Today, I read an article titled "Democrats Face Off Over Emissions Bill" in the Los Angeles Times. It seems Congress is wrangling over a bill that would make it illegal for states to enact legislation that outstrips the federal government's glacial pace at halting the vehicular emissions that contribute to global warming. Pelosi & Co. are battling members of their own party on this.
One of them is Congressman Dingell. Well, he's from Michigan, and he has all those auto workers staring him in the face, so I'd expect that reaction from him.
Another one puzzles me, though -- Congressman Rick Boucher from Virginia. Now, no one thinks "Virginia" and "bastion of the automobile industry" in the same sentence -- in fact, Virginia only has one automobile manufacturing plant in the state, and as far as I've been able to determine, it's not located in Boucher's district.
Well, he does serve on the Energy and Commerce committee and chairs the Energy and Air Quality subcommittee. So let's look at his funding -- he's gotten contributions from Dominion Resources (which does oil and gas drilling), the United Auto Workers, and Patton Boggs (a law firm that does lobbying for the energy industry among its myriad other businesses). But none of the contributions is excessive (22K for Dominion, 10K for the others), and Boucher is such a strong candidate (of the 27 reporting municipalities/counties in his last election, he won all of them hands down and got less than 60 percent of the vote in only two. He's held his seat since 1982.
Ok, so maybe he's a Democrat in name only -- let's look at his position evaluations. According to Project Vote Smart, he's strong on environmental issues, not over the top on corporate issues, and basically seems to remain mostly in line with typical Democratic platforms.
So what the hell happened? Why, when it's so obvious that we're going to have to rely on local and state governments to take action here, is he stonewalling?
According to the Los Angeles Times article, Boucher said, "The automakers are understandably concerned about this regulatory confusion. You could have at least three different regulations that would be inconsistent and make it impossible for them to manufacture their product." (The "three" refers to the federal Department of Transportation, the state of California, and the EPA.)
First of all, negotiating between these bodies to arrive at a new standard that's better for the globe than the current standard isn't outside the realm of possibility, as long as everyone negotiates in good faith. Second, the auto workers needn't worry -- they're not being asked to stop making cars, just make cars differently. There's still money to be made here. Which tells me that Boucher's comment is naive --naive like a fox. What he's not saying is that this will piss off the oil and gas industry -- interesting how he avoids mentioning them!
Still, he's there to serve the public, not the oil and gas industry. And his contributions from them this last time around didn't seem big enough to warrant selling his soul for. I haven't found a good enough explanation of why he's taking this position yet, at least not from what I've been able to track down about him so far. So I say let's ask him. E-mail him and ask him to justify his position -- and while you're at it, remind him who he works for!
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