Tag Archives: white-house

Presidential Schmoozing Isn’t Just For Republicans

by Diana A. Kincaid Posted on December 23, 2013

Mother Jones

Sen. Joe Manchin lamented on Sunday that President Obama doesn’t schmooze enough.“It’s just hard to say no to a friend,” he told Candy Crowley on CNN’s State of the Union. Steve Benen is unimpressed:

Obama has gone further any modern president in bringing members of the opposing party into his cabinet….incorporating ideas from the opposing party’s agenda into his own policy plans….Obama invited several GOP lawmakers to the White House for a private screening with the stars of the movie “Lincoln.”….How many of the invited Republicans accepted the invitation? None….Obama has hosted casual “get-to-know-you” gatherings; he’s taken Republicans out to dinner on his dime; he’s taken House Speaker Boehner out golfing; and he’s held Super Bowl and March Madness parties at the White House for lawmakers.

In general, I’m on Benen’s side here. I think he probably overstates just how hard Obama has tried to be sociable, but in the end, I don’t think it mattered. It’s been a matter of settled public record for a long time that Republicans were dedicated to forming a united front of obstruction from the day Obama took office, and nothing he did was going to change that.

But in fairness, Manchin says in this interview that he’s talking mostly about his fellow Democrats here. And this is an area where Obama’s style probably has hurt him a bit. It hasn’t hurt him a lot—ideology, self-interest, and political survival will always count for a lot more—but I imagine that Democrats in Congress would be willing to back Obama more strongly if they felt a personal connection with him. Most of them don’t, and this has produced a more fractured party with less enthusiasm for backing difficult policies. Obamacare is probably a good example. Right now, when it’s having so many birthing pains, is precisely when you want Democrats coming to its defense most passionately. That’s a tough sell for obvious reasons, but I imagine that more of them would be stepping up if they felt that they owed it to their party leader. Ditto for other difficult policies, like the U-turn on Syria, the negotiations with Iran, and some of the pseudo-scandals of the past year. Strong relationships wouldn’t have turned night into day on these issues, but I’ll bet it would have helped.

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Presidential Schmoozing Isn’t Just For Republicans

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Want to Piss Off the White House? Talk About Climate Change

by marsxxzaa Posted on November 14, 2013

Mother Jones

Politico’s Glenn Thrush has a revealing new piece on the pressures of being in President Obama’s cabinet—a supposedly fun thing most of its members will never do again. There a lot of nuggets in there, but one in particular stood out: the White House’s private outrage at former Secretary of Energy Steve Chu’s impromptu decision to talk about climate change while visiting an island nation uniquely threatened by it. On a trip to Trinidad and Tobago with the president, a staffer persuaded press secretary Robert Gibbs to let Chu answer a few questions:

Gibbs reluctantly assented. Then Chu took the podium to tell the tiny island nation that it might soon, sorry to say, be underwater—which not only insulted the good people of Trinidad and Tobago but also raised the climate issue at a time when the White House wanted the economy, and the economy only, on the front burner. “I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans, and they face increase in the severity of hurricanes,” Chu said. “This is something that is very, very scary to all of us. … The island states … some of them will disappear.”

Earnest slunk backstage. “OK, we’ll never do that again,” he said as Gibbs glared. A phone rang. It was White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel calling Messina to snarl, “If you don’t kill Chu, I’m going to.”

Emanuel didn’t kill Chu, although that would have made for a more interesting story.

A couple things stand out here. Trinidad and Tobago is seriously threatened by climate change, and given the efforts of similarly situated island nations—the Maldives; Tuvalu—to call attention to the crisis, it’s hardly an insult to use the occasion of a trip to the country to talk about it. (Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago’s capital, is 10 feet above sea level.) But this underscores just how narrow the White House’s thinking was at that time. Does anyone actually remember Steven Chu speaking out about sea-level rises in Trinidad and Tobago? Did it really distract from the president’s economic message? Were there mass protests in the streets of Port of Spain? Did it delay pending legislation or result in any electoral setbacks? The reality is that talking about climate change probably isn’t going to be a catastrophe, no matter how awkward it might seem at the time—but not talking about climate change most definitely will.

