Keeping Brown Clean and Green

              

     Ohio is a not just a swing state, its a battleground. When Ohio votes one way, it tends to name a winner.

     Cincinnati, Ohio has one of the floppiest histories of policy you'll ever see. An attraction here is the underground ruins of a half-built subway which had its funding pulled mid-construction because our elected city council wanted it and ... then, they didn't.

     Sherrod Brown suddenly seems to personify this Ohio-ism and is stumbling in his support of the Clean Air Act. Monday morning, he wrote to President Obama asking him to consider the economic implications of regulating the CAA.

     Monday, Cincinnati went to Mr. Brown's local office to ask him to consider all of the implications of regulating the CAA.

     University of Cincinnati students, educators, public workers, Greenpeace, Ohio Student Environmental Coalition, 1sky, local business owners, urban farmers, and techies made up the crowd that rallied Monday. The message was clear: we can't afford to lose our clean air. The crowd speculated about which special interest has Brown suddenly backing the corporate polluters.

     "What do we want? Clean Air. When do we want it? NOW!" 

     At the end of the rally, a group dropped in to the office. They were able to meet with one of Brown's employees, and discuss the implications of his vote. A letter, signed during the rally, was given to her to be delivered to Mr. Brown just before he votes this week. The message of the letter was clear.

     Since Mr. Brown mentioned it in his letter to the President, lets start with the economics. This EPA study shows that the CAA will save $2 trillion dollars. Not regulating polluters might make coal plants a dollar today, but it will cost taxpayers at least two tomorrow, when some 22.4 million school and work days are missed from asthma or other air quality related reasons. Consider that, Mr. Brown. Mr. Obama?

     Oh, and by the way, there's a climate change going on. The costs of repairing the effects of the extreme excess of ambient carbon dioxide have only begun to be speculated- and that's given that we haven't crossed the "tipping point". Early numbers are unfathomable- far beyond the net global deficit.

     Where's the alternative? Let's build some windmills instead. That will create jobs and income while protecting our health and environment. The technology is ready to go. The workers are ready. The subsidies, however, are instead going to big coal. In this economy, we can't afford poor leadership.

     When we voted for Brown, we thought he knew all of this. Maybe its not the voters that don't make up their minds, it's the elected officials in Ohio who don't stand behind their promises.