I think that
Tom Perriello's interview with enviro blog Gristmill should help you all understand why he's my favorite Congressman, by far (not to mention the great work he did on stripping health insurance monopolies of their antitrust protection). Here's an excerpt. Go git'm Tom!
Every week the Senate doesn’t act [on clean energy and climate change legislation], it either freezes that investment and innovation or it sends it overseas. We’re giving up jobs. The Senate—the ridiculous tactics of the Republicans and the timidity of the Democrats—is standing in the way of the kind of job creation we need.
[...]
Keep in mind that cap-and-trade is a Republican idea. It was a good idea when the Republicans came up with it and it continues to be when Democrats support it. It’s a good idea because it uses capitalism to solve a core problem. When Republicans are honest with themselves—many of them come up to me and say, “Look, I’d love to support it, I know this is the right approach, but if I do this I’ll have a primary challenger tomorrow.” That’s not conviction politics. That’s spinelessness. There’s a lot of posturing that goes on up here.
[...]
That’s [stripping "cap-and-trade" out and passing an energy-only bill] more insider baseball crap. I don’t really care. I’m sick of starting with what can we get through the Senate; let’s start with what solves the damn problem. Until the Senate gets its head out of its rear-end and starts to see the crisis we’re in, our country is literally at risk. Our economy is at risk, because these jobs are being created overseas. It should have the same urgency with this problem that it had bailing out Wall Street.
Wow, talk about "conviction politics!" :)
