Which Party Gets the Blame? They Agree: It's the Other One
"Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, claimed credit for saving New
England from disaster and argued that the administration was going
in the wrong direction by trying to expand the national grid."
The New York Times
August 16, 2003
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
With tens of millions of Americans left powerless, the blackout gave Democrats
what they hoped would be a huge new political opportunity -
and they wasted little time in seizing it.
On the campaign trail, Democratic presidential contenders assailed
President Bush for focusing too heavily on drilling for new sources of energy,
instead of on a power grid they called too old and overburdened to meet the nation's electrical needs.
In Congress, Democrats accused Republicans of blocking modernization
of the nation's power-transmission system in 2001.
At the same time, Republican leaders in Congress and conservative
talk-show hosts mounted a counteroffensive, charging that Democrats and
environmentalists had colluded to prevent the overhaul of the power-transmission
grid and blocked legislation on a national energy plan.
"Passage of the energy bill is a vital national interest, and partisan
Democrats stalling it should work with the House to get a realistic program to
the President's desk," said Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the majority leader.
Even as the nation waited to learn its exact cause, the blackout promised
to heat up a political issue, energy policy, that until now had seemed
remote to many Americans outside of California, which suffered an energy crisis
and rolling blackouts two years ago.
Democratic strategists said the crisis could enable their party to question
whether President Bush was adequately safeguarding the nation's
energy and economic security and to bring back to center stage
his administration's ties to the energy industry.
Mr. Bush himself seemed sensitive to that possibility
when two days in a row he said that he favored modernization of the electrical grid. "I view it
as a wakeup call," he said yesterday about the blackout.
Regardless of who turns out to be at fault, voters often blame
whomever they perceive to be in charge when the lights go out - a fact of political life
with potential ramifications even at the Congressional-district level for
incumbents in areas affected by the blackout.
"Millions of Americans are now well acquainted with our old, antiquated,
not up to par energy system that they have not been paying attention to,"
Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and
presidential contender, said in a telephone interview.
"And this is not a forward-looking
administration that tries to eliminate problems before they occur."
Bill Carrick, a Democratic political consultant based in California, said:
"Nothing gets people going faster than not having power. Just ask Gray
Davis. Before the energy crisis, his approval rating was consistently in the 50's.
Then it just plummeted."
Two years ago California suffered a series of temporary blackouts as demand
for electricity outpaced older power plants, while a botched
experiment with partial price deregulation and environmental opposition
created disincentives to build new plants. Wholesale electricity prices
spiraled out of control, pushing the state's two private utilities to the
brink of bankruptcy as they were left buying power at market rates at costs
they could not pass on to the consumer.
Although Mr. Davis, who is fighting a recall effort, is the prime example
of how an electrical crisis can harm a public figure, he also seemed likely
to benefit somewhat from the blackout in the Northeast. His allies
were all but claiming vindication, with Representative Nancy Pelosi of California,
the House minority leader, sending out a press release noting,
"Gov. Davis Kept the Lights on in California During the Energy Crisis."
David Freeman, chairman of the California Power Authority, said of Mr. Davis,
"Everyone's counting him out, but I think he got a break yesterday.
"Now his performance will be appraised in light of some real failure.
Seeing a far worse electrical emergency elsewhere does put in perspective
what we went through, and that we licked it in a fairly short period of time."
He noted that California officials had predicted 200 days of blackouts,
"and we haven't had any."Mr. Freeman said that the latest blackout
"puts this whole deregulation phenomenon on trial."
"What's lacking in this deregulated world is someone to take responsibility," he said.
No one is responsible for beefing up the system or building
power plants. We're talking about the lifeblood of our economy, and there
has to be a sense of legal responsibility for keeping the lights on, and
that's what we lost with deregulation."
At the national level, some political consultants cautioned against seeking
political advantage from the blackout before its cause was determined.
"The Democrats, if they try to turn this into a political issue against
President Bush, will just look absolutely desperate, like they're flailing at
anything that moves," said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.
"Let's go out and spout off and take some political shots before we have any idea
where the fault lies."
But most of the Democratic presidential candidates were undeterred.
Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, claimed credit for saving New
England from disaster and argued that the administration was going in
the wrong direction by trying to expand the national grid.
"I think they should stop trying to link every bit of the grid together,"
Dr. Dean said in Iowa. "I stopped New York, Vermont and New England from
linking up by threatening to sue, and they rethought it. If that had happened,
New England would have gone out last night. The idea that bigger is
better and that we need a national grid is just foolish."
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut asked the Department
of Homeland Security to assess the vulnerability of key electric infrastructures
and devise a plan to protect them from attack. He also asked the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission to probe the causes of the blackout.
"It is disconcerting that the president would describe yesterday's events
as a `wakeup call,' " Mr. Lieberman said in a statement. "The reality is
that the administration has simply failed to provide the leadership or
resources necessary to ensure that our critical infrastructure is adequately
protected."
Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri called the blackout
"further evidence that the Bush administration is inexorably tied to Persian
Gulf oil and old energy, and is incapable of devising a comprehensive,
forward-looking energy strategy."
Senator Bob Graham of Florida tied the overburdened grid to
Mr. Bush's tax policy. "His $900 billion in tax giveaways to the richest Americans have
left America without the resources to rebuild this nation's infrastructure,"
Mr. Graham said in a telephone interview.
As Republican leaders in Congress said that environmentalists and Democrats
had blocked the improvements to the nation's power grid,
conservative talk radio hosts amplified their message.
"We've got to set the record straight," said Sean Hannity on his syndicated
program yesterday. "What party is it that is opposing all attempts for us
to move toward energy self-sufficiency? What party is it that refuses
to allow us to drill in the second-largest oil field in American history, known
as ANWR, which is a vast wilderness?"
What seemed clear as the day wore on was that millions of
Americans - and in particular, their leaders - would become newly sensitized to the
politics of energy infrastructure.
"There may have been an elected official who has been arguing for
improvements in the grid, or warning of danger ahead," said Howard Wolfson, a
Democratic strategist in New York. "Before yesterday no one would
have known or cared. Tomorrow, I can guarantee you, they will."
nytimes.com
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |
