On June 6, the Warner-Lieberman-Boxer climate bill was defeated in the Senate by a Republican-led filibuster. In addition, President Bush had promised to veto if it passed the Senate. The bill, which had significant problems from environmental and social justice perspectives, was nonetheless the first bill with bipartisan support to address global warming and set carbon reduction targets.
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The bill set a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 18 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and nearly 70 percent by 2050. While this cut would be significant, it would not be enough to address the climate crisis, according to the climate science research community. Other problems with the bill include increased support for nuclear energy, which poses its own environmental dangers, and the use of a cap-and-trade, market-driven approach to reducing emissions instead of a tax on polluters or other more comprehensive approaches.
Despite the bill’s limited reach, the energy industry—the source of the majority of greenhouse gas emissions—still opposed it. Thomas J. Pyle, president of the pro-industry think tank Institute for Energy Research, commented that Americans “can breathe a sigh of relief knowing this bill is dead … for now.”
Contrary to Mr. Pyle’s suggestion, however, recent polls indicate that a majority of Americans consider the environment and global warming to be an important or very important issue, about which they worry quite a bit. If the United States is a democracy, why would the Senate not pass a law to help solve this problem?
The answer is that the United States is a bourgeois democracy—a particular type of democracy where elected officials act to protect the interests of the capitalist system, not the true interests of the majority of the people.
Part of the role of elected government bodies such as the House of Representatives and the Senate is to create the illusion that the political system is responsive to the peoples’ concerns, even as nothing is actually done. Thus, both Democrats and Republicans are now engaged in a blame-fest, pointing the finger at the other party for the failure of the bill to even come to an actual vote on its own merits.
“We saw this morning yet another example of Bush-McCain Republicans refusing to address one of the most important issues of our time,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). From the other side of the aisle, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said, “The message is clear: the majority can’t abandon this bill fast enough.”
Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, the presumptive Democrat and Republican nominees for president, were not present to cast a vote on cloture, which would have ended the filibuster. McCain said he would have voted for cloture but against the bill itself, because it did not give enough support to nuclear power. Obama, while trying to claim the mantle of the environmental movement, has a poor environmental track record and has supported liquefied coal technology, one of the worst offenders in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Capitalist politicians cannot take real action on global warming if it means reduced profits for their true constituents, the corporations.
Presidential candidate Gloria La Riva and vice presidential candidate Eugene Puryear of the Party for Socialism and Liberation stand for protecting human needs and the environment over profits. Their campaign statement on the environment affirms: “Capitalism is the greatest threat to our environment. As long as we live in a society where profits are prioritized over people’s needs, our planet will continue to be destroyed as corporations are allowed to continue polluting to cut costs and make more profit.
“The La Riva/Puryear presidential campaign believes that the only true and lasting solution for our environment is the socialist reorganization of the economy. Socialism is a system based on centralized, ecologically sustainable planning where the profit motive has been taken out of the picture. Eliminating the tyranny of private corporate profit as the dominant feature controlling economic development opens the door to true working-class democracy. That is what we mean by ‘people over profits.’ Rational social and economic planning, rather than production for the ‘market,’ is the only method for the implementation of scientifically supported solutions to global warming.”
