Barack Obama on Environment Democratic nomine for President; Junior Senator (IL)

Government should invest in clean energy & green jobs

OBAMA: It is critical that we understand this is not just a challenge, it’s an opportunity, because if we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new jobs, easily. It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades. We can do it, but we’re going to have to make an investment. The same way the computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying to figure out, for defense purposes, how to communicate, we’ve got to understand that this is a national security issue, as well.

McCAIN: We can move forward, and clean up our climate, and develop green technologies, and alternative energies for battery-powered cars, so that we can clean up our environment and at the same time get our economy going by creating millions of jobs.

Willing to suspend ethanol subsidy to keep food prices down

A: We’ve got rising food prices here in the US. In other countries we’re seeing riots because of the lack of food supplies. So this is something that we’re going to have to deal with. There are a number of factors that go into this. Changes in climate are contributing. There’s no doubt that biofuels may be contributing to it. My top priority is making sure that people are able to get enough to eat. And if it turns out that we’ve got to make changes in our ethanol policy to help people get something to eat, then that’s got to be the step we take. But I also believe that ethanol has been a important transitional tool for us to start dealing with our long-term energy crisis ultimately. Over time we’re going to shift to cellulosic ethanol, where we’re not using food stocks but we’re using wood chips & prairie grass.

Genesis teaches stewardship of earth: sacrifice for future

A: One of the things I draw from the Genesis story is the importance of us being good stewards of the land, of this incredible gift. And I think there have been times where we haven’t been [good stewards], and this is one of those times where we’ve got to take the warning seriously [about climate change]. And part of what my religious faith teaches me is to take an intergenerational view, to recognize that we are borrowing thi planet from our children and our grandchildren. And this is where religious faith and the science of global warming converge: We have to find resources in ourselves to make sacrifices so we don’t leave it to the next generation. We’ve got to be less wasteful, both as a society and in our own individual lives. I think religion can actually bolster our desire to make those sacrifices now. As president, I hope to rally the entire world around the importance of us being good stewards of the land.

Regulate animal feeding operations for pollution

• Protecting the Rural Environment: Obama will work for tougher regulations on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to prevent air & water pollution.

• CAFOs Pollute the Environment: Manure spills kill millions of fish and jeopardize public health.

• Regulate CAFOs:Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency will strictly regulate pollution from large CAFOs, with fines for those that violate tough standards. Obama also supports meaningful local control.
• Partner with Landowners to Conserve Private Lands:Obama will increase incentives for farmers and private landowners to conduct sustainable agriculture and protect wetlands, grasslands, and forests.
• Encourage Organic and Local Agriculture:Obama will help organic farmers afford to certify their crops and reform crop insurance to not penalize organic farmers. He also will promote regional food systems.

Will end the notion of Yucca Mountain nuclear storage

Promote green technologies and fuel efficiency standards

Organized inner-city recycling; fought environmental racism

Obama introduced a bill requiring more pollution controls at coal plants to block Bush from rolling back the Clean Air Act in Illinois. He cosponsored a bill to require that 10% of electricity in the state come from renewable sources by 2012, and supported measures to increase energy efficiency codes. Obama sought tougher standards for diesel engines and proposed protecting wetland and stopping toxic dumping.

Reduce mercury and lead to protect community health

Protect the Great Lakes & our National Parks and Forests

Protect National Parks and Forests:

Obama supports a true preservation policy for our nation’s parks and forests. Obama fought efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and voted to prohibit the use of funds to construct new roads in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

1985: Organized asbestos removal in Chicago housing project

Obama was known for his detailed and calculated planning, a trait he would carry into politics. The first major project for Obama was assisting the 2,000 residents of a housing project amid a huge garbage dump, a noxious-smelling sewage plant, and the heavily polluted Calumet River.

Of Obama’s pursuits, a campaign to remove asbestos drew the most public attention. That confrontation prompted the housing authority to hire workers to seal off the asbestos.

Passed lead abatement & 24 other laws in IL Senate

In his third year, 1999, Obama was even more successful. He cosponsored almost 60 bills and 11 became law. They included measures that established a state-funded screening program for prostate cancer (a disease that disproportionately afflicts blacks), strengthened hospital testing and reporting of sexual assaults, increased funds for after-school programming, increased investigation of nursing home abuses and hiked funding for lead abatement programs (another large issue in the black community).

