Green Elephant Line Media Backgrounder

Inaugural Edition

January 27, 2009

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Green Elephant Line, a news backgrounder published by Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP), a national grassroots organization.

A brief introduction - REP was founded in 1995 to restore the Republican Party's great conservation tradition. We believe that our party will regain the voters' trust and become competitive again when it rediscovers its proud conservation history and the stewardship ethic that is central to true conservatism.

REP will be in the thick of the Republican Party's internal debates as it regroups and looks for a path out of the political wilderness. A crucial element of a new Republican agenda will be offering citizens a forward-looking environmental platform that both responds to public concerns and sticks with traditional conservative principles.

Time to Tackle Climate Change
Climate is the biggest of the many environmental issues facing America. Both old hands and up-and-comers in the party are pressing for Republicans to take climate science seriously, offer principled policy alternatives, and get into the debate rather than cede the field to the Democrats and their command-and-control tendencies.

As Utah Governor Jon Huntsman said recently, "if Republicans had identified this problem earlier and tackled it aggressively, we would all be working together."

Getting serious on climate would be politically smart too. Republican pollster Whit Ayres told Politico recently: "Most Americans believe that mankind is contributing to the problem, so denying the existence of climate change is a losing position."

With the 111th Congress getting down to work, Republican lawmakers are pushing serious climate policy ideas. There's a reason for this shift. Polling data from Ayres and others suggest that Republican voters are open to climate solutions that help solve energy security and economic problems as well as reduce greenhouse gases.

History shows that America's most successful, enduring environmental laws are those that were enacted with bipartisan support. Congress' Democratic majority would do well to take Republican ideas seriously in crafting climate legislation. Senator John McCain is positioning himself to play a bridging role to bring a bipartisan majority together behind a climate deal.

Republicans Offer Climate Ideas
Both of Tennessee's GOP senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, have proposed variations on the cap-and-trade idea.

Alexander suggests a system limited initially to power plants, which account for about one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions. Alexander says that starting with the electric power sector would make the cap-and-trade system more manageable than diving immediately into an economy-wide approach.

Corker's idea is "cap-and-dividend:" Cap emissions, auction all emissions allowances, and return every penny of allowance revenues to the people.

South Carolina Congressman Bob Inglis, who used to be a climate change skeptic, has proposed a revenue-neutral carbon tax: levy a charge on carbon emissions, then offset the tax with reductions in income or payroll taxes.

Conservative Stewardship
While the details of climate policy choices are important to examine and debate, it will be equally important for Republicans to frame their proposals within the stewardship ethic of traditional conservatism, as described by traditional conservative thinkers such as Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk.