4.2.2017
WASHINGTON — After being warned by his primary opponents that his plans would never pass Congress, President Bernie Sanders proposed yesterday a new carbon tax on oil. This proposal was met with immediate rejection by Congressional leaders.
Steve Kretzman, the founder of Oil Change International, an environmental advocacy group, had this to say about the Sanders administration’s green energy plans, and the legislative blockade:
You know, I think the reality of this proposal is, it's kind of a messaging proposal in a way to start a conversation with the nation about what our energy future should be about, right? This thing is dead on arrival in Congress, as we heard from I don't know how many Congressional leaders the moment that it was released, but the point the administration is making here is an important one which is that our continuing addiction to oil costs us all a lot of money.
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I'm hopeful that more and more people in Washington are talking about it. I'm not hopeful that this budget cycle in the next year is going to be something that moves more money into clean transportation at this point, but you know to the extent that it helps to frame conversations in the election this year, to the extent that it helps to point the direction for where we need to go in the future and hopefully lays down, you know, it's standing at home plate and pointing to the fences and saying we're going there, right? Ten to 15 years from now we'll look back and we'll say, “that was a really important thing because that showed us the vision for how we want to make our energy system in the future.”
Wait, wait a second….
Pardon me, our story appears to be in error. This is not a story from the future, and not about Bernie Sanders. The administration in question is the Obama administration, and this news item appeared yesterday.
Proposing things that are, for now, DOA in order to move the conversation, motivate voters, and focus attention on things that need to happen? Obama just did it.