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Climate Progress

Bill Clinton On Clean Energy Policy: ‘Every Place People Do Things, The Power Of Example Changes Consciousness’

By Stephen Lacey on Aug 7, 2012 at 9:22 pm

Lawmakers and business leaders need to rekindle a spirit of cooperation if the U.S. wants to lead in clean energy and address climate change, says Former President Bill Clinton.

Speaking at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, President Clinton attempted to cut through the contentious political fights picked by the “denialists in Congress” and highlight the importance of cooperation in fostering smart, forward-thinking clean energy policy.

“The great winners of the world are the cooperators. Why is this important? Because cooperation gets lousy news coverage and people don’t know about it. We have to both think large and have a bias for action even if it’s small,” said Clinton.

He also encouraged the industry to continuing telling local stories of successful projects around the U.S., which he believes can diminish some of the political push-back against clean energy policy.

“If we want to do these projects, we need to make sure that more people know. Even in this highly partisan time we need to struggle for public-private cooperation. Even if the news in Washington might be disheartening because of the denialists in Congress. But across the rest of the country, the news isn’t so bad.”

Clinton outlined efficiency and renewable energy projects around the country, including the efficiency retrofit of the Empire State Building and the Ivahpah concentrating solar power project, which cumulatively created thousands of green jobs.

“Every place people do things the power of example changes consciousness,” said Clinton.

He pointed to all the construction workers he met in California working on building the 392-megawatt Ivanpah solar project — people of “all races” with some of the “best tattoos” he’d ever seen. Those construction workers are the people who are going to make the difference in moving the clean energy industry forward, said Clinton.

“Think about the tattoos. You win the tattoo vote, we’ll have the damnedest environmental policy you ever saw.”

When asked about the partisan politics stalling comprehensive climate and energy policy, Clinton said he believes that some of it will pass after November. “I think people will start thinking instead of just trying to tear the house down.”

In his final statement, Clinton encouraged people on the local level to continue working for a bipartisan consensus.

“Where ever you live, find something to do. Keep working until you find somebody of a different political persuasion with the same goal, and then figure out how to achieve it. So while you lobby for political change on the national level, it’s important to do something. Even if it seems small, it will have a big impact. Differences of opinion are important. If your purpose is to reach an agreement than your disagreements become much more valuable. We are going to have to become a stakeholder society again — that’s the only thing that works.”

Economy

Nearly Two-Thirds Of Private-Sector Jobs Added In Last 50 Years Came Under Democratic Presidents

By Travis Waldron on May 8, 2012 at 5:45 pm

Republicans have made a show of their supposed job creation efforts over the past three years, decrying “job killing” regulations and taxes on “job creators.” They have a web site — 4jobs.gov — devoted to their job creation agenda and have even named legislation the JOBS Act. They have also slammed President Obama, saying that he fails to understand the type of environment the private sector needs to spark job growth.

Despite the GOP’s big talk, historical data shows that private sector job creation is better when a Democrat occupies the White House. Since President John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, in fact, nearly two-thirds of the 66 million private sector jobs added to the economy have come under Democratic presidents, Bloomberg reports:

The BGOV Barometer shows that since Democrat John F. Kennedy took office in January 1961, non-government payrolls in the U.S. swelled by almost 42 million jobs under Democrats, compared with 24 million for Republican presidents, according to Labor Department figures.

Democrats hold the edge though they occupied the Oval Office for 23 years since Kennedy’s inauguration, compared with 28 for the Republicans. Through April, Democratic presidents accounted for an average of 150,000 additional private-sector paychecks per month over that period, more than double the 71,000 average for Republicans.

After the economy added more than 20 million jobs under President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, it fared much worse under his successor, Republican George W. Bush, who added just 1 million jobs in eight years. Bush had the “worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records,” according to the Wall Street Journal. The private sector continued to shed jobs in the opening months of the Obama presidency, but as of April, those jobs have all returned.

