect electricity grid reliability for national security reasons.

In truth, the action amounts only to a war on the working- and middle-class energy consumers Trump claims to care about, all to indulge his political fixation with “saving coal.”

Yet, this unprecedented intervention in electricity markets is only the latest Trump decision that would raise consumer energy costs and put taxpayers at risk.

Continue reading at The Hill. 

Bledsoe for The Hill, “Keeping Pruitt could cost GOP Congress, Trump in the fall”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Despite repeated and flagrant abuses of taxpayer trust and sweetheart deals from energy lobbyists, any of which would have doomed previous cabinet members, embattled Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt appears to still have the support of President Trump, even though White House aides are urging he be fired.

The president’s theory seems to be that Pruitt’s mission to dismantle environmental protections at EPA and investigations of him will fire up the right-wing base turnout in November.

This sounds like wishful thinking. It’s far more likely that headlines about Pruitt’s taxpayer abuses right up to election day will help mobilize college-educated suburban swing voters disgusted by the Trump’s administration’s ethical corruption and rejection of science in favor of polluters.

Leading pollsters say these are just the voters Republicans need to keep Congress. Losing them could be just enough to bring about a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives, creating potentially inescapable entanglements for president himself.

Continue reading at The Hill.

Bledsoe for The New York Times, “Trump’s Fuel Efficiency Rollbacks Will Hurt Drivers”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

President Trump met with auto industry executives at the White House on Friday, arguing for his planned rollback of fuel efficiency and emissions standards, and telling them he wanted them to build “millions more cars” in the United States.

Let’s assume they would. If they did, any cars they made would also be dirtier and more expensive for consumers to drive without the fuel efficiency and emissions rules that the president wants to discard.

How much more expensive? A draft proposal by the Trump administration that emerged in recent weeks would result in additional fuel costs of “$193 billion to $236 billion cumulatively between now and 2035” depending on oil prices, according to an analysis by the Rhodium Group, a research firm that examines the market impact of energy and climate policy.

And those higher gasoline costs are likely to hurt most the very families President Trump claims to care so much about — the ones living paycheck to paycheck.

Continue reading at The New York Times.

Bledsoe for USA Today, “Democrats must embrace shale gas boom to win elections and climate battle”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Democrats don’t have enough power to shape climate change policy. They can win the midterm elections if they embrace the shale oil and gas boom and their role in it.

Millions of Americans are rightly urging immediate, serious action to address climate change on this Earth Day weekend. Democratic candidates should carry a winning version of this message right into the midterm elections: They must denounce the climate nihilism of the Trump administration, and highlight the stunning clean energy revolution Democratic policies have done much to create.

But these candidates should be smart about how they respond to climate change provocations from President Trump, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt and others. In the swing states and districts they need to win back Congress, Democrats must also vocally support the shale natural gas boom that has been overwhelmingly good for American consumers, workers and the climate.

When voters are presented with an agenda that emphasizes a transitional role for domestic gas and oil along with renewable energy as part of climate protection, they will support Democrats over Trump’s climate denial and coal-dust memories.

Continue reading at USA Today.

Goldberg for The Hill, “Climate change lawsuits are ineffective political stunts”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Environmental activists are once again greeting a Republican administration’s resistance to setting carbon dioxide emission limits with lawsuits. In January, Mayor DeBlasio in New York City followed seven California cities that filed lawsuits over climate change last summer.

These lawsuits, though, miss the point and their target. They are not suing the Trump administration. They seek to circumvent the Trump administration by threatening massive liability against American businesses if they do not reduce their individual emissions.

Progressives should not reflexively cheer these lawsuits. For one thing, people on both sides of the aisle agree that these lawsuits have no foundation in the law and will not succeed. They are solely political stunts.

Continue reading at The Hill.

#TBT: Examining U.S.-China Relations in Energy Policy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

This week, PPI Strategic Adviser Paul Bledsoe published a piece for The Hill exploring the dynamic between the United States and China when it comes to solar energy. According to Bledsoe, an examination of history suggests that “an element of global cooperation on energy technology among economic competitors may be necessary to address the existential threat of climate change.” In the context of this new piece, some may want to revisit another article for Politico about energy initiatives involving China and the United States that Bledsoe wrote last year.

