On May 27, the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote about the Climate Security Act:

Warner-Lieberman would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s.

A week later, Sen. Jim Inhofe changed “reorganization” to “expansion,” writing in the Wall Street Journal that the climate legislation “will create the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR’s New Deal.”

Conservative senators have been coordinated on the Senate floor in repeating the Wall Street Journal-Inhofe message:

Judd Gregg (R-NH): These allowances which really are a consumption tax in my opinion will essentially be used to greatly expand the government.

John Cornyn (R-TX): This is the kind of huge expansion in government power over our lives and over the economy that is really unprecedented in our country, and I suggest is the wrong solution — is a — is a wrong answer to the — to what confronts us today.

George Voinovich (R-OH): I feel it is overly aggressive, outpacing what technology can provide and thus assuring economic pain on the country and it is overly bureaucratic and cumbersome in its implementation, representing an unprecedented expansion of government power and a massive bureaucratic intrusion in American lives that will have a profound effect on businesses, communities and families.

The right wing is still upset with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, and wants to go back to an era without the system of labor, health, economic, and environmental protections that built the American middle class. They fear that the American public will realize that a New Green Deal of progressive policies could restore our economic future. Yesterday, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) complained:

The bill before us creates a raft of new government spending programs.

He and his fellow conservatives have put us on a sinking ship, are burning the life preservers, and won’t even let us build a “raft.” As David Roberts writes, “Unless we want to go down with the ship, we need to start building an ark.”

UPDATE: Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) shut down the Senate floor this afternoon by forcing the Senate clerk to read the entire text of the legislation. McConnell alleged that the Democratic leadership “refused to honor its commitments” and push through a significant number of judicial nominees.

A new report from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, finds that strong climate policy is a driver for a healthy economy. A policy that prioritizes energy efficiency and renewable energy — such as cap-and-trade legislation that limits carbon emissions — will drive investment into those sectors. From day one, the millions of Americans working in such jobs will enjoy greater job security.

Strong Climate Action Directly Benefits Over 14 Million American Workers. “What is clear from this report is that millions of U.S. workers — across a wide range of occupations, states, and income levels — will all benefit from the project of defeating global warming and transforming the United States into a green economy.” Over 14 million people throughout the country are employed in 45 representative occupations that would benefit in a low-carbon economy, roughly nine percent of today’s total U.S. workforce. [PERI, 5/28/08]

The six green strategies examined in the report are: building retrofitting, mass transit, energy-efficient automobiles, wind power, solar power, and cellulosic biomass fuels. PERI’s analysis shows that the vast majority of jobs associated with these six green strategies are in the same areas of employment that people already work in to-day, in every region and state of the country.

JOBS THAT WILL BUILD THE GREEN U.S. ECONOMY AND FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING

As the report’s authors note, “The percentage of total U.S. employment involved in green jobs could be expanded dramatically if we had reported the various service and support occupations that will be needed for each of the six green investment areas.” And if they considered other green investments — “the listing of representative occupations — again, still not attempting an exhaustive list — would need to expand further.”

Labor and industry leaders have heralded the report’s findings: Read more