Republicans, for all of their hatred of government, actually have a slightly better record than Democrats when it comes to creating public sector jobs. Under Obama, local, state, and federal governments have shed more than 600,000 jobs, making the Great Recession the first in modern history in which the public sector lost jobs. Had those jobs been maintained, the unemployment rate would be 7.1 percent, a full point lower than it is now.

LGBT

Bill Clinton Urges North Carolinians To Oppose Discriminatory Amendment

By Igor Volsky on May 5, 2012 at 2:35 pm

President Bill Clinton has joined the campaign against North Carolina’s Amendment 1, a measure which would prohibit same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships in the state constitution. In a recorded robo call released on Saturday, Clinton says:

Hello, this is President Bill Clinton. I’m calling to urge you to vote against Amendment One on Tuesday May 8. If it passes, it won’t change North Carolina’s law on marriage. What it will change is North Carolina’s ability to keep good businesses, attract new jobs, and attract and keep talented entrepreneurs. If it passes, your ability to keep those businesses, get those jobs, and get those talented entrepreneurs will be weakened. And losing even one job to Amendment One is too big of a risk. Its passage will also take away health insurance from children and could even take away domestic violence protections from women. So the real effect of the law is not to keep the traditional definition of marriage, you’ve already done that. The real effect of the law will be to hurt families and drive away jobs. North Carolina can do better. Again, this is Bill Clinton asking you to please vote against Amendment One. Thanks.

Listen:

Clinton first came out in favor of marriage equality during a Campus Progress Conference in July of 2009, saying that he thought it is “wrong for someone to stop someone else” from marrying. “I personally support people doing what they want to do,” he explained, adding that “all these states that do it should do it.” In May of 2011, Clinton endorsed marriage equality in New York.

Clinton’s daughter Chelsea is also taking part in the North Carolina campaign.

Economy

Clinton Labor Secretary Schools Romney: 4% Unemployment Came After Education Investments, Tax Hikes On Rich

By Judd Legum on May 5, 2012 at 11:28 am

Speaking in Pittsburgh yesterday, Mitt Romney said that “anything over 4% [unemployment] is not cause for celebration.” The United States last achieved a sub-4% unemployment rate in December 2000, the end of President Clinton’s term.

On Twitter, Robert Reich, a Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, reminded Romney how America got there:


Romney, on the other hand, is proposing the exact opposite. His tax plan would give massive tax cuts to the rich. (The top 0.1%, for example, would recieved a $264,000 tax cut.)

Meanwhile, in a closed-door fundraiser, Romney revealed he planned to make massive reductions in education spending. He is also proposing cutting funding for infrastructure, including the possible elimination of the Department of Housing and Urban development.

Romney’s comments also don’t reflect well on Ronald Reagan, who Romney now says he wants to emulate. The average yearly unemployment rate exceeded 7% for most of his presidency and never dropped below 5.5%.

Security

FLASHBACK: Rove After Bin Laden Raid: ‘Obama Did A Remarkable Job Of Leadership. It Was A Very Tough Decision’

By Ali Gharib on Mar 23, 2012 at 2:00 pm

Yesterday, former top President George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal lamenting that the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden was regarded as an “epic achievement,” and stating that “Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation.” “Even President Bill Clinton says in the film ‘that’s the call I would have made.’” Only, as ThinkProgress noted yesterday, Bush explicitly did not do what Obama did: take the decision to strike at bin Laden.

As for the selective and misleading Clinton quote, the Wall Street Journal was forced to acknowledge it, updating the online version of the article and appending this note:

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this column included an incomplete quote from Bill Clinton in the last paragraph.

Indeed, Clinton actually said, “I hope that’s the call I would have made.” But Rove’s politically-motivated deceitfulness went even farther than that. Among the various and gracious laudatory statements by former Bush officials about the raid that killed bin Laden were several from Karl Rove himself.

Speaking to Politico for an article published just the day after the raid, Rove said his first reaction was “elation.” The Politico article goes on:

“President Obama did a remarkable job of leadership. It was a very tough decision” to opt for a special operations assault rather than dropping a precision bomb, Rove said.

