Since Senator Obama’s surprising easy win in the Iowa caucus I have heard many voters talk about their excitement of having a candidate who truly wants to unite our nation. Like most Americans I wish our country was more united, but I also know how difficult the uniting of such a diverse people can be. In short, the only way you can keep a diverse coalition together is through the art of compromise, because if you push too far from the center in either direction you will alienate people on the other side. Senator Obama’s record gives us a strong indication that he has already come to the same conclusion.

While I could have written about Senator Obama’s support for nuclear power, or his refusal to mandate that all Americans have health care, I have chosen to focus the rest of this post on Senator Obama’s support for technology that may create cleaner liquefied coal. In the next few paragraphs, I will show how pressure from people on both sides of this divisive issue has forced Senator Obama to compromise in ways that, in the end, have left people on both sides unsure of the depth of his support.

In 2006 Senator Obama introduced, with Senator Bunning (R Kentucky), legislation that would have given the coal industry 8 billion dollars to build plants to produce liquefied coal in America. Senator Obama sponsored the bill even though environmentalist, like the Natural Resources Defense Council, are strongly opposed to liquefied coal.

When speaking in support of the legislation Senator Obama demonstrated a seriously short-sighted approach that favored compromise over reality. “The people I meet in town-hall meetings back home would rather fill their cars with fuel made from coal reserves
in southern Illinois than with fuel made from crude reserves in
Saudi Arabia.”
While that might be true, I think it is just as true that millions of Americans aren’t interested in risking the long-term health of the air they breathe—not to mention billions of taxpayer dollars—to find out if something can be done when safer forms of energy already exist.

When Senator Obama was criticized by environmental groups for his support of coal—his response was very Clintonian. On June 19 2007—less than 6 months after he sponsored the legislation that would have given industry billions to develop liquid coal technology—but didn’t contain any provisions intended to limit ways to lessen the negative environmental impact of liquefied coal—Obama voted against an amendment offered by Senator Bunning to provide money for the development of liquid coal. That very day, he voted in favor of an amendment offered by John Tester (D Montana) that served, ostensibly, to study the feasibility of producing cleaner liquid coal.

Commenting on the votes Obama tried hard to please everyone. The Bunning amendment
would have been premature in requiring the production of billions of gallons of coal-to-liquids without providing strong environmental safeguards to ensure
that this new fuel alleviates, not worsens, our climate crisis. The Tester amendment, on the other hand, gives us the tools to determine whether we can
make coal into a clean fuel source. We cannot solve the climate crisis without addressing coal – which generates half of America’s electricity.”

“Moving forward, I believe we should only invest in coal-to-liquid fuels that burn at least 20 percent less lifecycle carbon emissions than conventional
fuels.
Before coming to a conclusion we must examine Obama’s opposition to the Bush administration’s “Clear Skys Act.” Environmentalists opposed the legislation, because coal does nothing to lower air pollution. But many residents of Southern Illinois, where coal is a major employer, supported the bill. For its part the administration, through the allocation of funds in the bill, supported the use of Western coal—which has lower sulfur content than does the coal found in Illinois and Kentucky. The sulfur content of coal is important, because sulfur is the leading cause of acid rain. When discussing his eventual opposition to the bill Obama said, he could find no evidence the bill would have brought jobs to Southern Illinois. For more information read this article which I found linked from Obama’s Senate website.

Of course, that comment leaves us with two related and very important questions. How would Senator Obama have voted if the Clear Skys Act included money to harvest coal from Illinois? Even if using that coal would have led to more air pollution?

While we can’t answer those questions with a hundred percent certainty, progressive-leaning Americans should seriously consider them before casting a vote for Obama. If we really want to try and take this country in a progressive direction—we can’t afford a president who prefers unwavering center-driven compromise over forward-looking progress.

As we vote against the politics of the passed portrayed by Senator Clinton—let’s avoid accidentally nominating someone who, like Senator Clinton, prefers the politics of the center over the politics of real progress.

This entry was posted on January 8, 2008 at 7:50 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Bush, Congress, Democratic Party, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Iowa, New Hampshire, Presiden Bush, Republican Party, Republicans, Senate, Washington, White House, climate change, election, global warming, politics, primaries, primary, progressive, progressives, thoughts, voting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.