US environmentalists see a bonanza for green issues like sustainable energy and the push to mitigate global warming coming with the shift in Congress toward eco-friendly Democrats. "The public clearly voted for change -- and one change at the top of their list was a different approach to solving our energy problems," Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said after the Nov. 7 vote.

This year s congressional elections saw the defeat of nine of the league's "Dirty Dozen" lawmakers, including Rep. Richard Pombo, a California Republican whose ties to big energy companies and plan to sell off 15 national parks made him a prime target.

On the plus side, the league found eight of its nine "environmental champions" in Congress were re-elected. The only one who lost, Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, has said his constituents favored him but wanted to change the balance of political power on Capitol Hill.

With Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, Democrats will head all committees and have the power to set an environmental agenda. This change in committee chairmanship could pack a wallop. For example, on the Senate panel on environment and public works, the current chairman, Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, is a leading skeptic on global warming and has ties to the oil and gas industry.

The likely head of the panel after Congress changes hands is Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, a Democrat with a long and consistent history of environmental stewardship, including a vote against the Bush administration energy policy.

Global warming and energy
Key environmental issues for the incoming Democratic-led Congress are global warming, energy, public lands and the farm bill, according to Betsy Loyless of the National Audubon Society. Voters recognized the link between energy policy and global warming, said Anna Aurilio of US PIRG, a public interest research group.

"Against a backdrop of building opposition to the war in Iraq, Americans have been increasingly concerned with our dependence on fossil fuels, and certainly this summer, with gasoline topping US$3 a gallon, folks became very concerned with our dependence on oil," Aurillo said in a telephone briefing.

Cathy Duvall of the Sierra Club said winning candidates made it clear to voters that a new more environmentally responsible energy policy was consistent with a sound economic policy. "One of the things that was apparent in what the candidates were talking about is that a new energy future, new energy technologies, a good economy and new good jobs all go hand in hand," Duvall said at a post-election news conference. Democrats have criticized the Bush administration stance on global warming, which has moved from open skepticism to grudging acceptance that human-influenced climate change is a problem.

However, Phil Clapp of the National Environmental Trust raised questions about Democrats leadership on this issue. Clapp said Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has already called for fact-finding hearings on global warming, which Clapp said raised concerns about any action being taken.

"Congress has now held 239 fact-finding hearings on global warming," Clapp said at a telephone briefing. "If another round of fact-finding hearings becomes the Democratic policy on global warming, they will have walked away from everything they ve talked about for the last five or six years."
(Por Deborah Zabarenko, Planet Ark, 14/11/2006)