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Want to Piss Off the White House? Talk About Climate Change

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Obama Is Actually the Third President to Install Solar Panels at the White House

by greenenergy4 Posted on August 16, 2013

Photo: AgnosticPreachersKid

While the Obamas are away on vacation this week, ABC reports, their famous residence will be outfitted with energy-saving solar panels. But this is actually the third time that a sitting president has had solar panels installed on White House. In the past, however, solar installations at the presidential mansion have been met with less support—and less fanfare.

Jimmy Carter was ahead of the times. In 1977, he declared that the country was entering an energy crisis. To set a good example, he set about installing 32 solar panels on the White House in 1979. Carter declared that, “a generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people; harnessing the power of the Sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.” 

When Ronald Reagan took office, however, he promptly stripped the residency of its recently installed solar panels: his chief of staff reportedly thought the panels were “a joke,” says the Washington Post. Ten years later, those downtrodden panels were given a second though less glamorous chance at life, this time at Maine Unity College’s cafeteria.

In 2003, George W. Bush, seemingly acting out of character, brought solar back to the White House. American City and Country reported on the development a decade ago:

The National Park Service, which manages the White House complex, installed a nine kilowatt, rooftop solar electric or photovoltaic system, as well as two solar thermal systems that heat water used on the premises.

Two solar thermal systems, one to heat the pool and spa and one to provide domestic hot water, were also installed.

“With solar systems popping up on homes, businesses and farms across the country, it’s most appropriate to have solar providing energy for America’s most recognizable home,” said Glenn Hamer, executive director at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

With the Obama administration’s latest additions, the White House will increase its solar capacity with 20 to 50 new panels, USA Today reports. The administration added that the installation should pay for itself within eight years.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Can Solar Survive the Solyndra Swirl?  
Energy Efficiency at the White House

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Obama Is Actually the Third President to Install Solar Panels at the White House

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White House Announces the Return of Solar Panels

by Larissaiyb Posted on August 16, 2013

A White House official confirmed that solar panels are being installed on the First Family’s residence. Photo: Flikr/Tom Lohdan

In 2010, the Obama administration pledged that it would show the president’s commitment to renewable energy by putting solar panels on the White House. This week, Obama made good on the promise, as construction workers began putting the panels in place.

A White House official confirmed to The Washington Post that the project was in process and said it was “part of an energy retrofit” to improve the efficiency of the building.

The official, who has asked for anonymity, says that the solar panels will pay for themselves in eight years through energy savings. Furthermore, the installation will show the value of retrofitting older buildings — even historic ones — and creating more energy-efficient buildings.

Solar panels had previously been installed on the roof of the White House during Jimmy Carter’s presidency and were used to provide hot water to the building. They were removed in 1986 by former President Ronald Reagan. During George W. Bush’s presidency, two solar thermal units and a photovoltaic system were installed on a maintenance building to heat the White House swimming pool.

It is not yet clear how many solar panels are being installed or how they will be used. Obama previously had pledged to installing 20 to 50 solar panels.

The installation of solar panels is one of several measures taken to increase energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy, according to the The Washington Post, based on a plan outlined by the president and signed into an executive order in October 2009. Other measures have included doubling the number of hybrid cars and trucks in the federal fleet, increasing the government’s use of renewable energy and cutting the government’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The White House’s announcement comes just days after a report released earlier this week by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory indicates that the price to install solar panels has fallen to an all-time low.

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White House Announces the Return of Solar Panels

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Coming soon: An Obama climate strategy

by dx1d3x0 Posted on June 20, 2013

Coming soon: An Obama climate strategy

By Claire Thompson

The White House

His big, new climate plan is coming any day now.

Rumors have been swirling that President Obama soon plans to unveil major new efforts to combat climate change. And today, White House officials confirmed that the announcement is coming soon — probably next month, but maybe as early as next week.

At a Washington, D.C., forum sponsored by The New Republic, Heather Zichal, White House coordinator for energy and climate change, said the president planned to unveil new policy initiatives and is “serious about making [climate change] a second-term priority.” She declined to give details, but according to The New York Times …

Ms. Zichal suggested in her remarks that a central part of the administration’s approach to dealing with climate change would be to use the authority given to the Environmental Protection Agency to address climate-altering pollutants from power plants under the Clean Air Act. …

The electric power sector is responsible for about a third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, and any serious effort to address climate change will require steps to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate pollutants from coal-burning power plants.

