“At this point I see no chance of [a Murkowksi amendment] becoming law,” Podesta said. “It’s being raised at this time as a political distraction. It’s time we got some bipartisan solutions going to get away from dependence on foreign oil.”
I certainly hope he is right, and it is starting to look that way.
The United Nations Foundation and the Center for American Progress presented today an analysis of “core elements” needed to combat climate change. In a press conference call, U.N. Foundation President Timothy E. Wirth and Center for American Progress President John D. Podesta also spoke about the ongoing U.N.-led negotiations toward a new international climate agreement.
“This report once again demonstrates that attending to climate change is both the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. Concerted and cooperative international action to get us on a pathway to a global 20 percent renewable electricity standard and halving deforestation by 2020 is the most cost-effective way to achieve our midterm emissions reductions goals. Just as important, improvements in energy efficiency across the board will pay for it all and generate new revenue to help the world’s poorest countries adapt to the impacts of climate change they are already experiencing.” said Center for American Progress President John Podesta.
Turns out that the attack was orchestrated by a fringe group of free-marketeers called the Americans for Prosperity (AFP) who describe themselves as “grassroots leaders who engage citizens in the name of limited government and free markets on the local, state and federal levels.” You can read a complete backgrounder on AFP here. It suffices to say they get a lot of money from some of the biggest players in the right-wing attack machine.
On Fox News forum AFP’s director of policy, Phil Kerpen brags about how his oragnization brought down Van Jones:
“I spent the next two weeks researching everything I could find about Jones and the Apollo Alliance (much of which is still to be published, including a forthcoming paper from the Capital Research Center next month), the national umbrella organization for coordinating between the environmentalists, the labor unions, and the social justice street organizers that Jones has served as a board member and a primary national spokesman for.”
EnviroKnow has obtained two flowcharts created by American For Prosperity outlining the “Green Jobs Radical Network.” Both documents place Van Jones near the center of this so-called radical network. Other prominent individuals in the environmental and progressive movements mentioned in the documents include Stephen Chu, John Podesta, John Holdren, Jason Grumet, Bracken Hendricks, Robert Borosage, Carl Pope and Andy Stern, among others.
On July 28th, this rudimentary chart was created:
Then on August 28th, an updated version was created:
The July 28th version was authored by an individual named “Rich.” The only Rich on AFP’s staff list is Richard Burke, who joined AFP in January after serving as the Executive Director of the Oregon Libertarian Party.
Van Jones is an exceptional and inspired leader who has fought to bring economic and environmental justice to communities across our country.
He has chosen to resign because he believed he was serving as a distraction to the president’s agenda. I respect that decision.
Van was working to build a common ground agenda for all Americans, and I am confident he will continue that work. Unfortunately, his critics on the right could find no common ground with him.
Clearly, Van was the subject of a right-wing smear campaign shrouded in hypocrisy. Van’s chief tormentor Glenn Beck, who spent weeks engaged in vicious name-calling, retains his perch at Fox News after calling the president a racist who has “a deep-seated hatred for white people.” Van has set a standard that Beck would never impose upon himself.
I look forward to working with Van to move our country towards a clean energy economy that empowers and lifts up all Americans.
Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel—it produces less than half as much carbon pollution as coal. Recent technology advancements make affordable the development of unconventional natural gas resources. This creates an unprecedented opportunity to use gas as a bridge fuel to a 21st-century energy economy that relies on efficiency, renewable sources, and low-carbon fossil fuels such as natural gas.
Center For American Progress Memo, Natural Gas: A Bridge Fuel for the 21st Century –
