[GPSCC-chat] Fw: What we think of Obama's climate program, Supreme Court voting rights decision

[Caroline Yacoub]

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: shane que hee <squehee at ucla.edu>
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 3:55 PM
Subject: What we think of Obama's climate program, Supreme Court voting  rights  decision
  


Subject: What we think of
Obama's climate program, Supreme Court voting rights 
decision
>
>Reply-To: "Green Shadow Cabinet"
<info at greenshadowcabinet.us>
>From: "Green Shadow Cabinet"
<info at greenshadowcabinet.us>
>
>Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 11:20:55 -0500
>
>
> 
>
>Please distribute and publish the following release and statement of the
Green Shadow Cabinet. For Dr. Jill Stein's response to President Obama's
climate address, click here. For Robert Fitrakis' statement on Yesterday's Supreme
Court ruling, click here. Both are also reproduced in full below.
>
> 
>
>RELEASE: Obama's climate proposals fall dangerously short, ignore
time-critical opportunity to revive the economy
>  Wednesday, June 26, 2013 ~ Jill Stein, President, Green Shadow Cabinet
>
>  The Green Shadow Cabinet said today that while President Obama's
call for the Environental Protection Agency to strengthen regulation of
carbon emissions from existing power plants was a long overdue step in
the right direction, his “all of the above” approach to energy is still a
disaster for the climate.
>
>  Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party's 2012 presidential nominees
noted, "You can't give your child an 'all of the above diet' with
toxic lead and arsenic, and think that adding some spinach and
blueberries is going to make it OK. Likewise, reducing carbon pollution
from coal does not make fracking, tar sands oil, deep water and Arctic
drilling OK. The climate is spiraling into runaway warming. Obama's
promotion of cheap dirty fossil fuels makes coal regulations just window
dressing on a disastrous policy."
>
>  In addition to its broad concerns on fossil fuel use, the Cabinet
strongly opposes the Obama administration's continued push to revitalize
the expensive, dangerous, nuclear power industry. The massive subsidies
required by the nuclear industry siphon away funds needed to expand
renewable energy. Nuclear power still has lethal, unsolvable, long term
waste-storage problems. In addition, the White House's proposed plants
could not be built in time to have a significant impact on greenhouse gas
emissions.
>
>  President Obama's proposals fall far short of an urgently-needed
Green New Deal to revive the American economy with clean, renewable
energy. The Green New Deal would create 25 million jobs, particularly
jobs that transition us to a carbon-free economy. It would be paid for
through cuts to the military budget, elimination of the $40 billion in
subsidies for fossil fuels and nukes, a Wall Street transaction tax
yielding $100s of billions in revenue per year, and requiring the wealthy
to pay their fair share.
>
>  As an example, a recent Stanford University report showed how NY
could convert to 100% renewable energy by 2030 in a program that would
create jobs and pay for the costs of conversion with health care savings
alone. ( "Examining the Feasibility of Converting New York State's
All-Purpose Energy Infrastructure to One Using Wind, Water and
Sunlight", co-authored by Stanford University Professor Mark
Jacobson,)
>
>  The Cabinet also pointed to Germany’s energy transformation,
(Energiewende), that shifts from nuclear and fossil fuels to
renewables. Thanks in large part to its Green Party, Germany will cut
greenhouse-gas emissions by 40% relative to 1990 levels by 2020. By
comparison, the goals set by President Obama translate to only a 4% cut
in emissions - about one-tenth of the German commitment. The Cabinet also
calls for a feed-in tariff program that Germany has used to create a
vibrant renewable energy sector – benefitting small businesses,
homeowners, farmers and communities - by insuring profitable rates for
renewable power. This has helped fuel Germany’s vigorous economy, and put
renewable energy technology on track to be the major employment sector in
the nation within the decade.
>
>  To help put us on a similar path, the Green Shadow Cabinet calls
for Congress to impose fees on the use of carbon. In addition, the
federal government should also use its immense purchasing power to drive
the development of clean renewable energy, conservation and
efficiency.
>
>  EPA should accelerate and increase fuel efficiency standards.
Under the Clean Air Act, it should phase out the use of HFCs and replace
them with alternatives that protect the ozone layer without contributing
to greenhouse gas emissions. Under the Clean Water Act, it should set
standards for acid pollution in water to reduce the negative impact
carbon dioxide has on coral, plankton, shell fish and other marine
animals.  It should approve the petition by the Center for
Biological Diversity to revise water quality criteria in light of new
scientific information about ocean acidification, adopting a criterion
for pH stating: “For marine waters, pH should not deviate measurably from
naturally occurring pH levels as a result of absorption of anthropogenic
carbon dioxide.”
>
>  The Cabinet challenged Obama's escalating development of extreme
fossil fuels that has been the major focus of “all of the above” -
mountain top removal of coal, fracked oil and gas, deep water and Arctic
drilling, and tar sands oil. The world already has five times as much
oil, coal and gas available as climate scientists say the atmosphere can
tolerate if global temperature rise is to stay below the internationally
accepted limit of two degrees Celsius.  So rather than drill for
more fossil fuels, we must keep 80 percent of those reserves locked away
safely underground to avoid a climate disaster. In order to achieve this,
and protect the climate for everyone rather than corporate profits for a
few, we need to consider making energy a democratically-controlled public
utility, with a mission to take us from fossil fuels to renewables at
least cost.  
>
>  Steve Breyman, EPA Adminstrator for the Green Shadow Cabinet,
noted that, "Obama's 'all of the above' energy strategy is
unrealistic and cowardly. It's overly expensive and unscientific. It
ignores climate change and generates waste that remains dangerous for a