The administration has already proposed regulations that would crack down on carbon pollution from new power plants, effectively barring them from burning coal. But those regulations are being delayed, reportedly to make them stand up better under court challenge. A number of states and green groups had threatened to sue over the delay, but this week they backed off, saying they’d wait to see what climate initiatives Obama actually does announce.

The next big step would be regulating emissions from existing power plants, which could lead to the shuttering of coal-fired facilities. Climate hawks have been pushing for this. Here’s David Roberts on the tactic back in December (emphasis his):

This chance to spur decarbonization in the power sector is Obama’s greatest second-term opportunity on climate change. How EPA designs and implements these rules will help define his legacy. There is nothing else with as much potential that does not require the imprimatur of intransigent minorities in Congress.

Though such regulations do not have to be approved by Congress to go into effect, they’re expected to be the target of legal challenges from industry groups, and of intense opposition from lawmakers aligned with industry or representing coal-dependent states. From The New York Times:

The issue of power plant regulation is sensitive because it will … put further stress on the coal industry, which is already suffering from a lack of demand as utilities switch to natural gas, which is cheaper.

More regulations and a death blow to coal — the GOP will love it!

Speaking of things the GOP loves (to hate), Obama’s climate plan will likely also include expanded renewable-energy development on public land and increased focus on energy efficiency in buildings and equipment.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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CNN: White House Honors Farmer Fighting Climate Change

by Posted on April 15, 2013

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CNN: White House Honors Farmer Fighting Climate Change

Posted 15 April 2013 in

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Fred Yoder, a fourth generation farmer, past President of the National Corn Growers Association, and renewable fuel champion was honored by the White House late last week for his contributions to agricultural innovation and leadership in fighting climate change.

Passionate about feeding and fueling the world, it all started when he inherited his family farm and was told by his father to “leave the land in better shape than you found it.” Read more at CNN.com.

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Courting White House arrest over Keystone XL: Rancher, financier, Kennedy, Sierra Club head

by RubinkJoseph Posted on February 13, 2013

Courting White House arrest over Keystone XL: Rancher, financier, Kennedy, Sierra Club head

By Philip Bump

For the first time in the Sierra Club’s 121-year history — and only 164 years after Henry David Thoreau’s famed treatise on the topic — the executive director of the organization will be arrested in an act of civil disobedience.

The event (which entices members of the press with a promise of “great visuals”) will happen shortly before noon today outside of the White House. The issue spurring such drastic action by Sierra Club director Michael Brune is the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, meaning that Brune will be something like the 1,200th person arrested at the White House protesting that issue.

Brune will be joined by about 50 others, including Bill McKibben of 350.org (and Grist’s board), civil rights leader Julian Bond, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and actress Daryl Hannah (who has been arrested at a White House Keystone protest before). Also included at the event: Randy Thompson, a Nebraska rancher who has emerged as a leader in that state’s fight against the pipeline. According to Fortune magazine, fund manager Jeremy Grantham also plans to participate. “I have told scientists to be persuasive, be brave and be arrested, if necessary, so it only seems proper to do this,” Grantham told the magazine. (Full disclosure: Grantham’s foundation is a funder of Grist.)

tarsandsaction

From a November 2011 protest against Keystone XL.

In a tweet this morning, McKibben suggested that the goal isn’t protest.

A letter from event organizers reinforces that message.

The president can’t work miracles by himself. An obstructionist Congress stands in the way of progress and innovation. But President Obama has the executive authority and the mandate from the American people to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, and to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline right now. …

Today we risk arrest because a global crisis unfolds before our eyes. We have the solutions to this climate crisis. We have a moral obligation to stand stand for immediate, bold action to solve climate disruption. We can do it, and we will.

Several years ago, NASA climate scientist James Hansen suggested that building the Keystone XL pipeline would be “game over” for the climate, helping to inspire robust opposition to it from environmentalists. Last January, the president declined to approve the permit needed to build the pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border, following the initial campaign of protests from 350.org and other activists.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Courting White House arrest over Keystone XL: Rancher, financier, Kennedy, Sierra Club head

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