Hyperpolarization Of Climate Policy – The Politics Of American Exceptionalism - Forbes

Politics

Hyperpolarization Of Climate Policy – The Politics Of American Exceptionalism – Forbes

Published

8 months ago

July 30, 2022

Harry Miller

Ramanan Krishnamoorti, UH Chief Energy Officer and Aparajita Datta, UH Research Scholar

The breakthrough in negotiations amongst Democrats in the U.S. Senate on the proposed climate bill surprised many and recentered the climate discussion across the nation. If the bill, also known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, passes through budget reconciliation, it could potentially reduce U.S. emissions by 40% by 2030.

Despite the national security, economic and energy independence benefits the bill may lead to, it has not received any support from Republicans. Lawmakers from red states have remained unmoved on climate legislation for decades. The gridlock over climate change is not new but the scale of the legislative paralysis is. The right and the left are more polarized now than at any point in the last 50 years. Consequently, climate change has become a prime example of “American exceptionalism” – the idea that the U.S. is inherently different from other countries – in politics. The hyperpolarization threatens our way of life, the economy and our position as a global leader.

A few recurrent questions emerge in the current landscape. First, what are the limits to powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches? Most recently, arguments by the Republicans against executive action on climate change were upheld by the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority in its ruling on West Virginia v. EPA, which limits the agency’s regulatory authority over curbing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Interestingly, the view that it is Congress that must pass laws and allocate funding for climate action – and not the President and federal agencies – seems to be shared by a majority of Americans (61%). However, in a Congress of slim majorities, what does this divide mean for policymaking, and is there a rational middle ground for climate change policy in the U.S.?

In March, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed new climate disclosure rules that would require publicly traded U.S. companies to quantify, record and disclose climate-related risks and financial impacts in statements and annual reports. The proposed mandate aims to bolster investor confidence by providing accurate information on a company’s financial health and risks in a transparent and consistent format. Shortly after, SEC’s chairperson, Gary Gensler, said in an interview that “climate disclosures are already happening, and investors are already making use of information about climate risks. But there is no uniformity in how climate risk disclosures are made, making it difficult for investors to make meaningful comparisons. Companies and investors alike would benefit from clear rules of the road. Our role is to bring consistency and comparability.”

But Gensler, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, was met with quick opposition from his Republican colleagues. SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce opposed the proposed rules in a public statement titled “we are not the Securities and Environment Commission – at least not yet.”

The SEC invited public comments on the proposed rules between March 21 and June 17, and over 4,400 were submitted. We analyzed the comments using natural language processing (NLP) methods. Members of Congress submitted 14 comments, with 215 Republican and 152 Democrat lawmakers as signatories. We took a deeper dive into these comments through further qualitative and quantitative analysis.

The analysis[1] mapped the most likely topics in a document as a probability distribution. A cursory look at the analysis appeared to show some overlap between Republican and Democrat lawmakers. Although, a closer look at terms that were most likely to appear together like emissions, investor, climate, justice and environmental, revealed the divergent partisan priorities. The terms justice and environmental were not dominant themes in the Republican submissions, while the others highlight the exceptional partisan divide on the issue.

The sentiment and tone of the submissions from the Democrats indicate that they welcomed and supported the SEC’s efforts. However, they also proposed changes, citing that the rules do not go far enough to address material climate-related disclosure, specifically the inclusion of climate-related lobbying and influencing activities. U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, called the omission stunning and a missed opportunity for the SEC.

In sharp contrast, Republicans asserted that the SEC lacks statutory authority to issue the proposed rules. The GOP contends that the new rules would violate the First Amendment, do not reflect reasoned decision-making and would fail an arbitrary and capricious review[2] by the courts. Both U.S. House and Senate Republicans argued in their letters to the SEC that unelected regulators at the SEC do not have the authority for policymaking — elected members of Congress do.

