First of a three-part series Radical environmental groups have a power over President Obama and his administration that is truly astonishing.
At a time when the economy is struggling and low and middle income earners – both in the United States and overseas — are worried about their economic prospects, the administration continues to pursue policies that will unambiguously harm them.
Consider the domestic front first, and the administration’s energy policies. Since coming to office, Obama and his green allies have pursued a deeply unpopular cap-and-trade program. The program would raise energy costs, particularly burdening low-income Americans for whom energy costs constitute a sizable portion of their monthly budgets.
Congress has wisely rejected cap and trade, but Obama apparently hasn’t received the message. Since the legislative defeat of cap and trade, Obama has pursued renewable energy standards and Environmental Protection Agency regulations of greenhouse gas emissions that, like cap and trade, will raise energy costs for the poor.
As if to add insult to injury, the president’s budget recently called for huge cuts to the country’s low-income home energy assistance program. This program provides financial assistance to poor Americans to help pay for heat and electricity.
Now, one can debate the merits of these subsidies. Indeed, I would argue for eliminating all energy subsidies of any kind.
But it is simply mind-boggling that Obama would push such a heartless one-two punch by advancing policies that raise energy costs while at the same time removing policies that help poor people meet energy needs. It’s as if they want the poor to freeze in the winter or suffer heat stroke in the summer.
What could possibly explain such a callous disregard for low-income Americans? One thing: Obama’s ideological fealty to a hard-green agenda. Greens have become so blinded by their hatred for modern life and the economic growth that is sustained by affordable energy that they want to raise energy prices for all, even the most vulnerable.
If we turn our gaze overseas, we also see evidence of the greens’ malign influence on the Obama administration’s policies and the active hostility toward the poor. The administration is pushing a radical climate change agenda around the globe – one that will raise energy costs and badly misallocate capital.
Through the Millennium Challenge Corporation and United States Agency for International Development, the U.S. government is spending tens of millions of dollars in poor countries pushing low-carbon projects. These programs will ensure that poor people use more expensive forms of energy or curb their use of affordable energy sources that are out of favor with the Obama White House and its green friends.
The bottom line: Poor people in the developing world will be subject to lower economic growth rates and see larger percentages of their income devoted to energy costs. This means they will have less to spend on education, food, shelter and other staples.
Under one program, USAID has committed $40 million over four years to help cease deforestation in Indonesia. Greens worry that land conversion in forested areas to productive agricultural use harms the atmosphere.
These funds would contribute to a program called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, which amounts to a green welfare program for poor countries designed to retard development. Under REDD+, developing country governments receive payments if they crack down on entrepreneurial activity that will provide platforms for robust economic growth. The result? Lower growth rates, diminished economic prospects and more rungs to climb on the ladder of development.
Most galling of all, while the poor are told to stay poor, the U.S. government is enriching the environmental groups who are calling the tune. For example, USAID is funding radical green nongovernmental organizations with millions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers.
In 2009, USAID provided $10 million to the World Wildlife Fund and $4.6 million to the Rainforest Alliance. And through the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, WWF received an additional $3 million.
These funds are used to pay the salaries and expense accounts of Western activists who jet-set around the world pursuing anti-economic growth efforts from Latin America to Africa to Southeast Asia.
You’ve heard of crony capitalism? This is crony anti-capitalism, paid for by you.
It’s not too late for Obama to change course. The anti-growth policies he pursued after Inauguration Day proved deeply unpopular at home and were rejected even by members of his own party.
The American people have spoken in favor of pro-growth policies that keep energy affordable and abundant. The people of the developing world want the same thing.
Niger Innis is spokesman of the Congress of Racial Equality.
