Are DLC policies partly the reason environmental laws have been gutted?

[madfloridian]

I was doing a search to see if I could find a good source for the premise that Ed Feulner and the Heritage Foundation gave start-up money to the DLC in 1985. I still have just found the LaRouche quote, and I don't quote him.

However, I did find this on my search. It is an article by a Debra Knopman in Feb. 2001 in the DLC Blueprints Magazine. I found the link from the long article in my 2nd post.

License to Innovate
An Agenda to Modernize the Tools of Environmental Protection
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=2979&kaid=116&subid=150

SNIP..."First generation regulation continues to work adequately for some types of industrial pollution control, but it is too slow and inflexible to capture technological innovation in quick-moving markets. It is also too prescriptive to engage landowners and deal with small, diffuse sources of pollution and too narrow to mesh well with land use, energy, transportation, and agriculture policies..."

SNIP...."This is why the new administration should champion second generation environmental legislation to give regulators, businesses, and communities license to innovate and experiment with tools better suited to solve today's environmental problems. Paired with this license to innovate should be a commitment to improve measures of air, water, land, and biological quality, as well as measures of government and private environmental performance. This can be achieved through the Second Generation of Environmental Improvement Act, soon to be re-introduced in Congress.

The Political Challenge of Altering the Status Quo

The political challenge for the new administration is to figure out how -- not whether -- to make further environmental progress on the heels of a decade of partisan acrimony and legislative gridlock. Conservatives need to acknowledge the public's desire for progress, while liberals must accept the fact that government needs new and more versatile tools to solve today's changed array of environmental problems...."

(This next paragraph seems to advocate the Bush agenda of letting the industries police themselves. I may be misreading. Sounds a little like doublespeak. Industries do not do well policing themselves.)

SNIP..."Second generation legislation, by contrast, recognizes that the next wave of progress in reducing industrial pollution will likely come from sector-specific strategies that set clear environmental targets. Achieving these goals will rely more heavily on market-based incentives to reduce pollution, leaving technology choices to the private sector. Getting there must involve the entire industrial chain of manufacturers, suppliers, and customers. To work, it should reward pollution prevention, process innovation, and product redesign....." END SNIP.

I will put the environmental article I found in the next post. It is very long and interesting.

[madfloridian]

1. Reluctance of Democrats to stand up for environmental protection.

This is a paper written for the University of Wisconsin by Andrew Austin. This is the html version, and a pdf is available at the link.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:gWLfrvuFGHkJ:www.uwgb.edu/austina/Austin-home/antienvironmentalism.pdf+dlc,+feulner,+from,+heritage&hl=en

SNIP..."Undaunted by the storm surrounding his electoral victory in the 2000 U.S. presidential campaign, George W. Bush put forward several potentially controversial cabinet nominees.1Among them was Gale A. Norton, former Attorney General of Colorado, tapped by the administration for the position of Secretary of the Interior. Pairing Norton with the cabinet level post directly concerned with conservation and protection of the natural environment was a bold and potentially divisive move by the new president. Norton is founder and formerchair of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Ad-vocacy (CREA). Funded by major corporations, such as Texaco, and their associations, such as the Chemical Manufacturers
Association (CMA) and the National Coal Council,
CREA’s steering committee is comprised of lobbyists for
petroleum and automotive industries. Their mission is to put
an ecologically friendly face on the intensification of resource
depletion and environmental degradation.

SNIP...."The passivity of Senate Democrats in the face of a markedly
conservative economic agenda is symptomatic of a
major shift in political power and policy priorities, a shift in
part reflected in the Democrats’ ‘‘move to the center.’’ Pivotal
to ‘‘third way’’ politics is the ‘‘New Democrat movement,’’
led by Bill Clinton and Joseph Lieberman. This approach,
originating in Al From’s Democratic Leadership Council
(DLC) (and the Progressive Policy Institute), claims to
‘‘modernize progressive politics for the 21st century’’ (DLC
1998)."

A very long paper mentioning other groups as well.