Their opinions were reinforced by the attorney generals of 24 Republican states in a supplemental submission to the SEC, citing the post-deadline development of the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA and urging the SEC to abandon the proposed rules. Before the ruling, the SEC had found a likely ally in the EPA. In a submission to the SEC, the EPA stated that it supports the proposed rules and the use of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, and that the Commission has broad authority to promulgate disclosure requirements that are necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.

One notable exception to this political divide was Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat serving West Virginia. In a letter to chairperson Gensler, Manchin followed themes and sentiments expressed by congressional Republicans. Manchin stressed that he firmly believes that “the SEC has a duty and responsibility to every American to uphold their mission and prevent an unraveling of our U.S. economy; however, that duty and responsibility, unfortunately, becomes tainted when the Commission publishes rules that seemingly politicize a process aimed at assessing the financial health and compliance of a public company.”

With an equally polarized electorate, it is unsurprising that recent analyses from the Pew Research Center found that 82% of Republicans believe that Biden’s climate policies are taking the country in the wrong direction, while 79% of Democrats believe the president is moving the country in the right direction on climate change. The divide prevailed before Biden took office. A survey conducted by the University of Houston at the outset of the 2020 presidential elections found that a majority of respondents were concerned about climate change and supported emissions reduction, but the devil is in the details. While 96% percent of voters on the left were concerned about climate change, just over half of the respondents (58%) on the right reported the same. While this chasm may seem wide, the gap between right and left voters has been closing in recent years with growing bipartisan support among voters for the adoption of carbon management to mitigate climate change. What voters cannot agree on is how to decarbonize.

While Americans often bemoan the loss of bipartisanship in Washington, D.C., most are willing [3] to forgive undemocratic behavior to achieve their party’s policy goals and prize party loyalty over all else. Political maneuvering and corrosion of democratic processes follow from this: Issues like climate change are framed as zero-sum games — what one gains, another must lose. Consequently, we are left with problems that never get solved. Lawmakers and voters endlessly argue over the winners and losers of each policy proposition, leaving no room for a rational middle.

Meanwhile, the verdict from the reactions to the SEC’s proposed climate disclosure rules is clear. A new manifestation of the exceptional and untenable partisan divide on key policy issues is permeating across all branches of the government. The electorate and politicians have lost sight of the fact that when it comes to climate change, the collective goals of voters are becoming more aligned while the parties simultaneously move apart from the ideological center. In the absence of bipartisan efforts to reach a rational middle, the American exceptionalism in addressing climate change is likely to continue and wild swings of the policy pendulum should be anticipated.

^[1]^{A Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm is an unsupervised learning algorithm that maps a user-specified number of topics shared by documents in a text corpus as a probability distribution.}

^[2]^{The arbitrary-or-capricious test defined in the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which instructs courts reviewing the actions of agencies to invalidate any rulemaking that they find to be “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”}

^[3]^{The study found that only 3.5% of U.S. voters would cast ballots against their preferred candidates as a punishment for undemocratic behavior.}

Dr. Ramanan Krishnamoorti is the Chief Energy Officer at the University of Houston. Prior to his current position, Krishnamoorti served as interim vice president for research and technology transfer for UH and the UH System. During his tenure at the university, he has served as chair of the UH Cullen College of Engineering’s chemical and biomolecular engineering department, associate dean of research for engineering, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering with affiliated appointments as professor of petroleum engineering and professor of chemistry. Dr. Krishnamoorti obtained his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and doctoral degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University in 1994.

Aparajita Datta is a Research Scholar at UH Energy and a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science studying public policy and international relations. Her research is focused on policy diffusion and feedback analyses to improve energy equity and justice for low-income communities in the U.S. Aparajita holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, India; and master’s degrees in energy management, and public policy from the University of Houston.

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Politics

Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole not seeking re-election, leaving this spring

Published

8 hours ago

March 31, 2023

Harry Miller

OTTAWA –

Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole says he will not seek re-election and plans to resign his seat this spring.

The Ontario MP led the Conservatives and served as official Opposition leader from August 2020 until February 2022, when a majority of his caucus voted to remove him from the post.

“I am a proud Conservative and had the unique privilege to lead our party amid a challenging time for our country,” he said in a statement shared on social media Friday morning.

