Lobby Loyalty: The Cause of Congress’ Inaction on Climate Change

It was the stunning video seen around the world, viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube.[1] At the height of 2008’s era of hyper-partisanship, two Speakers of the House—one current, Nancy Pelosi, and one past, Newt Gingrich—from two parties managed to come together to deliver a powerful message that they believed transcended congressional factionalism. “We don’t always see eye to eye,” begins Pelosi, “but we do agree that our country must take action to address climate change,” ends Gingrich.[2] The image of the two—who spent most of their careers leading opposing sides of the country’s most contentious issues—sitting together on a love seat and finishing each other’s sentences was a profound statement about the importance of Congressional environmental regulation.[3] At the time, it seemed to indicate that the severity of the issue rose above the individual political ambitions of politicians. However, as Congress became more dependent on dark money—SuperPACs and 501(c)(4)s, organizations that can accept unlimited amounts of money with little accountability—and lobbying, climate action became a deeply contentious issue.

Vested Interests Invest Themselves

The year 2011 marked a stark departure from the genial tone 2008 had taken on climate change. It began with the new Republican majority in Congress eliminating the House Committee on Climate Change, continued with presidential candidate Mitt Romney refusing to acknowledge scientific consensus and ended with Newt Gingrich calling his video with Pelosi “the dumbest single thing I’ve done in years.”[4] So what changed in those three short years between 2008 and 2011? A couple of things: first, the 2010-midterm elections, which brought the Republican majority to Congress. The “wave” election was fueled by “Tea Party” supporters (who we’ll cover more in depth later on the blog) largely opposed to environmental regulation.[5] Secondly, President Obama’s sweeping support—that had won him the 2008 Presidential election by nearly double digits—had dwindled to a negative approval rating by mid-2011.[6] And most importantly, in the wake of the Citizens United ruling of January 2010, a series of groups were tasked with lobbying and donating against climate action.[7] These groups, largely funded by the oil and gas industry, ranged from Americans for Prosperity to the Heartland Institute.[8] Since then, these SuperPACs and 501(c)(4)s have become some of the most powerful players and major donors in every election cycle.

Pro-Climate Action Forces Align Exclusively with Democrats

In response to the growing financial power of the anti-climate action lobby, pro-climate action forces began to spring up, but they often suffered from strategic shortfalls. Consider for example the case of Tom Steyer, perhaps the largest donor in pro-climate action politics to date. A billionaire hedge-fund-manager-turned-philanthropist, Steyer has donated more than 39 million dollars to various candidates and political action committees over the course of the 2016 cycle.[9] However, Steyer has donated 100% of that money to liberal/democratic candidates and groups, spurning Republicans altogether. The same is true for the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters, two notable pro-climate action groups.[10] Effective organizations with similar goals to Steyer’s generally donate to candidates across the aisle, based on policy instead of party. A notable example of this practice is Congresswoman Gabby Giffords’ pro-gun control Americans for Responsible Solutions, which endorsed Republican Senators Pat Toomey and Mark Kirk for re-election his year.[11] The Oil & Gas industry follows this strategy, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to even centrist Democrats in Congress, like Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.[12] When these organizations fail to reach across the aisle with their donations, it means that the legislation they support will remain partisan, failing to make headway out of committees or on the floor.

An Unbalanced Battle

On top of these political failings, pro-climate-action forces are thoroughly outspent nearly every election cycle. After that 2008 bipartisan message, it seemed as though the pro-climate-action supporters—with both broad scientific consensus and widespread public support—had finally found their opening in Congress.[13] The only remaining hurdle was the financial prowess of the oil and gas industry. Pro-climate-action groups spent a record $22.4 million during the 2009 election cycle, but according to the Center for Responsive Politics, their opponents managed to spend eight times that amount.[14] In this election cycle, the Koch Brothers—heads of energy company Koch Industries—have alone pledged almost $890 million to conservative causes.[15] Additionally, large corporations that support increases in environmental regulation, like members of the technology industry, do not concentrate any of their lobbying efforts on the issue.[16] As a result, pro-climate-action forces will continue to lose the spending race against oil and gas behemoths for years to come.

The end result of all of this has left the Republicans in Congress, and several centrist Democrats, with no political incentive to support action against climate change. The money from pro-climate-action donors and PACs does not come close to matching the donations from the relevant industries on the other side, companies that support environmental protections are unwilling to stick their neck out for them, and even if this money did exist these groups have shown a reluctance to donate to even moderate Republican candidates. Instead, there is even a political risk for them, as they will alienate primary voters, lose endorsements and face the wrath of one of the most well-funded and sophisticated political machines of all time.