In his first email exchange with the former president, Rove said Bush wrote: “Great day for justice.”

Furthermore, Media Matters points out that Rove, also the day after the raid, tweeted, “Justice has been done to Osama bin Laden: all Americans are proud of our military, intel & Presidents Bush, Obama. USA! USA!” Here’s the tweet:

To recap: Rove experienced “elation” and thought Obama did a “remarkable job” in making a “tough decision” in ordering the raid to get bin Laden. But now it seems for Rove, politics trumps conviction.

Climate Progress

Bill Clinton Embraces Keystone XL

By Brad Johnson on Mar 1, 2012 at 2:53 pm

Former president Bill Clinton, husband of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has embraced construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which will transport eight billion tons of greenhouse pollution over its fifty-year lifetime. Speaking at the Department of Energy’s Energy Innovation Summit, Clinton advised that TransCanada should reroute the pipeline around Nebraska’s Sand Hills so that the risky project could start making oil company profits as quickly as possible:

The extra cost of running it is infinitesimal compared to the revenues. I think we should embrace it and develop a stakeholder-driven system of high standards for doing the work.

Clinton’s support for the pipeline is in line with the public stance of the Obama administration, which just endorsed TransCanada’s plan to build the southern leg of the project. The Oklahoma-to-Texas line would ship tar sands crude to Gulf Coast refineries for tax-free export to the foreign market.

Related Posts

Alyssa

If You Wanted to See Hillary Leave Bill, ‘Political Animals’ Is Your Fantasy

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 15, 2012 at 9:53 am

I’ve written before about Political Animals, the USA Network that’s a thinly-veiled retelling of Hillary Clinton’s journey from First Lady to Secretary of State. Now, we’ve got some new plot information about the show: while we knew before it would be in part about a First Family, the Secretary of State is going to be divorced from her former-President husband. So for all of those folks who admire Hillary Clinton but can’t understand why she didn’t kick Bill and his cheatin’ heart (among other things) to the curb years and mistresses ago, this show may be the chance for you to live out your fantasy.

Whether Political Animals works at all will hinge on who ends up playing the FLOTUS-turned-Secretary of State. I adore Judith Light, who is a year younger than Hillary and can also rock the hell out of her haircut, and would love to get her back on television, so she’d be my vote. Greg Berlanti, who created Political Animals, hasn’t had a hit in a while, but he at least exhibited some creative thinking in Jack & Bobby, a futuristic reimagining of the childhoods of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. Lots of details remain, but I’m feeling cautiously optimistic.

Alyssa

Watch These Movies While You’re Waiting For The Iowa Caucus Results

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jan 3, 2012 at 2:52 pm

Thanks to the vast expansion of our cable news industry, you could spend hours tonight watching talking heads speculate about the potential results of the Iowa Caucuses tonight. But fortunately, you don’t have to! You can keep hitting refresh on Twitter or the news site of your choice while watching any one of these movies, which actually get the mechanics of politics right in a way that most others don’t, and that most snap-judgment analysts won’t.

1. Primary Colors (1998): Unlike most political movies, which set up a dichotomy between often-unnamed but clearly defined members of opposite parties, the vast majority of Primary Colors takes place during the Democratic primary. That means you get tough debates, hilariously incompetent campaign volunteers who get whipped into a professional fighting force, the entrance of a late-breaking messiah candidate who turns out to be not-so-messianic, and best of all, a deeply cranky conversation about a meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. This is politics as informed and presented by people who have actually been there.

2. Definitely, Maybe (2008): This movie may be disguised as a romantic comedy, but it’s a savvy look at the disappointment of the Clinton years that draws its small dramas from an actual understanding of political pressure points. Fundraising gets you places. Both candidates and journalists have a dangerous desire to be liked. Not putting union bugs on Democratic paper goods during a campaign is disastrous. The president probably will not remember his early volunteers years down the road.

