What Edwards Forgot to Say

This is something I posted on the Well.com book discussion site earlier today: On the VP debate last night, I actually thought Edwards missed a lot of opportunities to really make an important point. Take Halliburton. Yes, its no-bid contract in Iraq is a convenient lightning rod, one which has gotten a lot of attention. But it really ought to be talked about as emblematic of the closeness of the Bush Administration to the energy sector (oil and gas companies, coal, nuclear and electric utilities like Enron). No one brought up the Cheney energy task force, which basically took proposals wholesale from the energy lobby and wrote them into the Administration's energy bill. Cheney’s task force report recommended drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, weakening regulation for air pollution controls at power plants, increasing oil and gas exploration on public land; repealing a Depression-era law preventing national utility monopolies; expanding nuclear energy; building new refineries; and increasing reliance on coal. And all of these recommendations have made it into policy or pending legislation. How did they come up with these policies? Cheney is still refusing to release all the pertinent information. But we do know that his task force was predominantly focused on listening to energy lobbyists and not environmentalists. As we write in our book, Is That a Politician in Your Pocket?
Over all, from January through September 2001, according to an analysis by NRDC, task force officials had 714 direct contacts with industry representatives and only 29 with non-industry representatives. What organizations were represented? They included the National Association of Manufacturers, the mammoth trade association whose members include ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil, and Arch Coal; the Nuclear Energy Institute; the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for the utility industry; the National Mining Association; Westinghouse; the American Petroleum Institute, the lobby group for the oil and gas industry; and yes, Enron, among others.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bush has raised over $4.2 million from the energy and natural resources sector for his re-election campaign; by contrast, Kerry has raised just $560,000. Edwards could have made these points and connected them to things that really matter to people, such as the alarming rise in childhood asthma rates that is occurring while Clean Air Act regulations are weakened. Likewise, I think it would have strengthened Edwards' points about the administration's Medicare prescription drug program, which is indeed an enormous boon to the pharmaceutical, insurance and HMO companies, if he had mentioned how much money Bush-Cheney have raised from those interests. Campaign Money Watch is hard at work doing those things, including running some tough ads in Wisconsin. Go here to find out more. Posted by msifry at October 7, 2004 12:00 AM