Tim Herdt over at the VC Star’s 95 Percent Accurate* is a veritable fountain of information today. This time he brings us news about our favorite new state senator, “Phony” Tony Strickland. As readers may recall, Tony Strickland ran a bogus campaign claiming to be an alternative energy entrepreneur though his alternative energy company has yet to secure a contract, and his voting record has been a boon to oil companies and other polluting industries who richly rewarded him with a major infusion of campaign contributions.
But according to Tim Herdt, Strickland may actually be persuaded to honor at least a few of his environmental campaign promises, in order to lend real credence to what had been essentially dishonest fabrications concerning his views on environmental issues based on his record:
New Ventura County Sen. Tony Strickland, who ran this fall as a “renewable energy businessman” promising to promote the development of alternative energy, has taken the first step to show that he meant what he said.
Strickland told me last month that he does not agree with the provision in his fellow legislative Republicans’ budget proposal that calls for a delay in implementing California’s landmark global warming law. That regulations to implement that law, AB 32, call for aggressive steps to promote alternative energy, including a requirement that utilities purchase a third of their electrical power from renewable sources such as solar and wind energy.
Furthermore, Strickland said he intends to soon introduce a package of clean-energy legislation.
Sounds good, but several caveats spring to mind:
1) Promises made by Strickland to a media figure like Herdt may well turn out to be as unreliable as most of the other claims Phony Tony has made over the years.
2) His promises to oppose his fellow Republicans on environmental issues in the Senate mean little if he knows that said environmental initiatives will be blockaded by his other Republican allies. If Strickland knows that these bills and addenda will be blocked by others, his support means little; in fact, his “support” would only serve to give him cover while still maintaining his preferred anti-environmental policy aims. We will know Strickland is serious if he makes real attempts to persuade his Republican allies to alter their votes.
3) Strickland’s promise to introduce a “package of clean-energy legislation” is worse than meaningless if his bill is merely a watered-down version of a stronger Democratic bill. Claiming to support popular Democratic policies by offering a weaker version of a Democratic bill is a tried and true Republican tactic.
4) Supporting clean energy bills that provide aid for renewable energy development mean little if they do not come at the expense of the current establishment of corporate polluters. It is easy for a Republican to recommend spending money or creating incentives on windmills or solar panels; it is far harder to take the just as necessary steps of disincentivizing the use of pollutants.
5) California is in a major budget crunch, and has numerous other problems besides. Even if Strickland has come to a true conversion on energy issues (which has yet to be seen), his retrograde Republican views on all other aspects of state business make him a bad fit for the district, and unacceptable for California as it struggles to regain its footing after the fiasco of Enron’s energy deregulation, Schwarzenegger’s mismanagement of the state at the Executive level, and the intransigence of the extremist Republicans in the statehouse.
In any case, the fact that Strickland is at least paying lip service–phony or no–to support of alternative energy is a small victory for progressive causes in itself.