That is not to say that this congressional division is entirely driven by donors and that there is not grassroots opposition to environmental regulation. According to one former Organizer for the Iowa Democratic Party working on Patty Judge’s Senate campaign, voters are very concerned about local environmental issues like ethanol. That level of citizen engagement with the environment, he says, is real. But he argues the root cause of this concern among voters comes from reports, articles and ads pushed by big money interests. We’ll talk more about that state-level dynamic and grassroots enthusiasm in the coming weeks over the next few installments of Cloudy with a Chance of Armageddon.

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6n_-wB154&feature=youtu.be

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6n_-wB154&feature=youtu.be

[3] http://blog.sfgate.com/politics/2008/04/18/pelosi-gingrich-team-up-for-global-warming-tv-ad/

[4] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/timeline-the-politics-of-climate-change/

[5] https://www.minnpost.com/environment/2011/09/what-tea-party-supporters-think-about-global-warming

[6] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

[7] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/timeline-the-politics-of-climate-change/

[8] https://www.publicintegrity.org/environment/climate/climate-change-lobby

[9] https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topindivs.php

[10] Data courtesy of OpenSecrets and the Center for Responsive Politics

[11] http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/gabby-giffords-pac-endorses-pat-toomey-mark-kirk-227268?cmpid=sf

[12] https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00033782

[13] http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/08/pro-environment-groups-were-outmatc/

[14] http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/08/pro-environment-groups-were-outmatc/

[15] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/koch-2016-spending-goal-114604

[16] http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/06/07/lobby-climate-change-failure/#5087920c69d3

From Policy to Politics: The Evolution of the White House's Role in the Fight Against Climate Change

Ever since its discovery in Teddy Roosevelt’s administration in 1903, the White House has had the potential to wield tremendous power in the fight against climate change.[1] In the intervening years, the White House made a series of minor steps to combatting the dire threat that they had uncovered. A few decades after the initial private revelations, under the Johnson administration in 1965, the President publicly acknowledged that climate change was real in a message to Congress.[2] Johnson appeared to have hoped that more widespread information would create a climate of action. However, in the long run, the White House’s public introduction of climate change transformed it from an important-but-wonkish policy issue into a divisive political one.

For a few years after its acknowledge of climate change, the executive branch of government remained above the partisan fray and supported various efforts aimed at stemming the negative consequences. From 1964 to 1992, six subsequent administrations spanning both political parties took a series of steps to protect the environment. After Democrat Johnson’s warning to Congress, Republican Nixon took arguably the most significant step in countering climate change by creating the Environmental Protection Agency.[3] Though Nixon’s successor Gerald Ford did not actively promote policies aimed at combatting climate change, he did little to roll back his predecessor’s initiatives, paving the way for further advancements under President Jimmy Carter’s administration.[4] Perhaps as a result of a lack of awareness among the general public—the Johnson message to Congress, while public was generally only common knowledge to D.C. politicos—climate change legislation was largely uncontroversial and uncontested by either party. In fact, declassified documents reveal that conservative hero Ronald Reagan and his Vice President George H.W. Bush were gravely concerned with climate change.[5] Furthermore, Reagan, overruled his own cabinet on a measure that would protect the ozone layer.[6]

In 1992 with the election of Bill Clinton, however, climate change lost its apolitical stature. Some scholars have pointed to the Clinton administration as the root of America’s profound modern political polarization.[7] This was certainly true with regard to climate change legislation, which quickly transformed from discussion among a handful of policy specialists into a national dialogue. Under Bill Clinton, the United States—represented by Vice President Al Gore—publically signed the Kyoto Protocol, a massive agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in thirty-seven countries, with some aides branding it as defining Clinton’s legacy.[8] 

A few months after the Kyoto Protocol, which the Clinton administration had marked as a victory in public opinion, the opposition began to mount a campaign against climate change legislation. Led by oil giant ExxonMobil, a variety of groups attempt to politicize the issue by disputing the science behind the government’s plans.[9] Soon after, petitions of “scientists” purporting to oppose action against climate change began to surface.[10]

