“Our top priority is not to pass a bill this year. Our priority is to lay the framework for a good bill next year,” says Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. In an interview with Environmental Capital, Mr. Pope says his group wants “as close as we can get to” a 100% reduction; the leading proposal in Congress to cap greenhouse gases currently calls for closer to a 70% reduction. Mr. Pope also criticizes the large percentage of pollution credits that, under the current version of some bills, would be allocated for free to companies. Large allocations, Mr. Pope argues, would lead to windfall profits for those companies. Sierra Club President Carl Pope served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in India in the 1960's.
Pope’s Apostasy: Sierra Club Chief Disses Climate Bill This Year
Pope’s Apostasy: Sierra Club Chief Disses Climate Bill This Year
Posted by Dana Mattioli
The Journal’s Stephen Power reports from Washington:
One of the emerging debates among environmentalists these days is how aggressively to lobby Congress for legislation to reduce greenhouse gases. The argument for acting now is pretty straightforward: the planet is burning. The argument for waiting is that next year’s Congress is likely to include more Democrats, who will be easier to sway than this year’s Congress. And all three of the remaining major-party presidential candidates support the idea of economy-wide caps on greenhouse gas emissions, unlike the current occupant.
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Carl Pope (Associated Press)
So where does one of the nation’s most influential environmental groups – the Sierra Club - stand on this question? “Our top priority is not to pass a bill this year. Our priority is to lay the framework for a good bill next year,” says Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. In an interview with Environmental Capital, Mr. Pope says his group wants “as close as we can get to” a 100% reduction; the leading proposal in Congress to cap greenhouse gases currently calls for closer to a 70% reduction. Mr. Pope also criticizes the large percentage of pollution credits that, under the current version of some bills, would be allocated for free to companies. Large allocations, Mr. Pope argues, would lead to windfall profits for those companies.
In a sign of how much environmental politics have shifted lately, Mr. Pope says his group also might refrain from endorsing one presidential candidate over another this year – something the group hasn’t done since 1988, when it stayed neutral in the race between Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush. Mr. McCain, he says, is “better than the average Republican senator” on environmental matters, though “dramatically worse” than certain Republican governors, such as Charlie Crist of Florida and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.
At the same time, Mr. Pope cautions against getting too focused on any of the candidates’ official platforms.
“All of these people running for president are running … on last year’s agenda because they planned their campaigns last year. We’re dealing with a very different world than we were a year ago,” Mr. Pope says. By November, “they will no longer be designing their energy policy or their farm bill policy for the Iowa caucus. They will actually be thinking about being president of the United States. And there is huge opportunity for all three of them still to grow.”
Mr. Pope’s group – along with other environmental organizations - is set to announce tomorrow the “key races” for the U.S. Senate that the movement wants to influence this year, in an effort to build a “veto-proof” and “pro-environment” majority. But because we asked nicely, Mr. Pope gave us a preview: “I’d most like to see Ted Stevens defeated,” he said, referring to the Alaska Republican and longtime ally of the oil industry.