“The Conservative party is the party of Confederation and I know it will return to government offering the hope and ideas our country so desperately needs.”

His ousting followed months of tensions over O’Toole’s management of caucus and attempts to moderate the party’s image. Those efforts led to concerns that he flip-flopped on key policy positions, including on carbon pricing and gun control.

O’Toole has kept a low profile on Parliament Hill since his time as leader and he said Friday he plans to keep his seat until the end of the spring session.

The military veteran was first elected in a 2012 byelection and served as parliamentary secretary to the minister for international trade and then Veterans’ Affairs minister in final year of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government before it lost power in 2015.

O’Toole took a first crack at running for the party leadership in the crowded 2017 race to replace Harper. He finished third.

He ran for a second time in 2020 and was successful against former cabinet minister Peter MacKay, who was his chief opponent.

“I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to advance issues that I believe are critically important — from veterans’ mental health, to military preparedness, nuclear energy, Arctic sovereignty and a range of other important issues,” O’Toole said in Friday’s statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2023.

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Politics

Donald Trump indictment sends American politics into uncharted waters

Published

20 hours ago

March 30, 2023

Harry Miller

Supporters of former U.S. president Donald Trump protest outside the Manhattan district attorney’s office in New York City on March 21.LEONARDO MUNOZ

American presidents have traduced civil liberties, committed perjury, obstructed justice, and fostered corruption. They have acted in contempt of Congress, condoned arms smuggling and violated campaign-spending laws. They have committed and covered up crimes. But never before has anyone who occupied the country’s highest office – one who has sworn in public to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” – been criminally indicted.

With this presidential precedent shattered by the indictment of Donald Trump, American politics is entering uncharted waters, without buoys, day beacons, safe-water marks or fog signals.

Mariners and swimmers know that the Potomac River, which runs through Washington and defines the capital’s boundary on the left descending bank, is regarded as perhaps the most dangerous of navigable waters. Until now, presidents – who from Abraham Lincoln (who suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War) and Grover Cleveland (accused of rape) to John F. Kennedy (implicated in the assassination of a president of Vietnam) and Richard Nixon (who presided over the Watergate cover-up if not the crime itself) – have negotiated the strong underwater currents of one of the nation’s most fabled rivers. All of Mr. Trump’s 43 predecessors have avoided criminal indictment, none has been arrested, and most have even evaded serious threats to their reputations in the court of public opinion.

Trump supporters and critics gather outside of a Manhattan courthouse on March 23. The former president faces new, extraordinary and unparalleled legal threats even as he embarks on his third White House campaign.Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Mr. Trump, who signalled that he expected the dramatic development, has called on his supporters to undertake protests to “take our nation back,” a potentially incendiary prompt that was as an echo of his remarks minutes before the 2021 siege at the Capitol and that could lead to fresh dangerous street confrontations

He faces new, extraordinary and unparalleled legal threats even as he embarks on his third White House campaign, leads the race to win the Republican presidential nomination, and is a strong contender to become the first chief executive since Cleveland himself to win nonconsecutive presidential terms in next year’s general election.

The legal action against Mr. Trump comes in the face of long-standing custom that presidents are not charged with crimes; for generations, Americans have resisted criminalizing political behaviour, and in 1973, as the Watergate scandal was unfolding, an internal memo prepared by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Council argued that sitting presidents could not be indicted. A quarter century later, the independent counsel in the Bill Clinton imbroglio growing out of his affair with a White House intern decided to pass on the option of indicting the president.

Neither the Justice Department nor the Supreme Court has ruled on whether former presidents can legally face indictment. There are, moreover, no bars to an indicted or convicted individual becoming president or continuing to serve as president. The Constitution provides such a barrier only through impeachment in the House of Representatives and conviction in the Senate. Mr. Trump was impeached twice but was not convicted in either occasion.

Supporters of former U.S. president Donald Trump protest near Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach on March 21.GIORGIO VIERA

Now Mr. Trump – and the country he led for four stormy years – must navigate waters that the former president already has roiled with his incendiary style, his devoutly loyal political base, and his quiet signals of approbation to his sliver of violence-prone vigilantes.

