Green’O’Meter for the Candidates (For testing environmental friendliness that is, not to be used to determine how sickly looking they are)

Grist.org has been running a continual collection of candidate interviews pertaining to the environment in the article “How Green is your candidate”. As we are currently discussing the effects of issues in the candidates campaigns, it seems appropriate to address issues that many environmental interests groups (with an estimated revenue of 2.9 billion (Lineberry 344.)) focus on. Grist.org can give a general idea about the reaction that many environmentalists will have to the different candidates.
To begin with the traditionally more environmental democrats, candidates with intriguing plans included Biden, Hillary, Edwards, Obama, and Bill Richardson. Joe Biden currently has a voting record of the usual democrat when it comes to his choices about the environment. He addresses energy security as has main priority, but his emphasis is on biofuels. He signed the Sanders-Boxer climate bill to reduce the global warming reduction, and is currently pursuing the idea of reestablishing international negotiations. Biden particularly stresses that when you are “[dealing] with global warming, you have to change the attitude of the world, particularly China and India”. In the eyes of the Grists, and most other environmentalists, Biden “talks a good talk about climate and energy, but hasn’t put forth a comprehensive plan on the issues”. On a positive note, myself and other greens tend to support Biden’s proposal to involve China and India in negotiations, and this point could help sell his policies. The U.S. can carry out extensive programs, but if other countries continue to pollute what we are trying to preserve, our efforts could seem useless. I believe that recruiting additional powerful countries would create support for new and old emissions legislation. I had initially seen Biden’s lack of a comprehensive plan as a result of there being few feasible solutions to the many problems, but reading about additional candidates, I realized that he might simply be behind on the race to develop a plan. This factor will most likely hurt his status among greens; after all, environmentalists appreciate candidates who recognize problems, but they vote for candidates who take actions about problems.
Hillary had recognized the problems with the climate in the past, but had not been clear in her intentions until her recent release of “one of the most comprehensive and well-researched energy plans of the campaign season”. I believe that she had known what her stance would be all along, but waited until later in the campaign season to release her plan. She wanted as many greens as possible to be paying attention to the elections before she showed a plan that she knew could bring her support. She was also sure to address specifics in her plan, knowing that voters are going to be comparing the candidate’s plans with their own ideas about how to solve environmental problems: “in typical Clinton fashion, all the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed”. Clinton also proposed the creation of a National Energy Council that would “coordinate action across federal agencies”. If such a council is created, it could potentially make environmental interest group’s jobs much easier. Instead of going to different levels to lobby for issues, the majority of concerns could be dealt with in addressing members of the new council.
Edwards was hailed as an initial spark to the green movement, but his actual policy proposals suggest changes that are radical to the point where some environmentalists don’t see them as legitimate. Things like cutting greenhouse-gas by eighty percent by 2050 would be nice, but as a candidate, the environmental wishes must have some compromise with the rest of America’s wishes. Having a campaign that takes a bit more of a “we need to change and I’m going to make it happen so screw our addictions to gas and fossil fuels” could hurt Edwards in the end. He could succeed in getting the hard core greens to give him their vote, but there are not enough to really support him just from an environmental stance. Especially with being the Democrat’s first predominately green advocate, Edwards could end up taking a back seat to Democrats who are now taking his ideas and developing them further. Just like the candidates don’t necessarily want to be ahead in a campaign; it isn’t always conducive to be at the forefront of a new policy movement.
Obama seemed at first to emerge in a similar manner to Joe Biden, with the only exception being that his choice of words and his ability to deliver them was better. Obama even “to the horror of the greens, did some cheerleading for liquefied coal”, but “All was for given when he released his energy/climate proposal”. At first seeming like a Joe Biden, Obama proved to be like Hillary in his proposal that also came later in the season. I imagine that both the campaign managers and the pollsters for Hillary and Obama had timed the release of their proposals to match what they believed would be the optimal receiving time. When releasing plans and policy, it is good to wait until more voters are paying attention to the race, but when Hillary releases her proposals, Obama does not want to appear to mimic Hillary’s ideas too much. Aside from timing the release of information and ideas, the personal image that is created in the public mind also plays a part in Obama’s campaign. He wants to address the issues of environment, but knows that most of the public dislikes hearing about more taxes and programs that will affect their lifestyles. In one of his statements he says, “Businesses don't own the sky, the public does, and if we want them to stop polluting it, we have to put a price on all pollution. It's time to make the cleaner way of doing business the more profitable way of doing business”. This is quite a genius way of putting it because he gives the idea that Americans are more powerful than businesses when it comes to the sky (and we like sticking it to the man). He suggests that because the public does own the sky we should place a price (tax) on all pollution that would be harmful to our property. This is a natural desire to prevent harm to ones property and he shows that pricing pollution would benefit all Americans. This kind of rhetoric that Obama has mastered can help him in his attempts to promise changes that are needed but also to sell the specifics that are required to solve problems. Environmentalists would most likely support a candidate who can address specific issues with solutions that he can sell to the masses.
