Speaker for yourself

Grist talks to Speaker Nancy Pelosi about climate and energy politics on the Hill

Posted by Kate Sheppard at 12:11 PM on 21 Jul 2008

For House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), any action on climate change hinges on Barack Obama winning the White House this fall. Only the bully-pulpit of the presidency can hope to overcome the deep pockets of the "agents of the status quo," Pelosi said Saturday in a conversation with Grist.

Pelosi came to the Netroots gathering for an "Ask the Speaker" session, where attendees got a chance to pick her brain about what's going on in Congress. It was during this event that Al Gore made a special guest appearance.

Since Gore recently made an ambitious call to move to 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years, Pelosi was asked in the session whether she will accept that challenge. "It is absolutely possible," Pelosi told the crowd.

After her speech, Pelosi sat down with David Roberts and me to talk about this goal, and about the politics surrounding climate and energy on the Hill.

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Great questions!

I think Pelosi's heart is in the right place. But she needs to be pushed about some of her replies. Here's a couple of things which stood out for me.

What kind of signal is sent to the markets if new coal plants are not banned? (And let the coal companies with their millions of dollars for attack ads fund their own research on carbon capture, not the taxpayers!)

Opening up the Strategic Petroleum Oil Reserves would be a huge and dangerous folly, in my opinion. It would open us up to the possibility of petrocollapse during hurricane season. The only way to get oil prices down is a sustained and coordinated international effort to reduce oil use below the depletion rate. (And whatever happened to the Windfall Profit tax idea as a way to ease the burden on the poor at the expense of the monstrous profits of the oil companies?)

And of course, when will the Democrats ever come to their senses on biofuels, which is estimated by the World Bank to have caused world food prices to increase by 75 %?

by Colin Wright at 1:44 PM on 21 Jul 2008

Politics as usual

I recall her asking us to work to elect a Democratic majority in the House and Senate to help solve the global warming problem. Now, through biofuels, the new majority have worsened the global warming problem and created a world-wide fuel crisis. Incredibly, not realizing the foolishness of putting food in our gas tanks, they EXPANDED the corn-ethanol program. God help us.

We need a green party. The other two will just promise whatever we want to hear and count on us to forget it once they are elected. I bet there is a lot of joking about how forgetful the "greenies" are in the smoke-filled rooms.

by perk at 7:42 PM on 21 Jul 2008

Yep!

Perk is right. Nancy Pelosi is nothing but a political hack. She destroyed what should have been the biggest and best National Park in the country by forcing its privatization (the Presidio), took impeachment "off the table," and has refused to block funding for a totally immoral and illegal war. Locally, she consistently sides with corporate interests against the grass roots. Cindy Sheehan is running against Pelosi this fall and I'm voting for Sheehan. If I have some time, I'm going to work on her campaign.

by Wolverine at 8:43 PM on 21 Jul 2008

Old Wine in Old Skins

Why is it whenever a Democrat gets up and starts yelling into the crowd about "change" and "removing the status quo" she ends up serving the same old Liberal claptrap which usually involves taxing people to death and spending it on some archaic retrograde "program" that is supposed to "put America back to work" and invariably ends up failing?

How about this. Right now, in small laboratories. In blogs. In basements. In classrooms. In small offices. The next generation. The 21st century technology of nano and solar and linux and gaming and blogging and other things so far off the radar as to be sub-cyber are being thought about and worked on. Right now people are losing their jobs -- their old jobs at the Internet Smokestacks like Microsoft and Google and Apple. Right now there is enormous potential. There is stagnant capital.

What America really needs to do is to free people up to think, grow, create and build a real solution. Or even more important, to use those technologies in new and innovative ways. We need the mediums who can create 100K jobs to get money back into the hands of Americans so they can buy out their mortgages and invest in their lives and towns. We need more thousanaires who can live and act independently and finally participate in this country not as economic slaves, but as citizens like the Founding Fathers.

by jabailo at 9:26 PM on 21 Jul 2008

Someone get her a reusable water bottle!

I hear how Dems want to have renewables, but seeing Ms. Pelosi crack open a plastic water bottle is so contradictory to their mission. Poor choice to have on camera. We Gristers will call you on it!

Michael Pollan says conservation starts with the little everyday choices we make, so Dems need to start now to enact change and make a difference.

"For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too abide, to dispel the misery of the world." - Shantideva

by mtvyfan at 8:28 AM on 23 Jul 2008

Same Old Shit In A Different Container

And I don't expect anything different from meister politician Obama ......

People are going to have to stop depending on "leaders" and turn to themselves ....

And its still damn hard for those who think out-of-the box on any of these issues to get funding or credibility .....

The politicians think of themselves as part of the elite class which manipulates and controls this country.

"We Have Found the Enemy and It Is Us" ... Pogo

by rrecroc at 2:36 PM on 24 Jul 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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