Global warming, the next partisan divide [Updated]

It's true that we have not yet seen the finale on healthcare reform.

Nor have we heard the last about President Obama's Afghanistan policy. Or about financial regulatory reform that could pit Main Street against Wall Street.

But you can tell that the next issue on the horizon, after the smoke has cleared from the current debates, is global warming.

Already, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has mustered its considerable heft against a cap-and-trade bill moving through Congress. And Republicans have been unstinting in their criticism of what one congressman, Louisiana Republican Steve Scalise, called "the global warming Gestapo."

A new poll will probably give fodder to partisans on both sides. The Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that fewer and fewer Americans -- though still a majority -- believe that global warming is a real threat. According to the poll, 72% of the public now thinks climate change is caused by people, down from 80% last year. 

Since its peak nearly four years ago, belief that people are causing climate change is down sharply among Republicans -- 76% to 54% -- and independents -- 86% to 71%. Even Democrats are growing more skeptical; their number is down from 92% to 86%. Maybe Al Gore needs to bring his movie back for reruns.

Still, whether climate change is man-made or cyclical, a majority of poll respondents (53%) support legislation to control emissions. And one analyst thinks the slippage may be due less to skepticism over global warming than concerns about the economy.

"The majority of people view it as an economic issue," said David Winston, who has polled for the House and Senate Republican leadership on the issue.

[Updated at 8:41 a.m.: As if anticipating the coming debate, the White House plans to announce today that the United States will commit to reduce its gas emissions "in the range of" 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 -- the target set out in the climate bill the House passed in June.]

-- Johanna Neuman

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Al Gore: world's first carbon billionaire?

Former Vice President Al Gore has a new book out. Called "Our Choice," it argues that the technologies exist to clean up the climate if the political will can be mustered.

But conservative critics such as U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) are making the case that Gore, who has long had a passion on environmental issues, stands to profit personally from the energy and climate bills he is lobbying Congress to enact.

Today's New York Times takes a look at the issue, noting that Bill Clinton's vice president makes a lot of money from supporting green companies.The Democrat who lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush by a few hundred hanging chad ballots in Florida has apparently become the world's first carbon billionaire.

The founder of Generation Investment Management, Gore earns a partner’s salary Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley's top venture capitalists. According to the Times, last year Kleiner Perkins loaned a California company, Silver Spring Networks, $75 million to produce hardware and software to improve electricity grid efficiency. Last week the deal paid off big time when the Energy Department announced $560 million in smart grid grants to Silver Spring utility clients.

The upshot: Gore and his partners could recover their investment many times over in coming years.

For his part, Gore says that he is just putting his money where his mouth is.

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“Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?” he told the Times. “I am proud of it. I am proud of it.”

-- Johanna Neuman

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White House war against Fox, Wall Street, Chamber of Commerce: a new Nixonian enemy's list?

The war between the White House and Fox News keeps getting louder. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday continued the assault, even as some pundits and analysts voiced concern that the tactic could backfire by giving the already-popular FNC network more attention. “It serves to help Fox, not punish it, by driving up ratings," said Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus. "And it deprives the White House … of access to an audience that is, in fact, broader than hard-core Obama haters.”

Elsewhere on the White House radar, President Obama went into the heart of the lion's den Tuesday night to chastise Wall Streeters for fighting him on regulation of the financial sector -- a scolding for which they paid $15,200-a-ticket. And the White House has also dispatched its top lieutenants -- Valerie Jarrett and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel -- to undercut the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, its most powerful opponent on climate change legislation, by meeting personally with top executives at the biggest companies in the country.

This morning, in a lengthy speech, Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander offered a "friendly suggestion," warning the White House not to create a new "enemies list" as President Nixon famously did back in the day.

"An 'enemies list' only denigrates the presidency and the republic itself," Alexander said, adding that the White House tactics amount to "street brawling."

Alexander -- a former governor of Tennessee and former secretary of Education under the first President Bush -- should know. He worked for Bryce Harlow, Nixon's executive assistant, in 1969 when he was a "wet-behind-the-ears 29-year-old staff aide in the West Wing of the Nixon White House."

Politico argued this week that the White House tactics amount to a deliberate drive to marginalize the president's critics, modeled on the 2008 presidential campaign. As Politico noted, Gibbs has mocked radio conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh from the White House podium, and everyone from political guru David Axelrod has piled on Fox News by contending it’s not a legitimate news operation. "All of the techniques are harnessed to a larger purpose: to marginalize not only the individual person or organization but also some of the most important policy and publicity allies of the national Republican Party."