Give Katrina contracts to locals, not to Halliburton

KUCINICH: Absolutely. The aftermath underscores everything that’s wrong in this country about race.

GRAVEL: Yes.

DODD: I would as well. New Orleans and Katrina have become a symbol of everything that went wrong with this administration’s failure to respond to a people in need.

CLINTON: I have proposed a 10-point Gulf Coast Recovery Agenda, because even if we were to give people a right, there is nothing to return to.

BIDEN: It’s an American problem. We should guarantee the reconstruction.

RICHARDSON: Yes, I would support that. I would also support the Katrina Recovery Act.

EDWARDS: This is an issue I care about personally and deeply.

OBAMA: Halliburton or Bechtel getting the contracts to rebuild instead of giving the people in New Orleans the opportunity to rebuild and get jobs and training is a further compounding of the outrage.

Health Care for Hybrids proposal for fuel efficiency

Scored 60% on Humane Society Scorecard on animal protection

The Humane Society 109th Congress Scorecard on animal protection issues scored Obama 60 out of 100, based on:
• Obama did not co-sponsor the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S.1915): To bar slaughtering horses for human consumption. Bill had 34 co-sponsors.
• Obama voted for the Horse Slaughter Amendment (9/20/2005): to stop export of horses for slaughter.
• Obama co-sponsored the Animal Fighting Prohibition Act (S.382): To criminalize dogfighting & cockfighting. The bill had 51 cosponsors & passed unanimously on 4/28/2005.
• Obama did not co-sponsor the Downed Animal Protection Act (S.1779): to ban “downed” (unable to walk to slaughter) cattle, pigs & sheep in human food. Bill had 26 cosponsors.
• Obama signed the Funding Letter to the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee: seeking funds for the Animal Welfare Act, Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, & federal animal fighting law. The letter was cosigned by 44 senators & sent on 5/25/2006.

Three months working on minority students recycling

Voted YES on including oil & gas smokestacks in mercury regulations.

• Limits smokestack emissions in a two-phase program founded on a market based capping system
• Calls for the first cap to limit mercury emissions to 38 tons in 2010
• Requires the second and final cap to begin in 2018 and stay fix at 15 tons

Tax credit to remove lead-based housepaint.

OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL SUMMARY: Allows a tax credit for 50% of the costs of reducing lead hazards in U.S. homes built before 1960 in which certain low-income children less than six years of age and women of child-bearing age reside. Allows a maximum credit of $3,000 for lead abatement costs and $1,000 for the cost of interim lead control measures.

EXCERPTS OF BILL:

Congress finds that:
1. Of the 98 million housing units in the United States, 38 million have lead-based paint.
2. Of the 38 million housing units with lead-based paint, 25 million pose a hazard due to conditions such as peeling paint and settled dust on floors and windowsills that contain lead at levels above Federal safety standards.
3. Lead poisoning remains a serious, entirely preventable threat to a child's intelligence, behavior, and learning.
4. The Administration has established a national goal of ending childhood lead poisoning by 2010.
5. Current Federal lead abatement programs only have resources sufficient to make approximately 7,000 homes lead-safe each year.
6. The replacement of old windows that contain lead based paint significantly reduces lead poisoning hazards in addition to producing significant energy savings.
7. Childhood lead poisoning can be dramatically reduced by the abatement or complete removal of all lead-based paint.

LEGISLATIVE OUTCOME:Referred to Senate Committee on Finance; never came to a vote.

Establish commission to examine Katrina response.

OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL SUMMARY: To establish a congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Region, especially in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and other areas impacted in the aftermath, and make immediate corrective measures to improve such responses in the future.

EXCERPTS OF AMENDMENT:

There is established in the legislative branch the Katrina Commission:
• The Commission shall be composed of 10 members, with not more than 5 members from any one political party.
• Individuals appointed should enjoy significant depth of experience in such professions as natural disaster and emergency response experience.
• The duties of the Commission are to ascertain, evaluate, and report on the information developed by all relevant governmental agencies regarding the facts and circumstances related to Hurricane Katrina prior to striking the United States and in the days and weeks following;
• build upon concurrent and prior investigations;
• planning for future cataclysmic events requiring a significant marshaling of Federal resources, mitigation, response, and recovery to avoid significant loss of life;
• an analysis as to whether any decisions differed with respect to response and recovery for different communities, neighborhoods, parishes, and locations and what problems occurred as a result of a lack of a common plan, communication structure, and centralized command structure; and
• make recommendations for immediate corrective measures so that future cataclysmic events are responded to adequately.

LEGISLATIVE OUTCOME:Rollcall vote #229; lost 44-54.

Sponsored health impact bill for environmental health.

OnTheIssues.org Explanation: A classic 1980s study demonstrated that poor neighborhoods are burdened with more environmental hazards than rich neighborhoods. The 1980s study established the field of "environmental justice"; this bill addresses environmental justice and health justice.

OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL SUMMARY: A bill to require health impact assessments and take other actions to improve health and the environmental quality of communities, and for other purposes.

SPONSOR'S INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: Sen. OBAMA: The Healthy Places Act of 2006 focuses on the built environment, which includes our homes, parks, and transportation systems. Like many other States, Illinois has already begun to take steps to improve the environment. City leaders in Chicago have recognized that many low-income families have no access to fresh foods and medicine because there are no grocery stores and pharmacies in their neighborhoods. Retail Chicago, an initiative of the city's Department of Planning and Development, is now using redevelopment funds to entice local developers to bring grocery stores and pharmacies into these neighborhoods.

The Healthy Places Act of 2006 would expand these and other efforts to improve the planning and design of communities that can promote healthier living. It establishes and supports health impact assessment programs; better addressing environmental health issues; and creating a grant program to address environmental health hazards, particularly those that contribute to health disparities. Finally, the Healthy Places Act provides additional support for research on the relationship between the built environment and the health status of residents.

LEGISLATIVE OUTCOME:Referred to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; never came to a vote.

Inter-state compact for Great Lakes water resources.

A joint resolution expressing the approval of Congress to an inter-state compact regarding water resources. In the Great Lakes--St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact the Congress finds that:

• The Waters of the Basin are precious public natural resources shared and held in trust by the States;
• The Waters of the Basin are interconnected and part of a single hydrologic system;
• The Waters of the Basin can concurrently serve multiple uses. Such multiple uses include industrial, agriculture, mining, navigation, energy development and production, recreation, and the maintenance of fish and wildlife habitat.
• Future Diversions and Consumptive Uses of Basin Water resources have the potential to significantly impact the environment and economy.
• Purposes of the inter-state compact: To act together to protect, conserve, restore, improve and effectively manage the Waters and Water Dependent Natural Resources of the Basin under appropriate arrangements for intergovernmental cooperation and consultation;
• To remove causes of present and future controversies;
• To promote interstate and State-Provincial comity; and,
• To promote an Adaptive Management approach to the conservation and management of Basin Water resources, which provides adjustments for the uncertainties in scientific knowledge concerning the Basin's Waters and Water Dependent Natural Resources.
• Legislative Outcome: Passed Senate by Unanimous Consent.

Strengthen prohibitions against animal fighting.

Sen. CANTWELL. I reintroduce today the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act of 2007. This legislation has won the unanimous approval of the Senate several times, but unfortunately has not yet reached the finish line.

There is no doubt, animal fighting is terribly cruel. Dogs and roosters are drugged to make them hyper-aggressive and forced to keep fighting even after suffering severe injuries such as punctured eyes and pierced lungs. It's all done for "entertainment" and illegal gambling. Some dogfighters steal pets to use as bait for training their dogs, while others allow trained fighting dogs to roam neighborhoods and endanger the public.

The Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act will strengthen current law by making the interstate transport of animals for the purpose of fighting a felony and increase the punishment to three years of jail time. This is necessary because the current misdemeanor penalty has proven ineffective--considered a "cost of doing business" by those in the animal fighting industry which continues unabated nationwide.

These enterprises depend on interstate commerce, as evidenced by the animal fighting magazines that advertise and promote them. Our bill also makes it a felony to move cockfighting implements in interstate or foreign commerce. These are razor-sharp knives known as "slashers" and ice pick-like gaffs designed exclusively for cockfights and attached to the birds' legs for fighting.

This is long overdue legislation. It's time to get this felony animal fighting language enacted. It's time for Congress to strengthen the federal law so that it can provide as a meaningful deterrent against animal fighting. Our legislation does not expand the federal government's reach into a new area, but simply aims to make current law more effective. It is explicitly limited to interstate and foreign commerce, so it protects states' rights in the two states where cockfighting is still allowed.