PARTITION Part 2
New weapons against action on climate change
Buddy had a special place in our town’s election process. He’d be sad to know what’s been happening over the past year.
Most of us don’t see it yet—the rapid progress our enemies are making. I mean the enemies of climate action.
We know Marjorie Taylor Whatshername wants to turn “E Pluribus Unum” into “Ex Uno Plures.” That idea of a grand partition may be easy for us to dismiss. However, little-known forms of partition are gaining ground. Individual states are taking more and more power from the federal government—and from their own voters! Here’s how they’re doing it, and how it’s likely to quickly impact America’s efforts to fight climate change.
PERSONAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES
Red states want their legislatures to pass dramatically different state laws and regulations covering a big list of issues: classroom speech, concealed guns, abortion, LGBTQ protections, book bans, election methods, vaccinations, prosecutions of parents of transgender children for child abuse, abortion drugs, contraception, HIV treatment, school prayer, pronouns, gender-affirming care. It goes on.
And beyond those topics, which are mostly about freedoms that Americans have come to take for granted, there are business and economic issues being affected. Think about the organizations, e.g. drug companies, utilities, medical services, publishers, educators, that know how to follow federal regulations in producing what they provide. If, all of a sudden they need to follow lots of different state regulations, low costs and innovation will be under a lot of pressure.
Finance, for example, is being forced to refine its products to meet state requirements. One popular set of Red-state laws precludes state government entities, including pension funds, from doing business with companies that have adopted policies that take climate change into account. Think banks that don’t lend to oil companies. Think the eight trillion dollars of Environmental/Social/Governance (ESG) investment funds.
CLIMATE ISSUES
When it comes to climate action, Conservative state officials make no bones about their feelings. They no longer deny climate change; they just claim that reducing emissions is bad for the country. Red State Treasurers have been particularly vociferous. Fifteen of them sent a letter to John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy saying, “Reckless attacks on the fossil fuel industry ultimately cut off paychecks for workers and take food off the table for hard-working middle-class families.” One comment summed up what they think of us: “This special concern for and attention to climate-related risks is irrational.”
As Conservatives establish new requirements state-by-state, virtually every activity that operates under today’s federal regulations could be in the crosshairs. There’s even draft legislation to eliminate the IRS and all federal taxes and, instead, impose a 30% sales tax on everything, effectively keeping tax revenue within state control.
THEY CAN’T DO THAT!
Sad to say, increasingly they can! Power is quietly shifting dramatically away from Federal to state legislatures and agencies. And away from citizens. Here are some moves many of us don’t notice.
When The Supreme Court last summer decided to deny the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to tell power plants to shift away from dirty sources of energy, they undermined much of the federal government’s protective and regulatory powers over the country as a whole. Similar suits are being filed and appealed up certain avenues of conservative justices, from the county level to the Supreme Court.
State constitutional amendments on the ballot in Kansas and Kentucky would keep their courts from challenging laws restricting abortion. Another in Vermont would protect the right to an abortion, taking that decision out of the state judicial, legislative and executive systems.
Gerrymandering was okayed by the Supreme Court which said in 2019 that election practices are beyond federal jurisdiction. Red and Blue states have quickly moved to shape-shift their voter districts.
Vigilantism and Bounty Laws can replace traditional enforcement methods. A Texas abortion law pays citizens $10,000 or more if they successfully sue anyone, from a doctor to a driver, who helps a woman obtain an abortion. Such a private lawsuit puts what once we considered everyday freedoms directly into the hands of a local court where defense can be expensive. Many other states are adopting this novel method because old-fashioned criminal processes offer more defense opportunities and gives too much discretion to progressive prosecutors who might fail to enforce the law. Similar bounties are offered to parents who sue teachers, or citizens who sue gun manufacturers, vaccination providers, and more.
Pressure on prosecutors is coming from another direction. In Georgia the Republican House of Representatives has approved legislation that would enable an Oversight Board to remove district attorneys who “neglect select prosecutions.” This would put prosecutors at the mercy of a committee of political appointees.
State versus city. Conservative state statutes are more and more stopping Progressive cities and counties from setting their own local policies on everything from police budgets to recycling to climate action.
The Holman Rule, an obscure Federal rule meant to protect the civil service from political corruption, allows House members to transform the normal process of compiling appropriation bills into opportunities to fire government employees and shut down programs they don’t like.
A pretty impressive arsenal, huh? Other means of corralling decisions from federal into state hands and from state executive branches into legislatures are being developed fast. More and more we are going to find our state actually CAN DO THAT!
ANY OF THESE NEW WEAPONS CAN SHOOT DOWN CLIMATE ACTIONS.
Yes, the new Inflation Reduction Act is packed with funds for sustainability projects and yes, much of that funding can go to us and other home and business owners directly from the federal government. But most of these funds are going to sit in Washington unless our states and towns educate, promote, and help us take the climate actions the IRA rewards. A no-climate-action state can do a lot to suppress those actions.
The severe split between what’s legal in a Red and a Blue state is going to have many consequences, most of them not widely understood. In three successive ClimateDog newsletters I am trying to take what we know to help gauge the prospects for climate action.
PARTITION Part 1 (last week) What hometown we or our children choose may become rapidly more important for reasons that go far beyond climate protection.
PARTITION Part 2 (today) It’s going to get worse, as powerful but little known weapons are used to rapidly widen the Red/Blue divide.
PARTITION Part 3 (next week) Ways we can take climate actions even when our state government is against them.
Yes, I’m sorry there’s a lot of discouraging stuff this week. But we need to understand what we’re up against as we work to take climate protection measures under the IRA and the other encouraging stuff that’s going on.
LEARN, THINK, ACT
Read about the Holman Rule.
The Texas Bounty Law on abortion.
Eliminating the IRS and other state power grabs.
Read about possible effects of banning an abortion drug on drug companies and other medications and vaccines.
More on how a “national divorce” would work?
Excellent column David. One of your best.
Thanks David. Frightening. A book title I recall frequently: "We're Doomed. What Now?"