[madfloridian]

7. Clinton and dolphin-contaminated tuna from Mexico.....I did not know this.

In the article, the author refers to the Earth Day movement and how so many corporations supposedly support it. I need to find more about this. We did all kinds of Earth Day activities in our classrooms, so I want to learn more.

SNIP....."in the summer of 1995 in
Washington, DC, when the Clinton Administration called
on Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation,
World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and Center for
Marine Conservation to provide cover for the importation of
dolphin contaminated tuna from Mexico. Mexico had informed
the Clinton Administration that under the terms of
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Mexican
tuna should be allowed into the United States, even
though Mexican fishers have no technology to prevent the
slaughter of thousands of dolphins. Clinton had relied on
mainstream environmental groups during the 1993 North
American Free Trade Agreement debate, so he brought
them together again, this time for a closed door meeting
with officials at the Mexican embassy. With wise use attorney
Bud Walsh writing the language, Clinton struck a
deal gutting current dolphin protection law. The deal permits
Mexico to market dolphin contaminated tuna in the
United States under the dolphin-safe seal. To gain the
support of congressional liberals, Vice President Al Gore
sent a letter to members of Congress justifying the move by
arguing Mexicans had to kill more dolphins to protect the
ocean ecosystem (Cockburn 1996). Under then Speaker of
the House Newt Gingrich’s leadership, the bill passed the
U.S. House of Representatives in 1996...."

Stupid me, I am so naive about this stuff. Some of these same groups were handing out classroom materials for Earth Day just about that time. Business as usual, for the corporations. Guess this is how you get things done. :shrug:

[Eloriel]

2. This just infuriates me

There is a place for "the market" and "market forces" and plenty of instances where the market and its forces have no place being invoked at all. I really hate the whole rest of the world being made to bow down before the god Markets.

And I hate the DLC.

:grr:

[genius]

3. The DLC puts industry ahead of environment and life.

[Q]

4. I believe it's fair to say...

...that the DLC is 'pro-corporation' to the point where they would stifle environmental regulations if it endangered their campaign coffers.

"Market based incentives" replace 'regulations'. It's the same rhetoric used by the Bushie right to rationalize raping the environment for the bottom line of corporations who buy their way into office.

[wyldwolf]

5. Yucca Mountain and Sierra Blanca come to mind...

:think:

[XemaSab]

6. Cap & Trade vs Command & Control

Cap and trade regulation can theoretically be an effective way of fighting pollution.

Under the cap and trade system, the government sets a total amount of pollution (such as sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain) that can be released in a management area, or in the whole country. They then issue a set number of pollution "credits" that can be bought by industries or by citizens. The credits are basically a license to release a certain amount of pollution. Credits are usually purchased for the year.

These credits are traded in a market and are subject to market forces, so their price can fluctuate according to supply and demand.

If it's cheaper for a factory to clean up their smokestack then buy a credit, they'll clean up their smokestack, but if it's cheaper to buy a credit, then they'll continue to pollute. If a factory doesn't have the credits but keeps polluting, then they'll get fined more than what it would have cost to buy the credits to pollute.

Sometimes, after a set amount of time, the government comes in and removes some of the credits from the market, so where there was a government limit of 100,000 tons, there's now a limit of 90,000 tons and some of the credits are no longer in play.

The cost of the remaining credits then rises, because the demand for the remaining credits is greater.

Again, if it's cheaper for a factory to stop polluting than to buy credits, they'll do so, and if it's cheaper to buy credits, they'll do that.

If you tell *every* factory to cut pollution by 10%, then that's the "command and control" system, versus the "cap and trade" of the pollution credits system.

The idea behind it is that if you use market forces to clean up the cheapest smokestacks to fix, you can achieve the same amount of reduction in pollution overall than if you had gone in and told every factory to reduce pollution by 10%, only cheaper.

The beauty of "cap and trade" is that citizens can also bid for the credits. Each credit not sold to industry equals less pollution in the environment.

So it's not a totally bogus idea.

http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/trading/buying.html

[madfloridian]

8. But when you have extremists running things, and Dems enabling....

it just does not work that way. A lot is being done in secret, and Bushwatch points out these outrages daily.

