Planning by Environmental Committees

The following is an interview with Jason Leitner, chairman of the Liberty Bells Environment committee. The interview took place several days before the bill was proposed to the congressional body. Judging by the reactions of the congressional body to the presentation, it seems Mr. Leitner may have had too much confidence in the committee's bill!

PURDY: "What types of changes are you making, and why?"

LEITNER: "We have basically come up with a "Clean Air Act" of 2010 bill. It changes current laws regarding ethanol in fuels. It also includes our version of the Cap and Trade bill which is before the Senate right now."

PURDY: "What is your bill going to deal with, and what is the main goal of the problem you are trying to fix?"
LEITNER: "The first part of our bill deals with reducing ethanol in current fuel because that is raising world wide prices of corn. We will be proposing a new algae based fuel to replace it. The second part of our bill will be implementing Cap and Trade on Corporate pollution. Unlike the bill in crongress, our Cap and Trade does not regulate carbon dioxide emissions or tax individual energy expenditure."

PURDY: "What ideas did you have, and what plan did you actually go with, and why?"

LEITNER: "Most of our ideas we wanted to pursue are addressed in the bill. We tried to work as a team instead of separately as parties and it worked out pretty good for us."

PURDY: "How do you plan on getting the bill passed?"

LEITNER: "Our bill will pass based on the fact that the changes it proposes are are necessary and will benificial to everyone."

PURDY: "What sort of issues did you face in deciding which bill to push?"
LEITNER: "We talked about what issues we wanted to be in our bill and we decided to put our main ideas listed above into one bill and split up the work for everyone versus having lone crusaders go off and write their own bills."

PURDY: "What do you think the other party's views on the bill will be?"
LEITNER: "Most of our bill will be accepted by both parties. The only issue may be with the Bald Eagles not liking the fact that the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is not regulated in our Cap and Trade."

PURDY: "What points do you feel may be the weak points of your bill?"

LEITNER: "Have you even read it? Our bill has no weak points!"

The chairman of the Environment Committee of the opposing party, the Bald Eagles, was not as thorough or cooperative in his responses to the same questions. He stated that the committee's main goal in creating the bill was to increase technologies in order to promote environmental sustainability. The group feels that research firms do not currently take enough initiative to create this technology. The main weakness of the proposition was a lack of planning for the budget.

-Leah Purdy, Political Analyst, The Bellringers