… is that we never learn anything from history. Particularly political history.

Environmental groups, the very people on the front lines of battling against the disasters caused by our perverse petroleum based ag system, have decided that rewarding the destruction of the land isn’t so bad, at least not if you can claim a green motive.

Rather than use a brand new biofuels program as an opportunity to create a smarter, 21st Century model for supporting favored goals (pay only for results, not promises; let the inventors and the engineers pick the technologies to produce the desired results rather than the letting the lobbyists write technologies into the law; write the environmental controls into the law when the money goes in, not later), Oregon’s environmentalists seem content to be used simply to give Big Ag a faux-green patina while it demands “Where’s Mine” as it muscles further into the subsidy trough.Like an abused spouse who can never quite leave her abuser, environmentalists have decided to give old-line subsidy giveaways “one more chance,” helping Big Ag grab juicy state subsidies on top of the existing federal subsidies, all in the name of competing with other states that are, naturally, revving up their subsidy engines as well.

This story about how the Oregon Legislature earned some green credentials this term ends with this:

Governor applies muscle

Rep. Jackie Dingfelder, a Portland Democrat and chairwoman of the House Energy and Environment Committee, also relied upon Kulongoski for extra muscle.

“There were times when I did call the governor and said: ‘It would be helpful if you came and spoke to the speaker and majority leader about the importance of these bills,’ ” she said.

Kulongoski says he had meetings or updates every day before the renewable energy bill passed.

When a bill that would have resulted in more logging on state forests looked as if it had the votes to pass out of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, Kulongoski wrote a letter threatening a veto and reminding lawmakers that he wanted the state forester and forestry board to decide how to manage timberlands. The bill died when the committee closed its books at the end of May.

And last week, when a bill containing tax breaks to encourage growth of a biofuels industry in Oregon appeared to be languishing in the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee, the governor paid a friendly visit to the chairman.

“That bill will be moving this coming week,” Kulongoski said with a smile.

If the good governor is right, then we will again be faced with Santayana’s truth about those who refuse to learn from history being condemned to repeat it, while Big Ag laughs all the way to the bank.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 9:34 am and is filed under Economy, Energy Future, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.