Health care reform ?

Here is Robert Reich’s assessment of health care legislation as it stands .

The political reality right now is that Harry Reid will do anything to get sixty votes -- which means Lieberman, Nelson, and even Olympia Snowe are able to use extortion on behalf of Big Insurance, Big Pharma, the AMA, and abortion foes. The President, meanwhile, remains eerily above the fray. Having closed deals months ago with Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and the AMA -- in order to get their support in exchange for guaranteeing them big profits -- his only apparent interest is keeping the deals going while helping Reid corral sixty votes for just about anything.(The deals have caused some awkwardness for the White House. Drug importation would have cost Big Pharma far more than the $80 billion price tag it agreed to, forcing the White House to oppose importation even though the President had publicly supported it during his presidential campaign last year, and even though John McCain supported yesterday's amendment.)

I was only thinking about health care legislation, not really giving a thought to the fact that it also applies to the climate change talks, as I hauled out the following bit from Thomas Pynchon (second time this year!).

"There is no real direction here, neither lines of power nor cooperation. Decisions are never really made – at best they manage to emerge, from a chaos of peeves, whims, hallucinations and all around assholery. "

Gravity's Rainbow

Kerry, Graham, Lieberman and the Copenhagen “crime scene”

Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham held a news conference last week and announced their bare bones Framework for Climate Action and Energy Independence.

Obviously the event was timed to have an impact in Copenhagen.Both Kerry and Lieberman said explicitly that their intent was to send a message to countries hashing out a climate treaty: the U.S. Senate is on the job.

The document, referred to as “a starting point, inviting our colleagues’ constructive input” is short on specifics. They do state a near term pollution reduction target in the range of 17 percent below 2005 emissions levels by 2020. On Friday, in Copenhagen, a draft text released by conference chairman asked wealthy countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions 25 to 45 percent below 1999 levels by 2020. The Senate framework cuts amounts to about a 4 percent cut below 1990 levels. However, it does call for nuclear power as an “essential component” of the climate strategy along with federal incentives to boost US production of land, offshore oil and natural gas drilling.
Independent Senator Lieberman (who recently torpedoed Senate health care legislation) said “there are well over 60 votes in play in the Senate, not that we have 60 votes yet.” by way of noting the changeable nature of this framework.
Perhaps last week’s announcement only had an effect on a domestic audience because about half way into the Copenhagen talks most of the World, is apparently unmoved by news that US Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham are on the job, if they noticed at all.

Marcelo Furtado, Executive Director, Greenpeace Brazil, said on Monday morning that negotiators had done so poorly last week that they left a “crime scene” for the arriving heads of states, and that developed countries had clearly “failed to do their homework.” Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the current drafts from the developed world on the table would deliver an increase in emissions.

With President Obama scheduled to arrive later this week and after a brief protest walk out by “underdeveloped nations” the prospects are described in stark terms at Earth2tech blog

.....It remains to be seen what the heads of state can actually do upon their arrival this week. But to reach any kind of agreement there will have to be significant shifts in their statements and emissions reductions targets. A few are starting to inch forward —India has offered to adopt the guidelines under the UNFCCC, and report to Parliament on its domestic goals. But China and the U.S., as expected, will be the ones that will need to move closer.