Lethal Trajectories - Michael Conley [190]
“On another note, the Energy and Environmental Protocol you and Lin Cheng presented to the UN is gaining a real head of steam. I’m surprised, actually; the OPEC countries have all but signed on to it, and Russia and Brazil appear to be on board. By October, I suspect we’ll have the international vote we need to codify it into a formal international treaty by January of next year.”
“I’d have to agree with you on that,” Clayton responded with a slight note of reservation in his voice, “but I’ll feel better after Congress has formally ratified the protocol. I believe they will, but I’ve learned to take nothing for granted.”
“Do you see a problem that I don’t?” Jack asked.
“No. It’s just part of human nature, I guess. If you look back at the events leading to the war, you could almost see the American people getting revved up and willing to make sacrifices as the oil embargo worsened. In a sense, they lived for a cause greater than themselves, and they were really at their best. When the war ended, their euphoria and high expectations were gradually worn down by the grim realities of the new world. It’s going to take them a while to come to their own truth that our energy, climate-change, and economic problems—the perfect storm, so to speak—will still be with us, long after the war ended. In the meantime, Congress will reflect this overriding mood of uncertainty and demagogues like Wellington Crane will have a field day capitalizing on everyone’s misery.”
“I would agree with the Congress part,” Jack observed, “but from what I’ve seen, Wellington Crane is but a shell of what he once was.”
Clayton nodded in agreement. As the turbulence cleared, he walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed them each another beer.
“You know,” he said sadly, “it makes me sick when I think of how we squandered the last two decades screwing around with whether or not climate-change was for real or whether or not there was an oil problem. It’s all wasted time. Who knows, had we acted sooner we might have stopped before we reached the climate’s tipping point; we might even have had new energy models in place to replace oil. Now all I know is that Melissa and Amy will surely be saying to themselves in the years to come, ‘what could they have been thinking?'"
“Sad but true,” Jack replied. “We wasted a lot of time, and we’re going to pay dearly for it in the next few years as we try to transition to new non-fossil-fuel energy systems. But, at least now we have a national energy policy going for us.”
“Speaking of energy policy,” Clayton added, “you missed the meeting I had with Peter Canton the other day on this topic. He told me that we’re actually ahead of schedule in ramping up the smart-grid superhighway project—mainly because we haven’t encountered the local opposition we had anticipated on right-of-way and eminent domain issues. He also said the high-speed rail project was moving ahead as planned, and I was also pleasantly surprised to hear that we’ve now received seven solid new applications for the development of Generation IV nuclear power plants, so his new department is going great guns. Pete’s a good man.”
“You couldn’t have picked a better man to head up the ETCC. He’s doing the same great job now as he did for you when you were the governor of California.”
The president nodded thoughtfully and then said, “To change the subject, where do we stand now in Congress with phase one of our economic security bill?”
“Well, keep in mind, Clayton, that you only introduced it a couple of weeks ago and they’re still getting used to the idea. As you might have imagined, they don’t like the PAYGO and line-item veto provisions we’ve requested, nor do they like the provision that calls for Congress to not exempt itself from legislation they pass for others to follow. They’re pretty rankled with the idea of losing some of their other perks, but they don’t know how to attack these provisions without losing favor with the voters.”
Clayton smiled at their dilemma. It had irritated