On Dec. 19, Stephen Johnson, administrator of the federal government’s Environmental Protection Agency, rejected a request from California to create its own statewide regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from cars. These are the gases that cause global warming.
If the EPA had approved California’s plan, 16 other states likely would have implemented similar regulations, which in
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Under the Clean Air Act, California is allowed to have stricter clean air laws than the federal government, as long as the state obtains a waiver from the EPA. But the EPA refused.
Since the announcement of the EPA rejection, the plot has thickened. Sources from inside the EPA, including members of Johnson’s own staff, who counseled him to accept California’s proposal, have asserted that Vice President Dick Cheney is behind the rejection.
According to these reports, Johnson made the decision to reject California’s proposal after executives of several leading car manufactures met personally with Cheney, and a Chrysler executive delivered a letter to the EPA.
Angry EPA workers contacted the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “For months he said he was basing it on the scientific and legal merits and then did the precise opposite,” complained Jeff Ruch, PEER’s executive director.
As a result of the outrage over the decision, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have demanded all internal EPA documents related to the decision are planning a Congressional investigation.
On Jan. 2, 2008, California filed suit against the EPA for blocking their authority to restrict carbon dioxide emissions. Fifteen other states have joined the lawsuit.
Cheney’s role in blocking more stringent auto emissions standards looks like old-fashioned corruption—an elected official interceding on behalf of cronies. At the same time, this case reveals how the capitalist state protects the profits of powerful ruling-class interests such as the auto industry. What is unique about this case is that EPA workers exposed the crude and blatantly corrupt actions of Cheney and Johnson.
But the Bush administration is by no means the only obstacle in the fight against global warming. A cursory examination of the Democratic candidates’ positions on climate change reveal that they promise little or nothing more than the Republicans.
All the Democratic candidates give limited lip-service to climate change, despite the fact that it concerns a broad section of the general public.
The Democrats all call for emissions reductions, but generally advocate market-based “cap and trade” programs, which involve selling emissions credits. Emissions credits systems allow polluters to buy the “right” to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gas. If the corporation does not use up the credit, it can sell the credit to someone else, allowing that company to emit more gases.
Nowhere in this system are the workers and poor of the world given a voice in determining how much pollution is acceptable.
In addition, the major candidates also explicitly or implicitly support the expansion of bio-fuels. These are fuels made out of biological sources such as corn, soy or palm oil. While these sources are all renewable—they can be replanted and harvested year after year—they are also food sources. Diverting food to fuel has resulted in rising food prices in many countries. In addition, the production and use of bio-fuels does not result in lower carbon emissions than the equivalent amount of fossil fuels.
Bio-fuels and “cap and trade” systems are pro-capitalist false solutions to the climate change crisis. Whether Democrat or Republican, the capitalist politicians have no real solutions to offer.
Socialism is a system based on centralized planning where the profit motive has been taken out of the picture. Rational planning has the potential to allow the implementation of scientifically supported solutions to global warming.
