Sen. Brown: Climate Bill Will Not Pass Without Manufacturers' Approval

By Leah Valencia
, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said the American Clean Air and Security Act will not make it through the Senate if harmful economic consequences facing the manufacturing industry are not addressed.

"I don't think there's any way we get to even 50 votes if we don't deal with manufacturing in the climate change bill," Brown told reporters in a conference call organized by Campaign for America's Future. "I do know for sure that there are a number of us who understand that manufacturing is so important to this country that if we don't do manufacturing right, our standard of living will continue to decline."

The American Clean Air And Security Act passed through the House of Representatives late June under the stewardship of Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). The bill seeks to put a cap on greenhouse emissions and levy a tax on carbon.

According to Brown, the concern facing lawmakers is that new climate control legislation would constrict existing environmental regulations, and thus persuade manufacturers to advance overseas production as a means to lower labor and energy costs.

Brown said it is imperative to have at least a temporary "border equalization" step to prevent American manufacturing jobs from relocating to India and China

"We need some sort of border equalization ... temporary not permanent...until the Chinese and others move in the direction they need to on this issue," Brown said.

The Ohio senator said the President needs to take a more aggressive approach to regain trust from the American public during this week's G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.

"The public has already lost confidence in trade agreements and the way we approach globalization," Brown said.

Climate Change To Be "Front And Center" At G-20 Summit

By Meagan Wiseley - University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News Service

John Podesta, President of the Center for American Progress, held a conference call Friday to discuss the importance of putting climate change on the agenda at the upcoming G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Pa..

“It is clear that climate change will be back on the table, and we think it is extremely important that it be there, front and center, in the Pittsburgh Summit and that it rise to the top of the agenda”, said Podesta.

Former Sen. Tim Worth (D-Colo.), who also spoke, said he believes increasing the rate of energy efficiencies, deforestation and a commitment to renewable energies, with regards to electricity, should be central to the discussion in Pittsburgh.

Podesta also expects a “concrete game plan for joint action to take place” between China and the U.S. with respect to clean energy. He added that the Obama administration is ready to “strongly engage on climate discussion both domestically and internationally,” and said that the G-20 will be the ideal forum for such talks to take place.

Will the U.S. be put in timeout at the G-20 summit?

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service


“Now the G-20 is not an easier group to get into a consensus, it’s very much harder,” said Jeremy Rabkin, a Professor of law at George Mason University School of Law.

Today at a discussion on the upcoming G-20 meeting in London, panelists expressed their concerns about the meeting, the topics that should be addressed, and the likely results from the meeting.

J.D. Foster, a Senior Fellow in the economics of fiscal policy at the Thomas Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies of the Heritage Foundation, said there are three issues at stake in the summit, the first being stimulus spending. “Should it be an international priority? Second, international institutions.... Should entirely new institutions of global governance be created? And third, underlying the both of the first two questions is the question of sovereignty. Should nations retain the basic right to regulate their own markets even if the result is that their systems of regulation differ?" Foster also said that at the summits they take on the task of lecturing one another usually on things that they themselves are not doing very well. "In this case we hope very much that the American president, President Obama, heeds some of the lectures of his European counterparts. It is a shameful situation to find ourselves in where we hope the European leaders are effective in lecturing the American president on the dangers of debt finance but that’s where we are.” Foster went on to say that people all over the world have the right to be angry with the U.S. “The Czechs, the French, the Germans, everybody else in the world is right to be angry at the United States and other governments engaged in this sort of enormous debt finance stimulus which won’t work, but they should be more than concerned; they should be furious. They should be furious because this is going to drive up interest rates at some point.... It will be affecting global financial markets,” concluded Foster.

Desmond Lachman, a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, said “Europe to me looks like it’s basically in denial. Japan has run out of policy instruments.... interest rates are at zero. China is still counting on exports, really not being flexible on its exchange rate or trying to modify its economy..... You know that I think they diagnosed the problem correctly,” he said. Lachman went on to say, “I think what they have done is executed rather poorly.” Lachman expressed that the the fiscal stimulus package was poorly designed and that the Geithner plan is not attacking the problem in the banking system, saying that the problem is not one of liquidity but of solvency.

Rabkin stated that he thinks it is very unlikely that we are going to see enhanced global governance as the outcome of G-20 deliberations and said that the G-20 group is science fiction. “The majority of these countries are poor and somewhat chaotic. The idea that you’re going to propose a elaborate system of global controls, and ‘China’ will say yeah good idea we really want people to come into our country and monitor how we do our regulation. I think it’s fantastical,” he concluded.