Barack Obama Fails to Rally Support for Energy Bill

obama-200Standoff suggests Senate would give up on climate change law that would result in far more limited proposals

By Suzanne Goldenberg

Barack Obama’s hopes of leveraging public anger at the Gulf oil spill into political support for his clean energy agenda fell flat today after he failed to rally a group of Democratic and Republican senators around broad energy and climate change law.

The standoff suggests the Senate would formally give up on climate change law, and recast energy reform as a Gulf oil spill response, that would roll in far more limited proposals such as a green investment bank, or a measure to limit greenhouse gas emissions that would apply only to electricity companies.

Read the rest of this story at The Guardian.

31 Responses to Barack Obama Fails to Rally Support for Energy Bill

  1. paul wenum June 30, 2010 at 9:39 pm #

    The “End Game” will come in 2011 when Americans wake up to the costs that they will bear if this bill is enacted. Do Americans really understand what is coming if passed? I’m for clean air, water and the like but a burden like this along with no proven science is beyond the pale if our elected officials pass a bill on an “unknown.” America, wake up. People I talk to have no knowledge of what is coming and unfortunately don’t seem to care. Enough said.

  2. Rob N. Hood July 1, 2010 at 1:33 pm #

    Wha?? I thought Obama was the anti-christ who always gets his way…!?

    Here’s the story in a nutshell: A far-right predatory overclass has spent the last thirty years undoing the hard-fought gains of the mid-twentieth century, which had produced a robust middle class and vastly more economic and social justice in America than the country had ever known before. These regressives used every kind of deceit imaginable to persuade unsophisticated voters to choose candidates (both D and R) whose real agenda was to assist their plutocratic puppetmasters in fleecing the very same people who voted for them.

    Such candidates ran on issues like the death penalty, immigration, bogus wars, gay marriage and abortion. But what they really were about as legislators was exporting jobs to where workers are dirt cheap and politically neutered, crashing organized labor, shifting the tax burden onto the mass public, deregulating industry to allow unhindered profit-taking on the upside and socialized public responsibility for risk on the downside, and locking in a Supreme Court majority that would never blanch at even the most outrageous rulings enhancing corporate power in American society.

  3. Rob N. Hood July 1, 2010 at 1:34 pm #

    the above authored by David M. Green (almost forgot!)

  4. paul wenum July 1, 2010 at 6:09 pm #

    Was going to say, who did you plagiarize that from? At least you acknowledged it. Think for yourself for once.

  5. Hal Groar July 1, 2010 at 8:51 pm #

    Robbie, you need to stop reading that propaganda and move into the real world. The world where I live needs people to rally against this taking over of the energy sector and ship this Marxist administration into the netherworld. You need to stop cutting and pasting and start seeing whats really going on. Read your local newspaper to find out they’re giving out condoms to kindergartners, check out your local church where they are promoting “social justice”. Check out what passes for “kids programming” these days. You will see a common thread that runs through it all. Why don’t you do that and write something about what you see instead of what other paranoid schizophrenics contemplate as a threat.

  6. paul wenum July 1, 2010 at 9:37 pm #

    Hal, he will never change. His mind is made up. End of story. Like changing stripes on a Zebra. Won’t happen. Deal with it. Very simple.

  7. Rob N. Hood July 2, 2010 at 6:07 am #

    My post above is REALITY. Those who see just the opposite are somehow disconnected with the real world. Condoms to kindergartners?? Really, you believe that? What you beleive IS the propaganda…

    It’s got to be some kind of psychosis- I just don’t know what kind.

  8. paul wenum July 2, 2010 at 8:29 pm #

    It is the Energy Bill being discussed which has nothing to do with your pithy post about condoms. What did you have for dinner?

  9. Rob N. Hood July 3, 2010 at 12:19 pm #

    Hal brought it up. Talk to him.

  10. paul wenum July 3, 2010 at 10:16 pm #

    Discuss the merits or lack thereof of the bill outlined by Waxman et al.

  11. Rob N. Hood July 4, 2010 at 7:20 am #

    Yes Hal- what Paul said! Right Paul??

  12. paul wenum July 4, 2010 at 10:58 pm #

    Discuss the subject at hand will you? Other than that you are like a pestering bug that won’t go away. Address the subject.

  13. Rob N. Hood July 6, 2010 at 7:40 am #

    You addressing that to Hal and myself, or just to me again? Are you not into fairness? Are you afriad to call out your “friends” on things you abhor in people you don’t like? Is that hypocrisy? Well, yes it is, by golly.

  14. paul wenum July 6, 2010 at 8:05 pm #

    Both.

  15. Rob N. Hood July 9, 2010 at 5:47 am #

    oh, ok, thanks…. oh almost forgot…. bbbbuuuuuzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  16. Rob N. Hood July 11, 2010 at 6:39 pm #

    The MIC marches on. (use oil to aquire oil to rule the world and stay rich to rule the people…)

    In 2010, we will spend 10 percent more in Afghanistan than in Iraq — and the spending difference will be even more once the $33 billion supplemental funding to pay for the Afghanistan troop surge is factored in on top of the $72.9 billion allocated up front — and for 2011, the administration is requesting $110.3 billion for military operations in Afghanistan and $43.4 billion for ongoing military operations in Iraq.

