THE ENERGY OPPORTUNITY - The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future - page 206

drilling, has also at acked government ef orts to penalize greenhouse
gas emissions and to subsidize development of renewable fuels. Even
worse, in the eyes of many advocates, are the ef orts (far less promi-
nent today than in the past) on the part of some fossil-fuel producers
to sow doubt regarding climate change in order to undermine policy
that might aim to curb U.S. emissions. 3 So when advocates for serious
action on climate change look at the world, they do not want to see
their decades-long adversaries become further entrenched.
h is is part of what drove many climate activists to shit tactics in
2011 and throw themselves wholeheartedly into the ef ort aimed at
blocking Canadian oil production by killing the Keystone XL pipe-
line. For nearly a decade, major U.S. environmental groups tried to
build broad coalitions aimed at passing legislation that would cut U.S.
emissions and boost renewable power. In 2007, the ef ort yielded its
greatest triumph: the creation of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership,
known as U.S.-CAP. h e partnership brought massive environmen-
tal groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the
Environmental Defense Fund together with industry heavyweights
such as General Electric and Alcoa. Even big oil companies, including
BP and Shell, joined the coalition. All pledged support for a strong
set of common principles for climate policy. During the 2008 presi-
dential campaign, this broad coalition from business and civil society
was matched by agreement from the two candidates for president
that the United States ought to adopt an ambitious cap-and-trade
program to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.
A year later, the coalition was in tat ers. Cap-and-trade was dead, U.S.-
CAP was losing members, and any previous semblance of bipartisan-
ship on energy policy was gone. h ere was no shortage of explanations
of ered for why the initiative collapsed. Some blamed the i nancial crisis
that began in 2008 and the accompanying recession. Others pointed
i ngers at poisoned politics, poor political strategy, and what they saw
as growing public distaste for climate science.
For a large segment of the environmental community, though, the
lesson was starker: compromise was no way to achieve fundamental
change. Sure, oil companies signed up for U.S.-CAP, but they did not
put their muscle behind any serious legislation; when it came time to