In the piece from last April, “How Trump can help save coal—with China’s help,” Bledsoe argues that China could play an important role in complementing American efforts to develop clean coal technology. In supporting such a partnership, the Trump administration could bring back some coal jobs in the United States while helping to combat climate change in the long run. Although some would probably claim that the U.S. does not need help in this area, Bledsoe argues otherwise. Because low American natural gas prices limit investment, states regulate slowly, and carbon dioxide storage is not fully developed in the U.S., China could prove a helpful collaborator. Given this potential value, Bledsoe suggests that U.S. State and Energy Departments work with the Chinese “to greatly accelerate the timetables under which commercially viable CCS technology can be widely deployed in both countries.”

Just this month, Trump signed legislation that included larger tax cuts for capturing and storing carbon, potentially bringing down costs and giving the technology commercial value. Additionally, the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center remains active today. Together, these two PPI pieces from Paul Bledsoe highlight the potential value of cooperation between the United States and China on energy issues, acknowledging that this relationship must be complex in order to meaningfully fight climate change. By taking a globalized approach in situations such as these, the United States is likely to find more effective options for combatting energy challenges.

Bledsoe for The Hill, “Solar case shows climate protection requires globalized economy”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Responses to President Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Chinese solar panels fall into two general camps.

One holds that Chinese solar manufacturing subsidies are so egregious as to require U.S. tariffs to deter additional subsidies by Beijing. Others believe the action is really just free-trade political posturing by Trump, and in practice, amounts only to a self-inflicted wound on the rapidly growing U.S. solar installation sector.

Neither perspective accounts, however, for the recent history of U.S. and Chinese solar subsidies, or indeed new subsidies for carbon capture and other clean energy sources that became law in the recent budget agreement.

Continue reading at The Hill. 

Happy Holidays from PPI

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute
It’s been a surreal political year, but PPI has much to celebrate this holiday season. Throughout 2017, we expanded our productive capacity and the scope of our political and media outreach significantly. For example, PPI organized 150 meetings with prominent elected officials; visited 10 state capitals and 10 foreign capitals, published an influential book and more than 40 original research papers, and hosted nearly 30 private salon dinners on a variety of topical issues.
Best of all, we saw PPI’s research, analysis, and innovative ideas breaking through the political static and changing the way people think about some critical issues, including how to revive U.S. economic dynamism, spread innovation and jobs to people and places left behind by economic growth, and modernize the ways we prepare young people for work and citizenship.
Let me give you some highlights:
  • This fall, David Osborne’s new book, Reinventing America’s Schools, was published on the 25th anniversary of the nation’s first charter school in Minnesota. David, who heads PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools project, documents the emergence of a new “21st Century” model for organizing and modernizing our public school system around the principles of school autonomy, accountability, choice, and diversity. David is just winding up a remarkable 20-city book tour that drew wide attention from education, political, and civic leaders, as well as the media. Because David is a great storyteller, as well as analyst, it’s a highly readable book that offers a cogent picture of a K-12 school system geared to the demands of the knowledge economy. It makes a great holiday gift!
  • Dr. Michael Mandel’s pioneering research on e-commerce and job creation also upended conventional wisdom and caught the attention of top economic commentators. Dr. Mandel, PPI’s chief economic strategist, found that online commerce has actually created more jobs in retail than it destroys, and that these new jobs (many in fulfillment centers in outlying areas) pay considerably better than traditional ones. His research buttresses the main premise of PPI’s progressive pro-growth agenda: that spreading digital innovation to the physical economy will create new jobs and businesses, raise labor productivity, and reduce inequality.
  • PPI challenged the dubious panacea of “free college” and proposed a progressive alternative – a robust system of post-secondary learning and credentials for the roughly 70 percent of young Americans who don’t get college degrees. PPI Senior Fellow Harry Holzer developed a creative menu of ways to create more “hybrid learning” opportunities combining work-based and classroom instruction. And PPI Senior Fellow Anne Kim highlighted the inequity of current government policies that subsidize college-bound youth (e.g., Pell Grants), but provide no help for people earning credentials certifying skills that employers value.
  • Building on last year’s opening of a PPI office in Brussels, we expanded our overseas work considerably in 2017. In January, I endeavored to explain the outcome of the U.S. election to shell-shocked audiences in London, Brussels, and Berlin. In April, we led our annual Congressional senior staff delegation to Paris, Brussels, and Berlin to engage European policymakers on the French presidential election and other U.S-E.U. issues, including international taxation, competition policy, and trade. PPI also took its message of data-driven innovation and growth to Australia, Brazil, Japan and a number of other countries.
Other 2017 highlights included a strategy retreat in February with two dozen top elected leaders to explore ideas for a new, radically pragmatic agenda for progressives; a Washington conference with our longtime friend Janet Napolitano (now President of the University of California system) on how to update and preserve NAFTA; public forums in Washington on pricing carbon, infrastructure, tax reform, and other pressing issues; creative policy reports on varied subjects; and a robust output of articles, op-eds, blogs, and social media activity.
I’m also happy to report many terrific additions to PPI in 2017. Rob Keast joined to manage our external relations and new policy development; Paul Bledsoe assumed a new role as Strategic Adviser as well as guiding our work on energy and climate policy; and Emily Langhorne joined as Education Policy Analyst. We will also be adding a fiscal project next year.
All this leaves us poised for a high-impact year in 2018. In this midterm-election year, our top priority will be crafting and building support for a new progressive platform — a radically pragmatic alternative to the political tribalism throttling America’s progress. That starts with new and better ideas for solving peoples’ problems that look forward, not backward, and that speak to their hopes and aspirations, not their anger and mistrust.
It’s a tall order, and we cannot succeed without your help and support. Thanks for all you have done over past years, and we look forward to working with you in 2018.
Happy holidays and New Year!