We stopped being the opposition to this destruction of the environment, and we will all pay dearly.

[XemaSab]

15. Hence

The "theoretically" and "not totally bogus" in my wording.

I fully agree with you that we need to be rabid about policing rollbacks to our environmental protection, and it's not being done with the wimps in charge of the party.

"The Chimp and the Wimps...." hmmmmmm..... :-)

[Solon]

9. So what happens when a corporation pollutes more than credits it bought?

Oh yeah, a fine is slapped on, what is a couple hundred thousand dollars but just the cost of doing business for them. Its not like it hurts them any, hell, most of the time, it doesn't even cut into their profit margins, even when well above the million dollar range. This is ridiculous, another way to work around enviromental laws, with the government's help no less! I'm sick and tired of the government serving the interests of these corporations above the interests of the citizens. You know there was a time when corporations had to serve the public interest, I believe they should do so again, and one way to ensure that is to give the government back its power to revoke charters.

There is no compromise with corporations, they are not citizens and do not have rights, when they violate the law, lets say with a three strikes and your out, law, then revoke their charter, dissolve all assets, take out any money owed to the government, and give the rest back to the shareholders. This is how you make corporations that routinely violate the law actually follow it, by threatening them with a "death penalty" of sorts.

[XemaSab]

18. The idea

Is that it's cheaper to buy credits than pay the fine, and businesses will want to do what is cheapest. Right now in many cases it's cheaper to pay the fine than clean up the smokestack, which is pretty bogus.

According to Google, this system has been fairly effective in reducing sulphur dioxide emissions, which is why acid rain is less of an issue now than it was 20 years ago. It's also what they're probably going to do about carbon dioxide emissions when they get around to regulating that.

I'm not an expert on it, but I think there are cases where cooperation between industry and government is appropriate, especially if we have any interest at all in keeping manufacturing jobs here.

I think it's better to keep factories here and help them comply than irritate the businesses with what they see as onerous regs, so they move the whole shebang to China where there are no regs.

I agree with you that we should be able to revoke corporate charters, but as long as the politicians are in the pockets of industry, it won't happen. This system also relies on hardcore enforcement in order to be effective, but so does the "command and control" system. Enforcement is the weakest link in both systems.

ps If you follow the link in my original post, you can see who bought the credits. Some were bought by citizens, ostensibly keeping pollution out of our air.

[hatrack]

10. With air pollution, this approach may make sense in some cases

However, if you're talking water pollution, fisheries policies, forestry regulations, grazing rules or waste disposal sites, cap and trade systems are far less appropriate.

Since there's only one atmosphere, cutting emissions in Ohio by leaving emissions the same in Texas balances out in the long run (provided, of course, that emissions-credit removals are maintained).

But saying to people in Missouri that "Well, you can't eat the fish in this river, but we cleaned up a river in Maine" isn't going to fly.

[XemaSab]

17. Yes

It's usually considered most appropriate for air pollution, and not very appropriate for water pollution or any other form of pollution which has a more localized effect.

[OneBlueSky]

11. "the Heritage Foundation gave start-up money to the DLC in 1985" . . .

think about this . . . if it's true (and I, for one, have no doubt that it is), the DLC is nothing more than a backdoor to the Democratic Party by BushCo and the BFEE . . . Clinton was a good president in many ways, but the trade pacts that he got us involved with are pure corporatism . . . Democrats REALLY need to jettison the DLC and reconstitute the party on a populist platform . . . THEY started this class warfare, and we damn well better step up to the plate and engage the battle . . .

[madfloridian]

12. I have read it from several sources, but can only find the one now.

And I do hate to quote LaRouche. Eloriel had some info on this, and I saved a thread of hers...but can't find it. I think it is a pretty well accepted fact.

Marshall Wittman, good man though he may be, was/is a Republican through and through. A lobbyist for Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition. I have found articles by him at the DLC site from 2002.

His blog is linked at the DLC site.