The final Democrat, Bill Richardson “wants to be the energy president”. The issue that Edwards has with being too much of an advocate for environmental policy (so much so that he would have a hard time selling his point to non-greens) is the same thing that Richardson experiences, but Richardson is even more extreme. With proposals to cut oil demand by fifty percent by 2040, Richardson has many greens supporting him, but he would be hard pressed to sell that idea to the rest of the electorate. He has the sense of urgency that other candidates do not have which makes him appealing seeing how quickly and drastically our world is changing, but his method of implementing a plan to deal with the urgent issues is a downfall. He also must deal with being somewhat of a single platform candidate. Just as Tancredo and Giuliani relate everything back to immigration and 9/11, Richardson will eventually find himself doing the same, and with this tendency, voters will only stick around for so long before they look for a candidate who has opinions in multiple policy areas.
On the Republican side, the main candidates who present a good case for the environment include, Huckabee and oh yeah, more Huckabee. Giuliani has built his campaign on foreign policy and national-security and aside from recognizing that global warming exists, he has really done very little about the issue. McCain has proposed a bill that would lower green-house gases and has even spoken out against handouts to oil companies. In general though, McCain has been viewed as a candidate who has seriously considered and advocated issues, but ultimately has done very little. Romney has “carefully avoided saying whether he believes in anthropogenic global warming, but as governor of Mass. In 2004, he offered a climate protection plan as an insurance policy…just in case”. Environmentalists do not seem to trust the hesitation to comment about current issues. Even though taking a specific stance on a subject could potentially injure a candidate at the polls, Romney is a good example of the result when no definitive stance is taken.
Huckabee, the candidate that has seemed to retain his dignity in the eyes of the grist writers, has been a positive candidate because of his promises to put energy independence at the top of his agenda. His promise to “achieve it [complete energy independence] by the end of his second term” is a promising prospect for environmentalists and in his situation, his lack of specifics might be a good thing. Environmentalists would give him their vote because of a definitive deadline that they could hold him to, and the rest of the nation would be attracted by his proposal because it focuses more on the concept of independence than it does on the necessity to affect the lives of the American people. Americans like independence, but they don’t like being told what to do and Huckabee’s platform appeals to both aspects. As he is interpreted by the environmental group, Huckabee “is the one Republican contender who has made energy independence a central issue and seems genuinely committed to pursuing it”.

An additional article dealing with the impact of interests groups seemed a prime example of the book’s ideas about interest groups and lobbying. In “Johnson Resists Lobbying of Special-Interest ‘Science’ Groups” two political body’s (one being a head administrative position for the EPA and the other being the agency’s scientific advisory council) are impacted by interest groups. The first body, administrator Stephen Johnson,
“rejected the near-unanimous recommendation of his agency's own scientific advisory council, as well as the pleas of health and environmental advocates – and failed to strengthen the Clean Air Act's standards for maximum annual soot-particle levels”. Johnson’s advisory council was most likely lobbied to by environmental groups that advocated the strengthening of the Clean Air Act. Although the council most likely based their decision largely upon data they had about soot-particle levels, there was a potential for lobbyists influence the council. Either way, the council recommended that Johnson strengthen that Act, but Johnson did not do so. As a part of the EPA, it seems odd that he would reject the recommendation because of personal beliefs: so one could conclude that his decision was impacted by outside factors (namely interest groups and lobbying). The book asked us to consider the fairness of lobbying. This seems to be an example of an unfair product of lobbying. The article even points out this somewhat blatant characteristic saying, “Industry groups took Johnson to task -- not for leaving in place lenient annual standards, mind you, but for strengthening the daily ones. After all, refraining from sickening and killing people is expensive!” The article refers to the fact that the industry groups probably called in a favor from Johnson, but were still angry because he could only manage to prevent the annual standards from being tightened while daily standards were increased. The industry group did not want to deal with the problem they created because it would cost them money they were unwilling to pay. This situation demonstrates both the pluralism and elite theories. The pluralist theory holds that there are enough groups that no one group gains complete control. Johnson was unable to prevent an increase in all standards which shows that he did not have complete control of the rules. On the other hand, Johnson was able to prevent the more important annual regulations from being tightened which supports the elite theory’s idea that “the corporate elites prevail when it comes to the big decisions” (Lineberry 327). It seems that different situations seem to fit different theories, and certain theories might be relevant in one scenario but bare no significance in another. In this case, political entities were affected by lobbyists groups. Whether the affect was a positive one or not really depends on whether or not one agrees with the interest group’s purpose for lobbying. I hope I’ve been able to tie in ideas about the affects of candidate’s positions and actions as well as the impact of interest groups. If I haven’t related the articles back to the chapters enough, let me know and I’ll work more from the book into my response.