All this in a New York case that even Mr. Trump’s most ardent critics might concede is a peripheral crime, far less publicly consequential than encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on Capitol Hill, seeking to overturn the 2020 election, or squirrelling away secret government documents at his Mar-a-Lago home.

Mr. Trump will be charged with involvement in a $130,000 hush-money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels, with whom he is alleged to have conducted a sexual affair – a relative misdemeanour, in the view of his opponents, after a presidency of felonies, the political equivalent of indicting the gangster Al Capone, implicated in bootlegging and mass gang murders, for tax evasion in 1931. The indictment comes as separate criminal charges are being weighed in investigations in Georgia and by the U.S. Justice Department.

In the first breath of the First World War, the German battleship Goeben escaped British Royal Navy pursuit across the eastern Mediterranean and found safe refuge in Constantinople, prompting Winston Churchill to reflect in his war memoir that “The terrible ‘Ifs’ accumulate.” Now, “The terrible ‘Ifs’ accumulate” in peacetime American politics – and many of the heretofore forbidden, and incontrovertibly forbidding, questions are accumulating in the choppy waters of United States civic life.

Will Trump’s indictment, in a bizarre twist, enhance his appeal among members of his base?Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Could Mr. Trump face imprisonment? Will the Trump indictment on a peripheral charge seem gratuitous and vengeful? Will it hurt the former president’s political prospects?

Or will it, in a bizarre twist, enhance his appeal among members of his base the way the twin indictments – for bribery and mail fraud – of Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, whose political style shared elements of Mr. Trump’s, only boosted his supporters’ devotion after his imprisonment in 1947. (The Republican governor of Massachusetts and the state’s Republican legislature feared that declaring the mayoralty vacant would create a populist backlash that would only increase Mr. Curley’s popularity. The mayor eventually was pardoned by President Harry Truman, a course that president Gerald Ford followed after Mr. Nixon resigned in 1974 and that President Joe Biden might find himself considering in this case.)

Mr. Trump’s opponents, his closest aides, the Manhattan district attorney’s office, New York State court officers and the Secret Service all have anticipated this moment, with the various parties, suddenly transformed into contending interests, conducting the civilian equivalent of military war games on how to handle this development and its fallout. There are few if any precedents to confront the political dimensions of this development – and no buoys to guide Americans’ passage.

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Politics

Senegal opposition leader trial kickstarts rocky election season

Published

1 day ago

March 30, 2023

Harry Miller

Dakar, Senegal – Prominent opposition leader Ousmane Sonko is scheduled to face charges of libel in a Dakar court on Thursday. If found guilty, the political leader could be barred from running in the 2024 presidential elections.

Originally set for March 16, the hearing was postponed to March 30 after state security services forcibly removed Sonko from his vehicle and escorted him to court on the day of the hearing. Shortly after, clashes erupted between police forces and Sonko’s supporters.

Sonko, 48, said he inhaled a harmful substance during the altercations which impaired his eyesight and breathing, claiming the altercation amounted to an assassination attempt.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Senegal’s Attorney General Ibrahima Bakhoum said a suspect had been arrested in relation to the case.

Yarga Sy, an airport security agent, allegedly gave Sonko a scarf soaked with a harmful substance. The substance was in fact vinegar, said Bakhoum.

The incident has escalated tensions in Senegal as the country braces for potential unrest ahead of Sanko’s court hearing on Thursday. Ousseynou Fall, one of Sonko’s lawyers was suspended by the Senegalese Bar Association on Wednesday after a complaint by a case judge and will be unable to appear in court.

“The ongoing tensions have led to a worsening of the situation, fueling political violence as the opposition rallies around the Sonko…case,” said Alioune Tine, Senegalese political analyst and founder of think tank AfrikaJom Centre.

The opposition leader faces libel charges brought against him by Senegal’s Tourism Minister Mame Mbaye Niang after accusing him of stealing 29 billion CFA francs ($47 million) from a government agency. Sonko also faces separate charges of raping a beauty salon employee and making death threats to her in 2021.

He denies the accusations and claims incumbent President Macky Sall is using the judiciary to quash his presidential run. A presidential spokesperson denied commenting on Sonko’s court hearing.

A former tax inspector who transitioned to politics and became the leader of the Pastef opposition party, Sonko became even more popular after finishing third in the 2019 presidential election, becoming Sall’s foremost political opponent.

Stifling opposition with the judiciary

Previous opposition figures such as former Dakar Mayor Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade, the son of former President Abdoulaye Wade, were both charged with corruption and barred from running against Sall in 2019.

The opposition coalition has argued that these disqualifications are part of a broader pattern in which the ruling coalition is leveraging the judiciary to sideline opposition candidates and clear the path for the incumbent president’s reelection.

Senegal has enjoyed relative political stability since it gained independence from France in 1960. Unlike many of its neighbours, it has avoided military coups, earning it a reputation as a beacon of democracy in the region. Despite these credentials, the country has experienced significant political turbulence ahead of the election.

In the past few months, there has been a wave of opposition arrests, including El Malick Ndiaye, spokesperson for Sonko’s Pastef party. He was accused of spreading fake news and spent five days in prison before being released with an electronic ankle bracelet.

Thus, there are concerns that a potential Sonko disqualification or another Sall presidential run could signal a descent into chaos.

“Our current political situation is the most dangerous since decolonisation,” Cheikh Fall, a Senegalese political activist, told Al Jazeera, “Macky Sall is the one and only person responsible for this situation.”

Amnesty International has warned about the increased violence with which security forces have cracked down on protesters ahead of the 2024 elections.

“An escalation of tensions, and further violent clashes between opposition supporters and security forces may damage Senegal’s democratic reputation,” said Renna Hawili, a Dakar-based analyst with geopolitical consultancy Control Risk.

A controversial third term

In 2016, the Senegalese constitution was amended, restricting the length of presidential terms to five years. An earlier amendment in 2001 had limited consecutive terms to two.

But now there is uncertainty about whether Sall will be running for a third mandate.

The president is yet to confirm or deny any such ambitions but he recently discussed the possibility in an interview with French magazine L’Express. He stated that should he choose to run, it would be constitutional as his first term extended beyond the scope of the reform, lasting for seven years rather than five.

“Legally speaking, the debate has been settled for a long time,” said Sall, who claims he consulted the Constitutional Council before the 2016 amendment. “Now, should I run for a third term or not? It’s a political debate, I admit.”

If he does run, it would be a “political bomb” that would further deteriorate the country’s already tense political situation, Tine said.

The issue of tenure elongation is an old one in Senegal – and indeed West Africa.

In 2012, Sall’s predecessor Wade also attempted to circumvent the 2001 amendment and run for a third term. Like Sall today, he claimed that because he had been elected before the amendment, it did not apply to his first tenure. That triggered violent protests.

Sall was an opposition leader then and, buoyed by his support of anti-Wade protests, gained the popularity that helped him eventually become president.

At the time, he said he would not allow presidents to run for more than two terms, which led to the law signed four years later.

Calls for protests

Sonko’s trial comes less than a year before the 2024 presidential elections. If found guilty on Thursday, he will be disqualified from running in the next election, which could tip the scales in favour of the incumbent.

But there is a growing sense that the trials have galvanised the opposition and led to a significant shift in the political landscape as more youth, frustrated by rising unemployment, flock to Sonko.

The Yewwi Askan Wi coalition, translating to “Liberate the People” in the local Wolof language, led protests in Dakar on March 29 and has planned nationwide demonstrations for Thursday – and April 3. These protests are scheduled to take place despite a lack of government authorisation.

Whether Sonko’s trial will mark the start of a new era of political unrest or whether it will strengthen the grip of the incumbent president will become apparent on Thursday, analysts say.

“It is the first time that our collective actions since independence have allowed us to build such a solid democratic system,” said Fall the activist, “but that is in danger of crumbling like a house of cards”.

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