Obama's an Environmental Failure: An Interview with Journalist Joshua Frank

Shortly after BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling ring exploded, killing 11 men and ultimately dumping 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Sierra Club chairman Carl Pope was quick to rush to the defense of the President. “President Obama is the best environmental president we’ve had since Teddy Roosevelt,” he declared, a strange statement, not only because Obama had only been at the helm for only two years, but also because the green lights for excessive offshore drilling had been established through the predictable methods of contemporary American democracy: the candidates were flooded with money. The Obama campaign accepted more from British Petroleum than any politician over the last twenty years.

Pope’s bizarre comment may have surprised some, but certainly not Joshua Frank, a journalist who has been covering the environment for years. Frank is the co-editor of Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, out this month from AK Press, and has regularly noted the Democrats’ consistent concessions to the GOP.Environmental policy probably won’t be discussed much in the upcoming election, with Obama wanting to distance himself from any issue not sounding a specific note of common denominator populism, so I asked Frank to assess the last four years and give us a preview of things to come. Spoiler: it’s more of the same.

Videos by VICE

There has been something resembling a debate on the left, since Obama became president, regarding whether or not we should have known what we were getting into or if we should be disappointed with his performance. How do you perceive this breaking down in terms of environmental policy. Has this gone, pretty much, as you anticipated or has it been worse than you would have thought?

Sadly — and I was no Obama booster four years ago — this administration has proven to be even worse than most of us anticipated. This is not to say the EPA hasn’t, on occasion, tried to move forward on a number of issues, but [EPA Administrator] Lisa Jackson has by-in-large not been supported by the administration. One case that’s indicative of this was the ugly BP oil spill. Jackson in this instance was not even included in the president’s oil response team. Why was she missing? Mainly because Jackson had already pissed off BP executives by pressing them to curtail the use of the toxic oil dispersant Corexit, much to the president’s dismay. Obama’s approach was to remove the EPA from being heavily involved.

And sadly, for those that take climate change seriously, Obama has been a complete failure, and I’m not talking about his reluctance to utter the term “global warming” during his State of the Union. He’s allowed the leasing of public lands to mine 750 million tons of coal in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, which caused Bill McKibben to call Obama a potentially “full-on Carbon President”. He’s also capitulated to oil companies, promising to allow exploration of oil off the Atlantic waters within 5 years – which would be a first.

And then of course there is the Keystone XL, the granddaddy of Obama disappointments. Nevermind that the oil to be pumped through the pipeline is extracted in the most destructive, ecologically damaging way, from dirty tar sands. No matter that the crude is mostly not going to be used domestically, but shipped out of the Gulf to other markets. And how about this oil’s contribution to climate change? No big deal. We’ll just move the pipe out of the way of the Ogallala aquifer and all will be well.

The protests in response to the Keystone XL pipeline were impressive in terms of numbers, but I felt uneasy about the tone. A lot of the rhetoric, and specifically a lot of the signs, seemed to operate from the mindset that President Obama had the same environmental views and goals as the protesters and simply had to be reminded what those positions were. What do you attribute this kind of mindset to? Do you think it’s just a byproduct of living through the Bush years?

I really couldn’t agree more. Speakers during Keystone protests in DC were sporting Obama buttons. Pretty disgusting if you ask me. Could you imagine antiwar activists wearing pro-Bush decals during the lead up to the Iraq war? How can Obama take the movement to stop Keystone seriously if those leading the charge are going to support him regardless of what he decides to do? I think that’s exactly the reason why he feels just fine promoting the southern portion of Keystone, even during an election year – especially during an election year really.

In his mind, what else are green-minded voters to do? Vote for Romney? He knows he already has enviros corralled in the Democrat pen. They won’t be roaming to greener pastures anytime soon. Call it hypocritical on their part, or just plain weak, but ultimately the environmental movement is letting Obama off the hook. Just wait for Big Green groups to roll out their Obama red carpet endorsement soon. My question to them would be: how is this moving us forward?

The President just signed an executive order to establish federal oversight of domestic natural gas development. This comes after his State of the Union bit about fracking, potentially, generating 600,000 jobs. This seems like an attempt to strike a balance between development and public safety, however, obvious issues arise, right? I mean, we are dealing with private firms. How do you see this breaking down?

Well, I think he’s full of gas. At this point, all this is is a rhetorical maneuver set to appease those that are concerned about fracking’s environmental impact. Basically what he’s saying is “We’ll look into it, trust us.” Meanwhile, Obama’s own EPA has released a very damning report about fracking’s polluting ways in Wyoming. Toxic chemicals used in the process are showing up in frightening numbers in water samples near the small town of Pavilion. Trust Obama to heed the EPA’s concerns? And then correctly regulate the industry? It just doesn’t pass the sniff test.

For those fighting coal in the United States, they can attest that Obama’s not picking up the phone when they ring him to discuss the deadly impacts of coal ash deposits, even though the EPA knows it’s toxic shit. There is simply no reason to believe Obama will be regulating frackers anytime soon – despite his pledge to look into the process. We’re starting at ground zero here. Frackers are currently exempt from the Clean Water Act entirely. Had Obama said he just wants these companies to follow the law, and believes the Clean Water Act ought to apply to drillers, that’d be something to hold onto. But don’t hold your breath.

I’m from Massachusetts and can remember when, as governor, Mitt Romney released a Climate Protection Plan, designed to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, being Romney, he attached something of an afterword to the plan, essentially, pointing out that maybe global warming wasn’t real and his opinion would have to flip down the line. We are down the line now. If Romney is, indeed, the Republican candidate, how do you see the subject of climate change playing in the election? Does Obama have a lot to stand on in this area or are his efforts largely inflated by the imagination of the right?

Climate change will end up being a non-issue this election. Obama will have to bring it up for it to be discussed. What you can expect instead is for both these guys to tout our domestic supply of oil and natural gas. Obama will also express his belief in “safe” nuclear energy. They’ll both pay a little lip-service to wind and solar, but neither will ever speak of strictly regulating climate polluters – especially if it is seen to be a job killer. This is exactly why environmentalists need to stay extremely vigilant. Global warming is very, very real, but I believe we still have a little time to put the breaks on. Yet if candidates like Obama continue to receive our blind support, without placing demands on their candidacies, you can expect the pollution industry to once again be the big winner on Election Day.