Read the full text of Alexander's remarks, as provided by the senator's office, are below.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Was White House behind Chamber of Commerce hoax at National Press Club? Kudlow wondered

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been making headlines lately -- and losing members -- over its adamant opposition to climate change legislation that is backed by the Obama administration.

So Monday, a group of pranksters sent out a press release on the Chamber's letterhead announcing that the powerful business lobbying group had changed its mind and would be holding a press conference to trumpet the new position. Halfway through the presser, they were interrupted by a real staffer from the Chamber, who exposed the fraud. Take a look.

CNBC's Larry Kudlow asked if the White House was behind the hoax.

No, this was strictly a rogue operation. But it is true that the White House has been trying to undercut the Chamber's standing lately as a monolithic voice for business interests.

In a stroke of personal diplomacy, Obama has invited small groups of CEOs to his private White House dining room. And, reports the Washington Post, he has dispatched top aides Valerie Jarrett and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to corporate boardrooms. Since the summer, the three have met with some of the biggest names in the business community, including the heads of IBM, Wal-Mart Stores, Time Warner, Eastman Kodak, Starbucks, Amazon.com and Coca-Cola.

So maybe that's why the hoax played, at least for a bit. And the group responsible, who call themselves the Yes Men, didn't even have a balloon.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Lindsey Graham tagged as a 'traitor' for backing climate change legislation -- those angry tea-party protesters are back

Those angry town hall meetings are back.

Last night, at a forum at Furman University, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham was pilloried by protesters for his decision to back Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and for his support for climate change legislation.

During the 75-minute event, one man told Graham he had “betrayed” conservatism and made a “pact with the devil” by working with Democrats, and asked when the senator planned to change parties.

This is Lindsey Graham we're talking about, best friend and constant companion of the Republican Party's 2008 standard-bearer, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

The troubles all started Sunday, when Graham co-wrote an Op-Ed article with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the New York Times called "Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)," which talked about their campaign to corral bipartisan support for climate change legislation.

As Graham has said elsewhere, "I think the planet is heating up. I think CO2 emissions are damaging the environment and this dependence on foreign oil is a natural disaster in the making."

Maybe what really ticked off the conservatives was when Graham argued that the problem should be addressed as soon as possible -- even if the solution helps the Democrats politically. "I'd like to solve a problem, and if it's on President Obama's watch, it doesn't bother me one bit, if it makes the country better off."

Easily reelected in 2008, Graham has a few years to recover his base.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Faith groups lobby for 'creation care,' otherwise known as climate change legislation

It may make for strange bedfellows, but religious groups are marshaling a nationwide campaign to support legislation to combat global warming, a bill that many of their fellow conservatives vehemently oppose.

A group of Orthodox Jews pushed the issue during their annual lobbying effort at the White House and on the Hill last month, stressing that U.S. reliance on Arab oil endangers Israel but also pushing the Bible's instruction to tend the garden. Pope Benedict XVI has joined the environmental bandwagon, earning the nickname "the green Pope" for proclamations like his recent, "The environment is God's gift to everyone."

Today, a group called Faithful America launched a grassroots campaign, complete with petitions and the video below, urging Congress to "support a climate bill that addresses the root causes of climate change and makes needed investments in vulnerable communities already experiencing its devastating effects."

The campaign's title, Day Six, is a reference to the creation story in Genesis, when God made human beings stewards of creation. "On the sixth day, we were made in God's image and given responsibility to care for the earth and each other," says the group's website. "Today, we must fulfill that charge."

For 30 years, evangelical conservatives dominated Republican politics, earning them the sobriquet the Religious Right. Now, environmentally conscious people of faith are testing the waters.

In June, they helped push a cap-and-trade bill through the House. With the healthcare debate and Afghanistan consuming the Senate and with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launching an assault on the bill, and suffering defections from green companies, the bill's supporters are hoping the religious enviros can make the difference again.

"The work first emerged among mainline Protestant and liberal Jews and Catholics," the Rev. Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith, told U.S. News & World Report. "They were looking to reassert a religious voice for the common good and social justice after 30 years of a conservative evangelical take on public issues."

-- Johanna Neuman

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Climate change war roils U.S. Chamber of Commerce

The battle over the Democrats' cap-and-trade bill that would cut fuel emission standards and reward energy-saving conversions is causing a rift in a traditionally Republican sanctuary.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, long a lobbying powerhouse in Washington and a group most of the time aligned with Republican causes, is exploding with resignations and tensions over the issue.

