Obama on global warming: expect the expected

A few of my sodden comrades at the pub think I’m too easy on President Obama, and they scoff when I tell them a lot of the criticism and doubt thrown his way just isn’t thought out. But here’s an example: much chatter developed in recent weeks about Obama on global warming: Why isn’t Obama talking about global warming? Why isn’t Obama supporting the climate bill? Both questions had the same answer: there wasn’t yet a climate bill to support.
Obama wasn’t going to make a push until there was something to push–doesn’t that just make sense? And as soon as House Democrats reached a compromise today (with a vote expected Friday), Obama endorsed the bill. His comments today are consistent with the comments he has made on this topic since he took office, notably in the text of his own budget, which included a carbon tax and trade provision until Congress took it out.
The buzzwords are the same: clean energy economy, alternative energy, jobs, shifting the cost of pollution to the polluters. As usual, he takes pains to cast the bill as an “energy bill” instead of some starry-eyed environmental ideal. That’s how he gets starry-eyed stuff done. In this case, highly imperfect starry-eyed stuff, but still a longshot for America.
Here follows the long-awaited endorsement, the unsurprising text of Obama’s comments today on the American Clean Energy and Security Act:
This week, the House of Representatives is moving ahead on historic legislation that will transform the way we produce and use energy in America. This legislation will spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet.
This energy bill will create a set of incentives that will spur the development of new sources of energy, including wind, solar, and geothermal power. It will also spur new energy savings, like efficient windows and other materials that reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer.
These incentives will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy. And that will lead to the development of new technologies that lead to new industries that could create millions of new jobs in America — jobs that can’t be shipped overseas.
At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air that we breathe. It also provides assistance to businesses and communities as they make the gradual transition to clean energy technologies.
… [thanks to Waxman, Dingell, Markey, Boucher, Randall, Pelosi]…
We all know why this is so important. The nation that leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st century’s global economy. That’s what this legislation seeks to achieve — it’s a bill that will open the door to a better future for this nation. And that’s why I urge members of Congress to come together and pass it