Could The US Climate Alliance Be The Start Of A Progressive Counterpart To ALEC

If there is one thing that Donald Trump’s presidency has accomplished, it has been to unite the opposition against him and his policies, that are essentially Republican party policies as well, just stated out loud.

There is no doubt the European Union is far stronger today than it was before Trump was elected and, while the elections in the Netherlands, France, and now Britain are decided on national interests, there is clearly a backlash against Trump and his pro-Russian, anti-Europe policies and pronouncements in those votes.

And here in the US, Trump has galvanized the opposition as seen by the meteoric rise of the Indivisible Movement. Yes, there are still those who want to re-litigate the Hillary-Bernie battles of the past and the Democratic party bureaucracy has been behind the curve when compared to the rank and file, but there is no doubt that there is a strong and united opposition to Trump.

The Muslim ban united blue state Attorneys General, as does Trump’s immigration policies, on purely legal grounds. And the immigration issue has certainly created some linkages between sanctuary cities and states that refuse to allow their police to act as a deportation force. But Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement may finally see some real coordination between blue state governments.

Governor Brown of California announced the formation of United States Climate Alliance that includes California, New York, and Washington. The alliance commits these states to upholding the climate change commitments of the Paris Accords in their own states. Since that initial announcement, six other states have joined including Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont and the governors of Colorado and Virginia have also expressed their support.

The actual coordination and agreements that can be forged between all these states will be limited by the commerce clause of the Constitution. If the states merely commit to abide by the non-binding agreements in the Paris Accords, then that would probably pass constitutional muster. In addition, I would think there is nothing constitutional to stop these individual states from passing laws that commit to certain climate change targets in their own states.

In fact, Republicans have been playing this game for decades. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been writing legislation for Republicans and, once it passes constitutional muster in one state, the identical legislation is then offered and usually passed in multiple red states. Incredibly, there is still no real national Democratic or progressive equivalent to ALEC.

The impact of the US Climate Alliance on actual climate change may, in the end, turn out to be somewhat limited. California, New York, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon, Connecticut, and Vermont have the lowest per capita emissions. Red states like Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, Louisiana, and West Virginia rely much more on dirty energy and have the highest per capita emissions. So blue states are already doing their job on limiting greenhouse gases.

But perhaps more important than their impact on climate change, any coordination between these blue states could lead to further agreements in other areas such as other environmental issues, reproductive health, health care, minimum wage, and other progressive issues. The laws passed on one of these issues could be used as a template for similar laws in the other blue states.

Now, we all know that the Democratic coalition is far more diverse and is not dominated by specific corporate interests in the way that the Republican party is, making the cookie cutter approach that ALEC uses hard to duplicate. But it would be nice to finally see a real progressive alternative to the success that ALEC has had since the 1970s at the state level.