thousand generations. Rather than face up to even a single powerful
industry--nuclear, coal, oil, or gas--the President punted. Actually, he
went golfing with fossil fuel company executives. We end up having to
fight the Keystone XL pipeline, with the likelihood that the President
will ultimately approve it, paving the way to full exploitation of the
Canadian tar sands, a development called 'game over' for the climate by
James Hansen."
>
>  Breyman added that, "International leadership, a major theme
of the President's speech, is only possible when national policy is at
the leading edge. Unfortunately, Obama has yet to match the carbon
reduction policies we see in other countries, including China, the
world's other global warming superpower. The U.S. has been both the major
contributor to climate change and the major denier of the need for action
at both the domestic and international level. Enacting policies proposed
by the Green Shadow Cabinet would put America in a good position to lead
internationally.”
>
>  Stein concluded her comments by stating that, “The fact that 80%
of climate warming has occurred since 1980 shows how this crisis is
accelerating. We now have unprecedented storms, permanent drought
("megadrought") in the American southwest, and just witnessed
three major forest fires in California and Colorado in springtime that
would normally happen only after a long hot dry summer. In short, we
don't have time for false assurance while climate catastrophe continues
to escalate.“
>
>  “The American people understand that real progress on climate is
urgently needed, and support this in poll after poll. The obstacle to
progress is the American political establishment - bought and paid for by
fossil fuel companies and closely allied Wall Street interests.” Obama
himself was the third largest recipient of campaign donations from the
oil and gas industry in the last election cycle, receiving more than
$800,000.
>
>  "The question of the hour is not how to persuade the American
people to do the right thing on climate. It's how to force our hijacked
political establishment to act in our interests - for the climate, and
for our economy. Congress and the President continue to throw us under
the bus on both counts, inflicting austerity on everyday people - cutting
Medicare, social security, schools, etc. - while they squander trillions
on wars, Wall Street bailouts and tax giveaways for the wealthy,"
said Stein.
>
>  “We cannot wait to reclaim our children’s future – and our future.
We must act now. If Obama won’t lead, the people will find a way to
provide that leadership. It’s not the President’s legacy that’s at stake.
It’s ours.” 
>	*    
>	*    
>	*    
> 
>
>Respond to Supreme Court with push for new voting rights laws,
amendments
>  June 25, 2013 ~ Robert Fitrakis, Chair, Federal Elections Commission
>
>  By and 5-4 vote today, June 25, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court has
sanctioned the return of apartheid in nine states in our union that have
a long legacy of blocking black and Latino voters.
>
>  The Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
that required nine states, all but one former Confederate states, to seek
pre-clearance from the U.S. Justice Department prior to changing election
laws. The states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
>
>  Blatant racist attacks on the U.S. electorate have been the
deliberate strategy of the Republican Party, in particular, since its
theft of the 2000 presidential election in Florida.
>
>  In 2000, the Republican Party overtly embraced old-fashioned Jim
Crow tactics, targeting former felons as a pretext for stripping 90,000
poor and minority voters from the voting rolls. A majority of the
illegally purged voters were African American.
>
>  In 2004, the Republicans shifted these deliberate racist tactics
to the pivotal battleground state of Ohio. More than 300,000 voters were
eliminated from registration rolls in heavily Democratic urban areas such
as Toledo and Cincinnati. In the city of Cleveland 24.93% of all voters
in the 2000 presidential election vanished from the voting rolls.
Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio’s first black
elected official, deployed a wide range of deceptive methods aimed at
disenfranchising poor and minority voters. Also, urban areas were
short-changed on voting machines and denied paper backup ballots. Tens of
thousands of minority voters were forced to use the “back of the bus”
provisional ballots, which often went uncounted or were
discarded.
>
>  So successful were these new Jim Crow tactics in Ohio, the
Republicans purged another 1.2 million in the 2008 election in the
Buckeye State. They repeated this in 2012,  purging 1.25 million
more voters.
>
>  Also in 2012, led by Georgia and Indiana, GOP-controlled
legislatures began passing laws demanding state-issued photo ID cards for
all voters. New York University’s Brennan Center estimated that such laws
would disenfranchise more than 10 million voters. It is precisely this
type of law that will go into effect in Texas as a result of this June 25
Supreme Court decision.
>
>  Poor, minority and elderly voters who do not drive, often do not
have a photo ID. Moreover, forcing people who do not need a driver’s
license or state-issued photo ID card should constitute an illegal poll
tax.
>
>  The Supreme Court ruling removes the last remnants of protection
for poor and minority voters and will openly invite new and creative ways
to repress the most vulnerable people in our society.
>
>  What the Supreme Court should have done is expand the principles
of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into the emerging Jim Crow states of
Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.  
>
>  What the Green Shadow Cabinet proposes goes far beyond a voting
rights act. A new federal voting rights law, followed by a constitutional
voting rights amendment must be passed guaranteeing all U.S. citizens the
right to vote. In the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., ultimately we
will be judged as a democracy by what we do to protect and defend the
most vulnerable of our sisters and brothers.
>
>  ~ Robert Fitrakis serves as chair of the Federal Election Commission in
the Democracy Branch of the Green Shadow Cabinet of the United
States. 
>	*    
>	*    
>	*    
> 
>
> 
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