    Another way to think about the costs of war is per person—how much does it cost to deploy each individual member of the military. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment asserts that “the annual cost per troop since FY 2005 has averaged $1.186 million in Afghanistan and $0.685 million in Iraq, in constant-year FY 2011 dollars.” That’s another reason why, as the war in Iraq winds down – at whatever rate – the savings are most likely going to be eaten up by the rising costs of military operations in Afghanistan.

    Another way to think about the costs of war is in hours, minutes and seconds. Laicie Olsen of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation has done the math: “In 2010, the troop increase in Afghanistan will cost $2.5 billion per month, $82 million per day, $3.4 million per hour, $57,000 per minute, and $951 per second.” And that’s just for the $33 billion troop surge, not the $171 billion we’re spending on the two wars.

  17. paul wenum July 11, 2010 at 10:25 pm #

    Either back our troops and win or get out. Will there be chaos? Yes, and major. We should either go full steam ahead or get the hell out and save our dedicated troops that are protecting our arse! I personally hate subjecting women and others that don’t agree to be subject to death for their actions/thoughts. That however, is their culture. Been that way for thousands of years. Thought Obama was anti-nation building? Guess the Bush bash is now over? Finally, I don’t think of the costs for freedom. I think of Freedom for my family and all Americans after I’ve departed. There is a hell of a difference and a tough call to make and not in regards to dollars and cents like you point out. It is called the “Blood of our children” that is being spent! You never mention that. Now on to the war against Cap N Trade!!!

  18. Rob N. Hood July 12, 2010 at 1:37 pm #

    Answer is: Get OUT now!

    How’s that for addressing the blood of our children?? (And others’ children too. But you never mention THEM.)

  19. paul wenum July 12, 2010 at 8:37 pm #

    Many friends of mine are no longer here. Don’t lecture me on what you don’t know.

  20. Rob N. Hood July 13, 2010 at 7:21 am #

    Whatever Pauly boy.

  21. paul wenum July 13, 2010 at 9:44 pm #

    Replying to ignorance is an impossibility.

  22. Rob N. Hood July 14, 2010 at 7:24 am #

    I’ve finally learned that lesson- that’s why I’m saying my goodbyes.

  23. paul wenum July 14, 2010 at 9:26 pm #

    Goodbye and sleep tight don’t let the bed bugs bite. They could be “repubs” as you say you call them?

  24. Rob N. Hood July 18, 2010 at 7:20 am #

    I could say Repugs- as in Repuglicans. But I don’t, even though I just did…

  25. Rob N. Hood July 27, 2010 at 7:07 am #

    A lot of politicians are talking about extending the Bush tax cuts claiming the it would raise taxes in the “middle class”.
    However the news media is trying to re-define middle class to include people making $200,000 a year.
    Is $200,000 a year middle class? I don’t think so.

    The average American family income is $46,326 a year. Someone making $200,000 make more that 4 times average.
    That seems rich to me. They are also in the top 3% on the income scale. That’s on the rich end. In my view if you are
    in the top 15% that would be rich. So $100,000 a year in my opinion is a rich person.

    So I really resent the news media’s (corporate owned MSM) assertion that we should extend the Bush tax cuts because it raises taxes on the
    middle class because it’s just plain false. The Bush tax cuts were for the rich and the rest of us are having to pay for it
    because it was and continues to be paid for with borrowed money. And borrowing money from China so the rich
    can get a tax cut to be paid for by the poor is just plain wrong.

  26. paul wenum July 27, 2010 at 10:13 pm #

    I just read in your comments that if you are working three (3) jobs, you are 48, your wife works etc. that you are not making more than 40 thousand? If you are not, you pay NO TAX! Don’t lecture when you don’t know. Typical left wing liberal that wants an entitlement. Man, you people that want things “free” tick me off to the the max degree! You pay no tax, period! You live off people that do pay taxes. Now you want more??? No wonder we have a fiscal problem. You confirmed it!

  27. Rob N. Hood July 28, 2010 at 7:22 am #

    You are saying that if I earn less than 40 K I’m not paying income taxes? You are daft, and that’s being polite. I had to pay an additional $900 last year, on top of what was already taken out. And that is mainly because of the hole Bush dug for everyone exept for the elite rich. And unfortunately Obama has yet to be brave enough to change what is actually a huge middle-class rip-off.

    There is something wrong with you Paul. Get some help.

  28. paul wenum July 29, 2010 at 11:13 pm #

    Oh, you paid the AMT? You make more than I thought! Darn, I knew you were a troll. Join the the tax paying crowd!!! Bush didn’t do it your elected representative did. Wait until you and your wife hit “the wall” on the AMT. Think $900.00 is a lot? Your time will come and then you will wake up.

  29. Rob N. Hood August 1, 2010 at 8:12 am #

    $900, on top of what was already taken out- is a lot to me! Maybe not to you… Must be nice to be you. Maybe when I “wake up” and can enjoy the luxury of paying so much more than that. If I was rich I gues I could afford it… right?

  30. paul wenum August 1, 2010 at 8:00 pm #

    Man, are you delusional. You have no idea about reality. By the way, $900.00 is a lot of money to me as well as others. The difference is we attempt to save/invest it, not spent it! That’s the difference betwixt us.

  31. Rob N. Hood August 19, 2010 at 3:05 pm #

    Gosh why didn’t I think of that??!! Thank you oh wise sage!

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