The following is a guest blog from KC Golden, policy director at Climate Solutions in Seattle. You can read more of KC's writings, including a more detailed version of this post, at the CS Journal blog.
-- Luis
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Senate tied itself in a procedural knot, preventing a vote on the substance of the Climate Security Act (CSA) – the first meaningful climate legislation to reach the Senate floor. Once again, the "world's greatest deliberative body" did nothing about the world's biggest problem. Twenty years after our pre-eminent climate scientist Jim Hansen warned Congress of the need for immediate action, this dilly-dallying is enough to make you scream.
But a closer look at the political tectonics at play gives cause for hope. Climate deniers and dawdlers are running out of places to hide. The election will be unkind to candidates who fail to offer real solutions to the fossil fuel dependence that is strangling the economy as aggressively as it is wrecking the climate. And months ago, we narrowed the field of presidential contenders to those who support real climate action.
Even more encouraging, a much stronger bill is already emerging. Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) has introduced the "iCAP" (Investing in Climate Action Policy) Act. Compared to the CSA, its emission reduction provisions are stronger, it protects consumers better, and it gives more assurance against development of coal plants that lack technology to safely dispose of climate pollution.
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