I would love to really verify this, though I think it to be true.

[Robbien]

13. CounterPunch also did an article on the DLC/Clinton versus the environment

the environment part of the article:

Environmental protections? Clinton/Gore tipped the scales more decisively than ever toward the preferences of business. In the words of Jeffrey St. Clair, the coeditor of CounterPunch and a veteran environmental writer and activist, "Reviewing the environment during Clinton time is like watching a preview of the Bush administration. Indeed, many of Bush's worst ideas for the planet germinated with Clinton. It started early and didn't let up. At the behest of his friends in the chemical industry, Clinton moved to excise the Delaney Clause, a valuable law which had been around since the days of Rachel Carson that set zero tolerance for the presence of known carcinogens in processed foods. With Delaney gone, the chemical industry had smooth sailing for the approval of a host of new pesticides. This also set a bad precedent for other issues: Regulative prohibitions were going to be shoved aside in favor of 'risk assessments' and cost-benefit analysis. This approach was soon applied to air pollution, water pollution and toxic waste. But it saw its most malign and far-reaching application with the Endangered Species Act, which was essentially eviscerated under the guidance of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

"Midway through Clinton's first term, he signed what has been called the 'worst environmental law of the 20th century'--the Salvage Logging Rider, which allowed timber to be clear-cut on national forests across the country without compliance with any environmental laws and shielded from any kind of citizen challenge or lawsuits. In a 1996 op-ed the great environmental radical David Brower wrote that 'Clinton and Gore have done more harm to the environment in four years than Reagan and Bush did in 12.' And one very mainstream voice--Jay Hair, the former head of the National Wildlife Federation, who died recently--compared the experience of working with Clinton/Gore to date rape."

http://www.counterpunch.org/sperry1126.html

[madfloridian]

14. "Al From: Life of the Party"....from 1992. Interesting look back.

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=859&kaid=85&subid=65

The Washington Post | Article | July 24, 1992
Al From, the Life of the Party
The Head of the Democratic Leadership Council, Finding Victory in Moderation
By Lloyd Grove
SNIP..."Although he was born in Indiana and spent his formative years in the heartland, Alvin From tends to speak these days with a decidedly Southern accent.
"Ah picked up mah twang in 1960," he says, tracing it to a summer at Northwestern University, where he roomed with Kentuckian David Hawpe, now editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. "Ah'm married to a woman from Birmingham, Alabama," he adds, referring to his wife, Ginger, "but she doesn't have a Southern accent."

But some would suggest a different explanation for From's -- pronounced "frahm's" -- strange and mysterious mode of speech, which occasionally recalls former Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge, jaw chock-full of tobacco juice. It's all those Dixie centrists he's been consorting with during his seven years at the helm of the Democratic Leadership Council...."

SNIP.."As he contemplated the distance he and his tribe have come - from a renegade band of moderates athwart the Democratic Party's liberal orthodoxy to the triumphant ringleaders of a not-so-silent coup - he became increasingly mush-mouthed, and positively gooey-eyed. Wonderful, wonderful," From kept murmuring over the cheers, as he looked out onto a convention floor teeming with signs for two of his charter members, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. "To see it all blossom into this incredible scene is somethin' else." END SNIP...

SNIP.."To make the package irresistible to the millions of white middle-class suburbanites who, in an earlier age, were dubbed "The Silent Majority" (and have voted overwhelmingly Republican since the presidential election of 1968), the DLC wraps it prettily in "mainstream values" - yet another feature that has aroused suspicion, and charges of "Republican me-tooism," among members of the party's liberal wing....."

And Jesse Jackson said it so well.
SNIP...""The tension," Jackson says, "comes from the fact that while the party's message has moved to what I call `the moral center,' they're using tactics that `push off' - push off from the mayors, push off from labor and push off from the Rainbow. I hope that strategy will change." END SNIP

12 years ago, Rev. Jackson, not much has changed.

[Walt Starr]

16. In a single word

yes

Anything the Republicans have been able to accomplish has only been accomplished with the collusion of the PNAC/DLC.