Environmental groups whistling past the graveyard?

Is it best to try to hold the line?

Some groups that have a sober take on the current situation think that circumstances demand a defensive posture. FOE’s Schrieber believes the focus needs to be on preventing the expiration of tax credits for renewable energy, preserving the EPA’s current authority, and preventing rollbacks of Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act provisions.

What about trying to retake the offensive with a comprehensive renewable energy policy? Schreiber pointed to the failure of national cap-and-trade legislation, known as the Waxman-Markey bill, in 2010. While he agreed that a far-reaching policy would be good, he asserted that incremental change is what’s politically feasible.

The time for bolder action, Schreiber said, is when there’s a shift in the makeup of Congress. “The question is does somebody have a renewable energy plan that gets us where we need to go that can get 60 votes in the Senate and the majority in the House as well as the President’s signature? And if not, then would we not be better off taking [renewable energy] on piece by piece and getting as much as we can done?” Schreiber said, “We could come up with the most beautiful plan that [theoretically] gets us exactly where we need to go but that doesn’t move the discussion.”

Remapping Debate asked why putting forward a vivid, concrete vision wouldn’t constitute a meaningful discussion of alternatives. “A plan is not a talk,” Schreiber said. “If I get into the nerdy details [of how such a system could work],” he said, “that’s not a useful debate.”

Instead of proposing an alternative course, Schreiber said the country’s discussion of the issue should remain broad, as it has for years. He said it should stay focused on the basic question of “whether or not climate change is a problem we’re actually serious about resolving.”

Remapping Debate asked why it didn’t make sense to at least try a radical change in strategy and messaging. “I’m not sure what a dramatic change in strategy would be,” Schreiber said.

How to gain greater influence

Other groups have decided it is time to change their ground game. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is one of them. Marchant Wentworth, deputy legislative director for the group’s Climate and Energy Program, said that after Waxman-Markey failed and UCS’s subsequent inability to make progress on the federal level, the group decided to focus on smaller, more targeted fights it thought it could win. UCS will continue trying to influence federal lawmakers, but, Wentworth said, it has turned the bulk of its efforts from the national to the state level.

UCS is working in states where legislation relating to controlling climate change exists and can be strengthened, has been introduced, or is on the horizon. These include Iowa and Illinois, both of which have considerable wind-generating capacity. UCS is also currently active in Michigan, where UCS hopes to help increase the state’s existing renewable energy standard (RES), the mandate that utilities produce a certain percentage of electricity from renewable sources.

UCS has put considerable resources into passing proposal 3, a proposed constitutional amendment, in Michigan next week. The measure would increase the state’s RES from its current target of 10 percent by 2015, up to 25 percent by 2025, a material increase. Wentworth thinks that an added benefit of the measure coming in the form of a constitutional amendment is protection against a shifting legislative environment in the future. UCS is also supporting this effort because it’s the type of advance that can be replicated in other states.

 “We’re being outspent in the media market in Michigan probably 1,000 to one, easy,” Wentworth said of the current RES campaign. “We can’t compete with that. We can compete door to door — and that’s where we’ll beat them.”