On September 26, 2012 I posted a blog called Thune For Thought, in which I wrote:

“At 2 a.m. on September 22, 2012, the United States Senate voted by unanimous consent that   U.S. airlines could choose to ignore the European Union’s requirement that all airplanes landing in the EU reduce their carbon pollution that is causing global warming. Either climate change is happening or it isn’t. But, once you look at the data, once you subscribe to the opinion that it is happening, you have an affirmative obligation to take all reasonable steps to responsibly address the problem. I understand that this is election season, and some of the Senate races are tight, and airlines can be powerful lobbyists, but, it is 2012 and an anti-climate emissions control bill is passing via unanimous consent in the United States Senate? Either climate change is really happening or it isn’t.”

Our climate champions across the nation abandoned their science-based advocacy about the reality of climate change and the extreme price tag that comes with our collective failure to act. They abandoned that advocacy immediately prior to the election, and disappointingly, during the election. They abandoned that advocacy even in the aftermath of the one-two punch of Super Storm Sandy and Nor’easter Athena.

Not a single elected official in Rhode Island, from the Governor to the delegation, has uttered the words climate change in any of these contexts.

After the November 6, 2012 election, nothing much has changed in Rhode Island or for the country in terms of political representation. Our delegation in Rhode Island remained the same: Reed, Whitehouse, Langevin, and Cicciline; our Governor remained the same: Chafee; our President: the same; and, the balance of power in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives remained the same: blue majority in the Senate, red majority in the House.

The take home message is simple: Averting the climate disaster can’t be about party politics. We all lose if that is where the battle lines are drawn on the single most important issue facing our country. Averting the climate disaster requires science and the courage to act on it.

Dear President Obama, start acting on climate change.
Dear Senator Reed, start acting on climate change.
Dear Senator Whitehouse, start acting on climate change.
Dear Representative Langevin, start acting on climate change.
Dear Representative Cicciline, start acting on climate change.
Dear Governor Chafee, start acting on climate change.
Dear Rhode Island House and Senate Leaders, start acting on climate change.

We need science and courage, not politics.

The rise of dedicated public fact checking services like PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and the Washington Post Fact Checker has been a generally good thing. However, these services can go astray when they decide that a statement which would be improved with clarification is “false” – a practice that weakens the “false” label when it is applied to an outright falsehood.

This unfortunate phenomena was on display when the Rhode Island edition of PolitiFact critiqued a comment by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse about the interplay between the deployment of renewable energy resources like solar panels and ending U.S. dependence on imported fossil fuels, like the oil that is refined into gasoline.

In their critique, the Providence Journal staff writing and editing the item examine comments that Senator Whitehouse made in support of federal tax incentives for renewable energy:

“Let me just bring it home,” Whitehouse said, as he referred to his notes. “In Rhode Island, this [grant program] has facilitated solar panel installations on three new bank branches. The TD Bank has opened up in Barrington, in East Providence and in Johnston, Rhode Island. Those projects created jobs, they put people to work, they lowered the cost for these banks of their electrical energy, and they get us off foreign oil and away, step by step, from these foreign entanglements that we have to get into to defend our oil supply.”

The Politi-Fact RI folks decide to look narrowly at the question of whether electricity production from solar panels always and consistently directly reduces use of oil.  This is definitely part of the story and, as I emphasized when I spoke to their reporter when he was working on the “piece, it is a direct relationship that used to be more present back in the days (not too many years ago) when more of our electricity came from oil. But is still a real relationship, especially during the days in the summer when air conditioning drives up electric demand to its highest levels of the year.  As ISO New England (the operator of the regional electric grid) told Politi-Fact RI “oil is used more on days when demand for power is high” although the reporters dismiss this reality (despite the fact that these peak hours are when air pollution is at its worst and the fact that the entire system is designed to meet that moment of peak demand) as “isolated.”

Senator Whitehouse was making three points, only one of which is addressed by the simple “displacement” analysis of what generation is pushed out by deployment of new renewable sources:

• Moving to cleaner electricity generation from renewable sources like wind and solar is an essential piece in an overall conversion of our economy and energy system (including energy used to move the wheels on our cars, trucks and buses round and round) away from dirty and imported fossil fuels. In places like East Providence RI where TD Bank (as highlighted by Senator Whitehouse) is installing solar panels on the roof of their branches in close proximity to a Chevrolet dealer selling the Chevy Volt you can seeing that future taking shape.

• Senator Whitehouse’s larger point about ending “foreign entanglements” is of particular significance, moving beyond the question of oil, to people in and around Rhode Island because the largest power plant in what is known in the wholesale electricity world as “Greater Rhode Island” (a geographical label of particular pride and amusement to native Rhode Islanders) is the Brayton Point Power Plant. That facility, just over the border in Somerset Massachusetts, has burnt coal imported from Indonesia and Colombia in recent years.

• And the direct displacement issue is real: while there is less oil used to generate electricity these days it is worth pondering the overlap between peak solar energy generation (do we really need a link to show that it makes more electricity when it is sunny?) and those peak hours of electricity demand during the summer when it is hottest and air conditioners across the region are roaring away.

All of this suggests that the specific comment by Senator Whitehouse that Politi-Fact Rhode Island evaluated are solidly grounded in facts and accurate observations.

Collins (left) and Snowe. (Photo credit: Office of Olympia Snowe)

Maine’s “Sister Senators,” Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, should be applauded once again for breaking rank with Republicans and voting in favor of the measure to eliminate billions in tax breaks for the five largest private oil and gas companies. These tax breaks cost the U.S. Treasury $43.6 billion over the last decade. Although Democrats fell short of the 60 votes they needed last night, it’s good to see our Senators acting fiscally responsible. Our sincere thanks also goes out to Sens. Sanders, Leahy, Shaheen, Kerry, Reed, and Whitehouse. Connecticut’s senators Lieberman and Blumenthal also voted against oil subsidies.

Rewarding these companies for continuing to pursue dirty energy options that only end up costing our society more is simply nonsensical – it is quite simply, a double tax. Not only are we directly handing over our tax dollars to the fossil fuel industry to conduct exploratory drilling for yet more dirty fuels, but we also get hit on the backside. We pay for healthcare costs and environmental clean-up and enforcement costs associated with increased pollution.

By contrast, continuing to provide subsidies for renewable, clean energy makes sense for society.  Many Republicans have argued that if we eliminate the tax incentives for dirty fossil fuels, we should eliminate them for clean fuels too – after all, isn’t that capitalism at its finest? Eliminate all subsidies and let the best fuel win?  But that argument fails to acknowledge the benefits clean fuels create for our health, our environment, and as a result, ultimately our checkbooks. Those sort of benefits needs to be encouraged on a broad scale. Until the market-driven demand breaks free from the artificially depressed prices of dirty fossil fuels, we will never get on board with clean energy in a meaningful way.  Dangling a carrot for continued development of clean energy in the form of tax incentives while simultaneously scaling back the incentives to dirty energy is the only way to begin to adjust this playing field and get moving in the right direction. What would clean energy in America look like today if we spent $43.6 billion on it every year for the past decade?

Today, the US Senate is poised to vote on legislation that would massively expand oil drilling along each coast of our nation. This new legislation would provide even less regard for oversight and safety than is required now. Click here now to tell your senators that you want our coasts protected from unsafe oil drilling.