http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40680.html
By: Darren Samuelsohn
August 5, 2010 04:30 AM EDT
Environmentalists went with an all-or-nothing strategy for the 111th
Congress. Nothing won.
Now, green groups licking their wounds after spending tens of millions of dollars to pass a cap-and-trade bill must answer serious questions about whether they are capable of playing another round of hardball.
But D.C. environmental groups aren’t looking to clean house. Activists at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, Union of Concerned Scientists and Clean Energy Works said leading officials won’t be fired because Obama isn’t signing a climate bill into law.
Steve Cochran, who ran EDF’s national climate campaign, actually got a promotion to run the entire global warming team, including state and international efforts.
“The reason why I’m not looking around, hearing a lot of people scared for their jobs, I think the general view within the environmental community is consistent with mine: We ran a very effective, well-coordinated effort,” said Dan Lashof, director of NRDC’s climate center.
“We fell victim to much broader politics that were beyond our control that really didn’t have to do with the specifics of either the issue or the campaign,” Lashof added.
After Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) last month scrapped
plans for a vote, the White House made clear it wasn’t impressed with the environmentalists’ effort.
“They didn’t deliver a single Republican,” an administration official told POLITICO just hours after Reid pulled the plug on the climate bill. “They spent like $100 million, and they weren’t able to get a single Republican convert on the bill.”
How much money was spent is difficult to pin down. NRDC, the Sierra Club and Clean Energy Works declined to open up their books to show how much they spent on the climate campaign. EDF had spent $20 million on
climate legislation since October 2008. Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate
Protection pledged in 2006 to spend $300 million, but it’s unclear how much it ended up using.
Enraged environmentalists flooded the White House with phone calls
after the quotation appeared in publication. Publicly, they decried the finger-pointing and insisted they aren’t alone in deserving fault, saying President Barack Obama failed to use his bully pulpit and moderate Senate Republicans weren’t allowed by their leaders to fully negotiate.
“The Washington environmental community did absolutely everything they possibly could,” said Bill McKibben, a Vermont-based environmental author and co-founder of the advocacy group 350.org.
“All the rest of us owe them a great debt of gratitude,” he added. “But
they demonstrated you can make every possible compromise, and it’s still not enough to get you anywhere with these guys.”
Some activists acknowledge missteps that undercut their pro-climate spending during the past two years.
“My sense is we did fail,” said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “I think there’s no sugarcoating it.”
At the beginning of 2009, everything seemed lined up: a Democratic president with large majorities in Congress, leaders committed to bringing a bill to the floor and seemingly no shortage of money and staff.
But after the House passed cap-and-trade legislation last summer, the subsequent anti-Obama, anti-Big Government protests – led by the tea party movement and several industry-funded groups – caught the environmentalists off-guard by attacking “yes” votes in the House.
Opponents led an effective bumper-sticker-style campaign denouncing the Democrats’ “national energy tax.” The environmentalists’ response was
too wordy, too complicated and too late.
“We tapped out a lot of donors getting to that point,” said one
official from a major group. “We didn’t have a bigger war chest waiting to support their vote.”
“We really got our ass kicked in August during the town halls,” EDF
spokesman Tony Kreindler said.
The response to the tea party attacks was to create Clean Energy Works, a coalition staffed by environmental, labor, national security and religious interest groups that numbered about 45 people at its peak. Paul Tewes, Obama’s 2008 Iowa field chief, led the campaign.
“Anywhere there was a senator who was not squarely on the side of passing a climate bill, we were there,” said David Di Martino, a Clean Energy Works spokesman.
Once they began talking to senators, however, activists said, they got their wires crossed with Reid’s office over who was in charge of counting votes.
“We were stuck in a Catch-22,” Kreindler said. “There was an
expectation by the environmental community to deliver a certain amount of votes. There was an expectation in the environmental community that leadership would deliver a certain amount of votes. But there never was a clear understanding of how those two efforts would work together.”
Reid’s office would not comment for this story but pointed to past
statements from the majority leader that Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) were tasked with collecting 60 votes on the carbon cap measure. A White House spokesman declined comment on its climate bill whip operations.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) defended the greens’ efforts. “This became a very hot political issue,” he said. “They’re trying hard to help us. And we’re working with them. We’re going to have our day. I wish we’d have it sooner, rather than later. But we’re going to have our day.”
Durbin insisted that environmental groups also still garner plenty of
sway in the Senate. “A lot of us pay attention,” he said.
But there’s a difference between paying attention and action.
GOP senators targeted as possible swing votes said the
environmentalists offered little incentive for them to change their
minds during an economic recession and with little threat of political payback if they didn’t go along.
“They don’t have much infrastructure on the Republican side,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “So when you hear the environmental community
is mad at you, everyone says, ‘Tell me something new.’ It’s not like a
support group you’ve lost.”
The environmental movement needs a radical overhaul if Congress is ever going to pass a climate bill, McKibben said. That means lawmakers need
to be aware of the political consequences if they don’t side with the greens.
“We weren’t able to credibly promise political reward or punishment,” McKibben said. “The fact is, scientists have been saying for the past few years the world might come to an end. But clearly that’s insufficient motivation. Clearly, we must communicate that their careers might come to an end. That’s going to take a few years.”
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), whom environmentalists once considered as a possible vote on climate, never got the message. “I hate to tell you, I just don’t wake up thinking about it,” said Corker, who questions the complexity of cap-and-trade systems. “I’m aware and all that. But I think it’s the wrong message.”
Special thanks to Richard Charter