In the past two weeks, three utilities -- Exelon Corp., PG&E  and PNM Resources -- have resigned over the issue and a fourth company, Nike., resigned from the Chamber's board. Other businesses, such as General Electric and Johnson & Johnson, said they will retain their memberships in the organization despite differences with the Chamber on the issue.

The Chamber claims that limits on greenhouse gas emissions by Congress or the Environmental Protection Agency would be “a job killer’’ that would “completely shut the country down’’ and “virtually destroy the United States.’’ William Kovacs, the Chamber’s vice president for environmental regulation, is advocating a kind of Scopes Monkey Trial over global warming that would put "the science of climate change on trial.’’

As Forbes has noted, the Obama administration has opened a second front in the climate change wars, instructing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions with or without congressional approval.

The Chamber claims that it is just doing its job -- protecting 3 million American companies and their jobs from pointless or costly regulation by Washington. But Democrats are doing cartwheels. "It's an earthquake," said Washington state Democrat Jay Inslee.

Whether the internal Chamber of Commerce politics is also a game changer for the legislation, which passed the House in June but has been stalled in the Senate, remains to be seen.

But it does suggest that a new green caucus has evolved in business circles, at least among companies with a financial or public relations stake in being on the right side of environmental politics.

And it confirms, if there was any doubt left, that elections really do have consequences.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Konrad Steffen / University of Colorado, for Reuters

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Protesters drop in on Pittsburgh for G-20 summit

The G-20 summit hasn’t even begun in Steel City, and already the protests have started.

Under stormy skies Wednesday morning, a group of Greenpeace protesters scaled Pittsburgh's West End Bridge and hung a banner that read “Danger: Climate destruction ahead.” The banner, and several members of the group, hung off the bridge until some not-so-amused police officers arrived and arrested them.

All told, police said that 14 members of Greenpeace were arrested in connection with the bridge stunt, as well as a protest at a second bridge, and will be charged with a variety of misdemeanors. The security here is tight, bordering on feeling like a military state. The city, which is paying to have thousands of additional police working this week, has stationed cop cars along each bridge and along the roadways leading into Pittsburgh’s riverfront downtown.

In downtown, as military vehicles and police cars patrolled the streets and set up metal-wall barricades, crews of construction workers spent Wednesday afternoon boarding up shop windows and doors with sheets of plywood. Locals worried about potential violence and traffic nightmares, a sentiment shared in storefronts both small (cafes and mom-and-pop grocery stores) and large (offices used by the Catholic Church’s Pittsburgh diocese).

Such concern was fueled by an online list of more than 100 possible locations for antiwar, anti-government, anti-globalization and -- well, insert your favorite anti- group here -- to protest during the two-day gathering. The list, which can be viewed here, was compiled by a local coalition of protest groups, and locations include Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods grocery stores, Starbucks cafes and a few strip clubs.

“I’m staying home and ...

Obama makes U.N. debut on global warming (text, video here)

When he campaigned for president, Barack Obama promised to reverse the record of George W. Bush when it came to global warming.

But so far, all he's been able to achieve is a bill through the House -- not yet the Senate -- limiting greenhouse emissions, and an executive order to increase U.S. motor vehicle mileage standards to a level that, according to London's Guardian, achieves fuel standards by 2020 that European, Japanese and even Chinese cars have already met. In fact, the Guardian calls him "Obama the impotent."

In his speech this morning to a special United Nations session on the issue, Obama acknowledged that his country, as many others, "has been slow to respond or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat." But calling it "a new day," he added, "I am proud to say that the United States has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our history."

Below is the transcript of Obama's remarks, as provided by the White House.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Obama's green jobs czar Van Jones quits under fire

Van Jones, the onetime Marxist whose controversial statements about Republicans and 9/11 have made him a distracting lightning rod as Barack Obama's environmental jobs czar in recent days, resigned tonight.

Now, the Sunday morning political talk shows (guest listings here) will have something really hot to talk about.

On Wednesday, as The Ticket reported here, Jones was forced to apologize when a video surfaced of his February remarks in Berkeley, of all places, using a reference to a lower anatomical orifice to describe Republicans.

The next day Jones again had to apologize for having his signature on a petition to then N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer seeking an investigation into the 9/11 attacks as possibly an inside job planned by then-Pres. George W. Bush to soften opposition to a war in Iraq.

On another video here Jones was seen mocking Bush physically and rhetorically as "a crackhead" for his addiction to petroleum.

Jones was special adviser for green jobs to the White House Council on Environmental Quality. As such, Jones, who was arrested in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots, was supposed to....