By the 2000 election the already-politicized issue of climate change became partisan. The Republicans nominated of former oilman George W. Bush and the Democratic nominated of Al Gore, who would go on to write the famous climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth. As President, Bush would go on to question the scope and depth of scientific knowledge of climate change, famously using it as an excuse to undo the United States’ involvement in the Kyoto Protocol.[11] Later, during Bush’s re-election bid in 2004, opponent Sen. John Kerry attempted to use Bush’s support for Arctic oil drilling as a way to prove his lack of commitment to environmental issues.[12] This wedge paved the way for the 2008 presidential campaign in which Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin famously turned “Drill, Baby, Drill!” into a rallying cry for the Republican ticket. Given this evolution of the perception of climate change, it’s easy to see how we got to the point we are in today, where one Presidential candidate is proposing the largest clean energy program in the country’s history and the other has referred to climate change as a “hoax.”[13]

As a result of this intense division, the White House’s role in fighting climate change has become less policy-oriented and more politically oriented. Scholars have noted that both modern progressives and conservatives alike prefer political posturing over actual tangible action. Consider the simple solar panels that adorn the White House. The thirty-two panels have a miniscule actual impact on the White House’s energy consumption, let alone the country’s, yet President Jimmy Carter made sure that their installation was met with ceremony and fanfare.[14] Similarly, when they were taken down a few years later by a Republican successor, the administration made sure that the lack of solar panels was well publicized.[15] Though the Obama administration has publically signed the Paris Accord in a very visible ceremony, some critics say that the administration has refused to take necessary measures to stem climate change when they are not politically expedient, such as a tax on gas or banning of certain industries with excess influence in Washington, such as hydraulic fracturing.[16] The reality is that the intense partisanship surrounding climate change has led to a dramatic fall in the White House’s ability to take concrete action in fighting it—a phenomenon that is also due to Congress, a topic we will cover in the next installment of “Cloudy with a Chance of Armageddon”.

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[1] https://thinkprogress.org/a-graphical-look-at-presidents-environmental-records-f232f07005d0#.ah8efijka

[2] http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2015/02/president-johnson-carbon-climate-warning

[3] https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-history

[4] https://thinkprogress.org/a-graphical-look-at-presidents-environmental-records-f232f07005d0#.ah8efijka

[5] http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB536-Reagan-Bush-Recognized-Need-for-US-Leadership-on-Climate-Change-in-1980s/

[6] http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB536-Reagan-Bush-Recognized-Need-for-US-Leadership-on-Climate-Change-in-1980s/

[7] http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1097&context=curej

[8] http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/12/11/kyoto/

[9] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/timeline-the-politics-of-climate-change/

[10] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/timeline-the-politics-of-climate-change/

[11] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1248278.stm

[12] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/us/filibuster-vowed-if-bush-seeks-arctic-oil.html?_r=0

[13] http://www.lcv.org/assets/docs/presidential-candidates-on.pdf

[14] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/

[15] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/

[16] http://grist.org/briefly/obama-brags-about-low-gas-prices-but-he-shouldnt/

Return from hiatus!

Dear Readers,

As many of you have noticed, the Elephant and the Donkey has been seemingly absent from the 2016 Presidential race. For the past year, this blog has been published on The Phillipian instead of here (links to selected articles below). As the general election approaches I will begin to publish on this platform again.


Name Games (Jan 2015): a reflection on assimilation in American politics
http://phillipian.net/2015/01/30/name-games/

The Pitfalls of Early Polling (Sep 2015): a discussion of the shortcomings of polling in gauging public opinion in early days
 http://phillipian.net/2015/09/17/the-pitfalls-of-early-polling/

The Bid on Biden (Oct 2015): a reflection on Joe Biden's decision not to seek the Presidency.
http://phillipian.net/2015/10/22/the-bid-on-biden/

Bringing out the Big Guns (Nov 2015): an analysis of minority support and gun control in the 2016 Democratic Primary
http://phillipian.net/2015/11/05/bringing-out-the-big-guns/

The Consequences of Citizen's United

The 2012 presidential election was the first election affected by the landmark case FEC vs. Citizens United. In the case, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations can support candidates through Super Political Action Committees, and endorsements. The Supreme Court hailed the decision as a victory for free speech. However, an unexpected result of this decision caused the US, a nation famously “of the people, for the people, and by the people” to become of, for, and by the corporations. If we are really to believe that America is a country for equality, then every American should have an equal voice.

In today’s America, elections are like a Monopoly game, with minorities being Park Place, and the youth vote as Boardwalk. Only, this game of monopoly is not for bragging rights. It’s for the leader of the free world. In both Monopoly and in an election, money is precious. In Monopoly, if a player is willing to give you Bond Street (thus completing your green monopoly) in exchange for bailing them out of jail, you would agree faster than you could pass GO, and collect 200. Similarly in politics, a politician would likely advocate for lower taxes on oil in exchange for millions of dollars of donations to Super PACs. A mildly subtle form of bribery. So it stands to reason that the highest bidder is more than willing to buy candidates--and elections.