3. The American President (1995) and Thank You For Smoking (2005): It’s sort of amazing how naive Aaron Sorkin is about lobbying in The American President, a movie that makes the profession look so sexy and principled it’s sort of shocking it wasn’t a product of the influence industry itself. Thank You For Smoking is a loopy tonic to that misconception. Watch this double-header as we gear up for a Super PAC-filled election year, and vow not to get fooled again.

4. Contagion (2011): In the hysteria of an election year, it can be easy to forget that there’s life beyond politics and elected officials. But a lot of what’s important about presidential candidates is the people they’d appoint to serve under them, and any administration is limited in the changes it can make by layers of existing bureaucracy, regulations, and the time it takes to turn a ship much bigger than the Titanic around. Contagion‘s a critically important reminder that in crisis, it’s not always a matter of whose finger is on the button.

5. All the President’s Men (1976) and Dick (1999): These two very different retellings of the same essential story make two different but critically important points. First, journalism is hard, and it’s difficult to do it even when you have all the right breaks and time in which to do it: so how hard must it be to nail down true stories on the campaign trail, where everyone is sleep-deprived and exhausted, and events are moving extraordinarily rapidly. Second, politicians are people, often eccentric, obnoxious people. They want power, but they want other things too, including pot brownies and to kick their dogs.

Health

Bill Clinton On National Market For Insurance: ‘That’s One Place Where I Agree With The Republicans’

By Igor Volsky on Dec 21, 2011 at 12:02 pm

President Bill Clinton made a surprise admission during an appearance on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor Tuesday night: he agrees with the Republican proposal of establishing a national health insurance marketplace and allowing companies to sell policies across state lines:

CLINTON: You know let your insurance company compete across state lines.

O’REILLY: That’s right.

CLINTON: In other words, create a national market for insurance…That’s one place where I agree with the Republicans.

O’REILLY: Yes I think you are going to have to defect here, Mr. Clinton. That’s what I’m hearing here.

CLINTON: No, no.

Watch it:

The Affordable Care Act includes provisions that allow insurers to sell policies within the confines of state compacts, so long as the companies follow the consumer protection standards designed and agreed to by the states. The Republicans are advocating something entirely different. Under their proposal, insurers would be able to circumvent consumer protections in certain states by selling bare-bone policies to the healthiest beneficiaries from states with the fewest regulations. Companies would have little incentive to do business in states that currently require coverage for cancer screenings, mammogram services, or other benefits and and will instead sell empty plans across the country to the most profitable applicants.

These beneficiaries will see short term savings, and as long as they don’t become sick, they will be paying less than if they had a more comprehensive policy. But once they do fall ill, these policies won’t offer coverage for the treatments they need and they will either go bankrupt trying to pay for their medical bills out-of-pocket or spend substantially more on comprehensive coverage. Sicker Americans will also see a cost increase, as healthier enrollees leave the risk pool to buy insurance from an unregulated insurer from out of state.

Economy

Clinton On Whether Gingrich Deserves Credit For Balancing The Budget: ‘Not Really’

By Pat Garofalo on Dec 20, 2011 at 11:45 am

2012 GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich has been claiming that one of his qualifications for office is that the budget was balanced for four years in the 1990s, two of which overlapped with his time as speaker of the House. “If you look at my record, the only speaker in your lifetime to get to four balanced budgets,” he said during a Fox interview.

However, Gingrich claiming that he or his House Republican majority had much of anything to do with the ’90s budget surpluses is a stretch. During an interview on NBC’s Today Show, former President Bill Clinton agreed with that assessment, responding “not really” when asked if Gingrich deserves credit for balancing the budget:

Q: Do you believe that Gingrich deserved the credit that he’s taking for balancing the budget when you were president?

CLINTON: Not really…The vast lion’s share of balancing the budget was done by the budget in 1993 that he led the opposition to. And 90 percent of the budget was before the Balanced Budget Act [of 1997].

Watch it:

Legislation passed by Gingrich’s House Republicans actually made the budget picture worse in the ’90s, not better, by cutting taxes and thus revenue. It was the 1993 budget — which Republicans universally opposed — that led to the balanced budgets later on.

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