Rotherham for US News, “A Tale of Two Zinkes”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Interior, it landed pretty well. Zinke was a well-regarded former Navy SEAL and congressman known as a champion of protecting public lands and for being attentive to native issues. As opposed to some Trump nominees where defections of Republicans complicated the Senate math, Zinke was confirmed with a bipartisan 67 Senate votes – a landslide in the Trump-era.

During his Senate confirmation, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, a pro-public lands conservation group, said, “Both Zinke and President-elect Trump have identified themselves as conservationists in the model of Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican who helped create America’s priceless public land heritage.”

That was then.

Now, Zinke finds himself in political trouble that ranges from just plain odd to possibly illegal. And, in the crucible, he hasn’t turned out to be the defender of public lands many hoped for.

 Continue reading at U.S. News & World Report. 

Bledsoe for The Hill, “Trump is isolated on climate. Ignore him at negotiations.”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As ministers from 195 countries travel to Bonn, Germany for annual climate negotiations to begin Nov. 6, momentous decisions await.

Convincing major-emitting nations to increase the pace of emissions reductions, gaining hundreds of billions in new private and public investment in clean energy, protecting vulnerable populations and finalizing key rules of the Paris Agreement will all be debated.

The backdrop? Increasingly deadly, hugely expensive climate change impacts now manifest in the U.S. and around the world and what scientists believe is a rapidly shrinking window of time to prevent far worse.

Within this urgent context, little effort should be spent worrying about or currying favor with Donald Trump or his appointees. Everything we’ve learned about Trump since he took office suggests it’s a fool’s errand to attempt to convince him to take more responsible action regarding climate change.

Continue reading at The Hill.

Bledsoe for The Hill, “Harvey, Irma show the skyrocketing costs of climate change”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Even as Congress passed $15 billion in initial funding for Hurricane Harvey relief, Americans were glued to their TVs watching Hurricane Irma, the strongest-ever Atlantic storm, bear down on Florida, where millions are still without power and other services.

Sadly, Congress, and the rest of us, had better get used to it. Harvey and Irma are just glimpses of the massive extra costs climate change is already extracting from U.S. taxpayers, a price tag that will only grow exponentially in coming years.

Continue reading at The Hill.