As you know, Barack Obama yesterday won the Presidency, and the Senate Democrats netted at least five more seats in the Senate and at least 17 seats in the House. As you also know, and as Barbara Boxer so eloquently reminded Jim Inhofe after the 2006 Democratic changeover in the Senate, “elections have consequences.”
I said on October 30 below that “I think the next Congress is going to be a lot different. I think the next Congress is going to take us much farther along the path to clean energy and energy efficiency than some of us would’ve dreamed was possible , at least politically.”
In the wake of yesterday’s sweeping developments, Reuters had this take: ANALYSIS – US Vote Seen As One-Way Bet For Solar, Wind Power. One financial industry analyst said: “A national renewable portfolio standard would be a big, big shift in policy, and that doesn’t inherently have any cost to the federal government.” Another consequence of the elections is that cap-and-trade legislation is certainly going to go forward. See also this from Bloomberg News via Yahoo for more insight on what the new administration’s priorities may be. Jobs are certainly a top priority and, as I said in yesterday’s post, jobs and renewables are hugely compatible.
Internationally, Obama has said that he would ask Al Gore to take a leading role in helping to shape the US position on climate change. “I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we can solve this problem,” was what he said in April according to this from DeSmogBlog.
See the Obama website for more on the cap-and-trade commitment and the new international tack they want to take. See also my post from October 24, Last Call for Presidential Politics.
Keep an eye too on appointments. As the Reagan folks used to say, “personnel is policy.”
