- voted with the coal industry. Against the idea of CO2 emissions controls.
forbidding state efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.
Barack Obama voted "aye."...
From USA Today 7/18/08 during Obama's presidential campaign:
"The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee now calls climate change "one of the greatest moral challenges of our generation," and proposes cutting carbon emissions 80% by 2050. But as a state senator, from 1997 to 2004, he usually supported bills sought by coal interests, according to legislative records and interviews....
Obama, who touts his independence from special interests, made a point of embracing the coal industry as part of his quest for statewide office. When he ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he was flanked by mine workers to proclaim that "there's always going to be a role for coal" in Illinois.
"He understands how important coal is to the state of Illinois and to the Midwest," said Illinois state Rep. Dan Reitz, a Democrat and former coal miner who sponsored the anti-Kyoto language and campaigned for Obama during the West Virginia primary.
Employees of coal companies and electric utilities have contributed $539,597 to Obama's U.S. Senate and presidential campaign, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics...."The Obama campaign did not respond to questions about his support for the coal industry, except to address his 1998 Kyoto vote. The campaign said in a statement that the Kyoto treaty did not have "meaningful and achievable emissions targets," and that Obama "did not believe that state agencies in Illinois should unilaterally take steps to implement a global policy on their own …"
The statement said Obama supports investing in technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal burning.
Meg Boyle, global warming policy specialist for Greenpeace, called those technologies risky and expensive. She said they can't "deliver in time to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change."
"He's definitely trying to straddle two politically irreconcilable objectives: taking decisive action against global warming while keeping a healthy coal industry," said Frank O'Donnell, president of the non-partisan Clean Air Watch. "Obama's record certainly suggests that environmentalists aren't going to be calling the shots in his administration without input from industry."
Obama's other votes on coal in the state Senate included:
• In 1997, he voted to divert sales taxes to a fund for grants to help reopening closed coal mines and "incentives to attract new businesses that use coal."
• In 2001, Obama voted for legislation that offered $3.5 billion in loan guarantees to build coal-fired power plants with no ability to control carbon emissions.
• In 2003, he voted to allow $300 million in taxpayer-backed bonds to build or expand coal-fired power plants.
"You know, I am a strong supporter, I think, of downstate coal interests and our need to prop up and improve the outputs downstate," Obama said on the Senate floor before voting on the 2001 bill....
Obama also drew criticism for sponsoring a bill in January 2007 to devote $8 billion in subsidies to a technology to convert coal to liquid fuel. The Sierra Club says liquid coal "releases almost double the global warming emissions per gallon as regular gasoline."
As the presidential campaign was well underway in June 2007, the Obama campaign issued a clarification: He would not support liquid coal processes unless they emit a fifth less carbon than conventional fuels.
"When you're running for president and you've got environmentalists biting your head off every day, that's to be expected," said Phil Gonet, head of the Illinois Coal Association. "We're still
optimistic" (you mean you have HOPE....right)
..."that he may be helpful at some point in the future.""
from USA Today article, 7/18/08, "Obama Shifts Stance on Environmental Issues," by Ken Dilanian
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Bill Clinton never submitted the Kyoto Agreement to the US Senate contrary to recent impressions:
12/10/05: "Kyoto's Dead Hand":"The U.S. has also consistently rejected Kyoto. This has been true throughout the Bush years, but it was
equally so during the Clinton ones.
In 1997, the U.S. Senate adopted the Byrd-Hagel Resolution by 95-0, urging the Clinton Administration not to sign any climate-change protocol that "would result in serious harm to the economy." In 1998 Al Gore signed the Protocol.
The U.S. has also consistently rejected Kyoto. This has been true throughout the Bush years, but it was equally so during the Clinton ones. In 1997, the U.S. Senate adopted the Byrd-Hagel Resolution by 95-0, urging the Clinton Administration not to sign any climate-change protocol that "would result in serious harm to the economy." In 1998 Al Gore signed the Protocol. Yet President Clinton, who was in Montreal yesterday to scold the Bush Administration for its inaction, never submitted it to the Senate." Yet President Clinton, who was in Montreal yesterday to scold the Bush Administration for its inaction,
never submitted it to the Senate."...Wall Street Journal Online
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12/22/09, Editorial on the climate conference, following appeared in the Phil Inquirer:
"Cold Comfort
"The climate-change talks in Copenhagen provided another frank lesson to the rest of the world on the limits to a U.S. president's power.
Of course, it wasn't the first time they had been read to from that book. The Clinton administration 12 years ago boldly spoke about cutting emissions only to see the Senate vote down U.S. participation in the Kyoto accords."...
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