There may be many who disagree with me, saying that Governor Romney not only outspent President Obama overall, but outspent him in most of the swing states. Despite this spending, he did lose most of the swing states. In a head-to-head comparison, it would seem like money didn’t drastically affect the election, as the richer campaign lost. But it’s worth noting that even after spending around a billion dollars (by some estimates), the Romney campaign ran out of money. So it isn’t clear what the result would have been if he had more money.

If you look at the swing states, where most of the money was spent, in the table below, you’ll notice that the larger polling gains were attributed to the candidate who spent the most money in each state. The original figures, from late March and early April 2012, just after Rick Santorum dropped out of Republican Primaries, show a pre-spending Romney desperately trailing Barack Obama. After many millions of dollars of spending, Romney managed to close the gap between himself and President Obama, but he did not have enough money to surpass the President.

            Given how close last year’s popular vote was, if Governor Romney had gained just 1.4% of the American public, who voted for President Obama, he would have won the popular vote. If it was only the amount of money spent that caused the reduced gap, the data below shows that for 168 million more dollars Governor Romney could have won the election.  Governor Romney’s top 10 donors alone donated ~$75 million—a number which is nearly half of the number he would have needed to win. To put $170 million into perspective, it’s 0.04% of the value of Apple. In the world of mega-billion dollar corporations $168 million is chump change.

Of course, this is assuming a full causal relationship between money spent and votes gained. Obviously the correlation is nowhere near this large, but even if there were only a 1% correlation, just 4% of Apple would be needed to change the winner of the Presidential election. If the outcome of an election can be changed by any amount of money—and it can, otherwise we wouldn’t be spend trillions of dollars on them—then no corporation should be allowed to donate money to any candidate, or Super PAC. Corporations are too large, and too powerful to have an unlimited say in elections.

If America is truly centered on the spirit of equality, then the more powerful and wealthy should not have a larger say. Just like Bill Gates shouldn’t get 60 billion votes, he shouldn’t be able to donate $60 billion. It’s reminiscent of Animal Farm to have all citizens equal, but some more equal than others. This thinly veiled form of bribery must stop.  It’s time we reform campaign finance laws, because government should not be the key piece to a monopoly against its citizens.

State	Poll Result1	Poll Date	Election Result	$ Spent on ads (mil)3	% Gain	$mil/% gain
Florida	O: 47.5 R: 43.3	4/26/12	O: 50 R: 49.1	O: 78 R: 95	O+2.5 R+5.8	O: 31.2 R: 16.4
Virginia	O: 47.0 R: 42.8	4/30/12	O: 51.2 R: 47.3	O: 68 R: 83	O+4.2 R+4.5	O: 16.2 R: 18.4
Ohio	O: 46.0 R: 41.8	5/4/12	O: 50.7 R: 47.7	O: 72 R: 78	O+4.7 R+5.9	O: 15.3 R: 13.2
N. Carolina	O: 46.7 R: 44.3	5/1/12	O: 48.4 R: 50.4	O: 40 R: 57	O+1.7 R+6.1	O: 23.5 R: 9.3
Colorado	O: 50 R: 43.5	5/15/12	O: 51.5 R: 46.1	O: 36 R: 37	O+1.5 R+2.6	O: 24 R: 14.2
Iowa2	O: 51.0 R: 41.0	5/7/12	O: 52.0 R: 46.2	O: 27 R: 30	O+1 R+5.2	O: 27 R: 5.8
Nevada	O: 49.7 R: 42.3	5/2/12	O: 52.4 R: 45.7	O: 26 R: 29	O+2.7 R+3.4	O: 9.7 R: 8.5
Wisconsin	O: 51.3 R: 39.5	5/1/12	O: 52.8 R: 45.8	O: 13 R: 27	O+1.5 R+6.3	O: 8.7 R: 4.28
New Hamp.	O: 46.5 R: 43	5/1/12	O: 52.0 R: 46.4	O: 18 R: 16	O+5.5 R+3.4	O: 3.3 R: 4.7
Michigan	O: 50.3 R: 39.0	5/1/12	O: 54.2 R: 47.4	O: 8 R: 24	O+3.9 R+8.4	O: 2.0 R: 2.9
USA	O: 47.9 R: 43.7	4/27/12	O: 50.6 R: 47.8	O: 404 R: 492	O+2.7 R+4.1	O:149.7 R:120

¹Source: RealClearPolitics polling average

²Source: Public Policy Polling

³Source: Washington post