Democrats took control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, providing a strong counterbalance to President Bush on many important issues. Many state legislatures experienced the same kind of leadership change, and a number of governors were replaced.
What will those political changes mean for the environment over the next few years? Let’s take a look at 10 key energy and environmental issues and how the change in leadership is likely to affect them.
1) Strategies to Reduce Global Warming
Environmentalists worldwide agree that Democratic control of Congress is not likely to change President Bush’s opposition to binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, such as those mandated by the Kyoto Protocol, which contribute to the greenhouse effect and global warming. President Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 after making a campaign pledge to reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, which the Kyoto Protocol is designed to do.
Nevertheless, the transfer of political power in Washington, D.C., along with the increase in environment-minded governors and state representatives, may lead to environmental policy changes that could help to reduce global warming and America’s production of greenhouse gases, which now account for about 25 percent of all such emissions worldwide.
2) Lower Gas Prices and Energy Independence
In his 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush promised to end America’s addiction to oil, but most environmentalists and political observers agree he hasn’t done much to follow through on that pledge.
Little has been done to actually move forward on renewable energy research and production, new fuel economy standards announced by the Bush administration are considered too weak to be effective, and the government has continued to grant huge tax breaks and subsidies to oil and gas companies.
Gas prices should be determined by the market forces of supply and demand, but many observers believe that record oil company profits combined with skyrocketing gasoline prices point to possible price gouging. Democrats in Congress probably will be looking at legislation to protect consumers by prohibiting price gouging at the gas pump, and they will be keeping a close eye on how oil and gas companies do business.
3) More Renewable Energy
The United States contains only 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves, so as U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said in a weekly Democratic radio address in May 2006, “we cannot drill our way to energy independence.”
The Democratic Congress is expected to invest more in renewable energy research and production through both direct funding and tax incentives for companies that are investing in renewable energy. The United States has enormous untapped potential for several sources of renewable energy, such as solar power, wind power, ocean energy, and expanded uses of biomass energy and hydropower.
4) Better Alternative Fuels
One way for Americans to reduce their dependence on foreign oil is to get serious about developing alternative fuels for automobiles and other forms of transportation.
Automakers are designing and starting to sell a variety of , as well as cars that run on clean diesel, electricity, natural gas and ethanol. Hydrogen cells are another promising fuel alternative for cars, because hydrogen is plentiful and fuel cells emit nothing more than water vapor.
Individual consumers have even converted engines so that they burn used vegetable oil, and some researchers have found that bacteria can convert food waste into fuel.
The Democrats in Congress could end the huge tax breaks currently in place for the big oil companies, and replace them with new incentives for lightweight, efficient materials and for cars that can use alternative fuels.
5) Cleaner Air
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is part of the executive branch of government, so the EPA administrator and his employees all work for President Bush. But Congress holds the purse strings for the EPA and other federal agencies, and a Democratic Congress is expected to hold the EPA accountable for tougher regulations and greater oversight to ensure cleaner air and water.
More than half of all Americans live in counties with unsafe air, according to a 2005 report by the American Lung Association, yet over the past six years the Bush administration has relaxed air quality standards or failed to tighten them sufficiently to prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths. Some of those changes have been successfully challenged in court, while others have alarmed many EPA officials as well as environmentalists.
6) Cleaner Water
The EPA says more than half of all U.S. streams are polluted, and a study by the Environmental Working Group found that public water supplies in 42 U.S. states are contaminated with 141 unregulated chemicals for which the EPA has never established safety standards.
Many of the political leaders elected in 2006, including many of the Democrats newly elected or returning to Congress, have expressed serious concerns about water quality in U.S. communities and are expected to make clean water a priority during their terms of service.
To learn how the results of the 2006 election in the United States may affect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, biodiversity, and accelerate the greening of American business, see page 2.
