Page 26 - Flathead Beacon // 6.25.14

26 | JUNE 25, 2014
OPINION
LETTERS
OBAMA’S GREENHOUSE GAS REGS TAKING CENTER STAGE
“It’s the economy, stupid.” James Carville’s theme for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign rings just as true 20 odd years later. Pocketbook issues matter more to voters than anything else – and in 2014, American voters are going to be motivated by the granddaddy of them all.
I’m referring, of course, to President Barack Obama’s proposal on regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. It comes with a hefty price tag that will be felt by all Americans.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates the regulation will decrease the average household’s disposable income by $3,400 as a result of higher prices for energy and a slowdown to the economy. Those income reductions come in addition to an average of a quarter million jobs estimated to be lost each year through 2030.
That’s a big price for all of us to pay, especially when it’s projected that the regulations will only reduce global carbon emissions by 1.8 percent. Obama’s proposed EPA regulations for American power plants are shaping up to be the dominant issue in races across the country.
Nowhere is the more true than Montana where we have the largest coal deposits in the nation, more than half our electricity production comes from coal, and tens of thousands of working families depend on good-paying jobs in the energy industry. There’s little doubt that the proposed EPA regulations would have a more profound impact in Montana than most other states.
The battle lines have already been drawn in Montana’s U.S. Senate race. Congressman Steve Daines recently introduced legislation to stop the EPA’s proposed greenhouse gas regulations unless they could ensure that the regulations would not eliminate jobs or have negative impacts to the economy.
Sen. John Walsh has taken up a position squarely opposite of Daines. He’s sided with the president in calling for more stringent rules on carbon emissions, and was the only major political candidate at an anti-coal rally in Billings earlier this spring.
The landscape in Montana’s Congressional race is slightly less clear. Democratic candidate John Lewis has unveiled an energy policy that contains some support for Montana’s coal industry, though it stops short of opposing Obama’s
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EPA regulations. Republican Ryan Zinke has been more vocal in his support of Montana’s coal industry and has made it clear that he is firmly in opposition to the president’s proposal.
Certainly Walsh’s position has the most risk. Polling released by the National Mining Association shows over 58 percent of Montanan voters are more likely to support a candidate opposed to the president’s GHG regulations; only 31 percent of voters would be more likely to support a candidate who sides with the President.
But Walsh’s political calculus is more easily understood when campaign funding is entered into the equation. The same environmental groups who have been pushing for the regulation are also the dominant funders for Democratic Party politics. Walsh, who is almost $2 million behind in fundraising, will be very dependent on those outside, environmental groups to spend campaign money on his behalf.
Apparently, supporting the president’s unpopular regulation is a risk worth the campaign cash Walsh gets in return. But the big question remains: will that outside spending be enough to overcome a pocketbook issue larger than any we’ve seen in years?
Rick Hill, Helena former U.S. congressman
WHAT’S THE POINT OF THE DECEPTION?
In the last primary election members of the Tea Party ran for the Montana State Legislature as Democrats. They also ran as Democrats for positions in some Democratic county central committees. It is puzzling why they would do that, they certainly don’t agree with Democrats on much of anything. It reminded me of a comic strip from years ago called “Little Lulu.” Little Lulu was a young girl who shared the strip with a young boy named “Tubby” who, with his friends, belonged to a Boy’s Club complete with a sign on the clubhouse door, “No gurls allowed!” The scenes that came to my mind were those times when Little Lulu and her young lady friends schemed about how to get into the Boys Clubhouse just to annoy them.
Now, I don’t know if the Tea Party folks learned this from Little Lulu or thought it up all by themselves, but they seem to have latched onto it pretty firmly. The question is, why? They have their own clubhouse, as it were, in the Republican Party and they have done a good job of decorating it with their own beliefs. I know that both Republicans and Democrats welcome any who has seen their light and wants to switch parties, but the Tea Party members who have inched their way into the Democratic Party have
no intention of embracing the Democratic brand of values and philosophy, they just seem to want to annoy the Democrats, just as Little Lulu wanted to annoy the boys.
American political parties have similar local structures. Each party has organizations at the county level called central committees whose membership is composed of an elected male and female from each county voting precinct. These precinct people then elect the party officers at the county level. Precinct officers are bona fide elected positions, and candidates’ names appear on the primary ballots of each party. Because Montana does not register voters by party affiliation, any self-proclaimed Democrat or Republican can run.
Likewise, anyone who wants to run in a party primary can file as a candidate whether they are members of that party ornot.
What’s the point of all this deception? Try as I might, I can think of only one reason, and that is to annoy Democrats. As much fun as that might be for the Tea Partiers, it does not advance the course of civility in America.
In the last Montana primary election some 14 Tea Party people entered Democratic primaries (some won!), and others ran for (and won!) seats on Democratic Party county central committees.
This is not just the whim of a few independent thinkers, it is a strategy, and not just in Montana, but in Maryland and Mississippi as well.
This is not a good idea. It is not good government, not even good politics, let alone good behavior; in fact, it is little more than the childish pranks of Little Lulu. Juvenile thinking has consequences. Politicians are elected to office who believe that compromise is weakness and that creating crises to force capitulation is strength. It is their philosophy put into practice which shut down the United States government for two weeks in 2013, and in 2011 brought America to the brink of defaulting on its debts which caused a major credit rating company to lower their rating of American bonds for the first time in our nation’s history.
The American people say they would like nothing better than to have a civil discourse in politics, that they want legislators who will work together to find solutions to our problems. It would be nice if the Tea Party gave up their confrontational ways and instead worked on “playing well with others.”
I bet even Little Lulu would approve.
Jim Elliott, Trout Creek former state representatve
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