Reids Green Vagueness

Author: Sarah Riordan

Each bill put before Congress has a preferred title.  It’s part of the “marketing” that goes into passing legislation.  For example, if I were to write a bill about how to provide healthcare to the poor, I would suggest in the bill that it be referred to as the “Health Care for the Poor, 2009 Act.”  In theory, the title of the bill summarizes the bill’s content.  Typically, though, Congress is not that creative and most of the titles are unimaginative and boring. 

Then you have the bill Harry Reid is sponsoring, S.5. With a sophistication in the English language that  only our most influential law makers have, Reid requests that S.5 be known as the, “Cleaner, Greener, and Smarter Act of 2009.”  Perhaps this is being nitpicky, but in comparison to all the other titles out there that summarize a bill’s meaning, this one sounds a tad bit more like Sesame Street than a potential United State’s law.  I don’t know about you but it kind of makes me want to put a crown made of flowers on my head, hold hands with strangers, and dance around in circles to the Beatles “All You Need is Love.”

Okay, enough of that, let’s get to the bill.  There are a few problems with S.5. To begin with, the bill addresses a number of issues but presents them all under the umbrella of being environmentally friendly. 

Here are the three main issues that are presented in the bill.

1. Energy Dependency
2. Global Warming
3. Living Green

Unfortunately, the short list above is about as substantial as Reid’s bill gets. The hardly two-paged bill briefly touches on all the issues mentioned above, but leaves the bill so short and open that anyone can interpret it to mean anything they want it to. 

For example, section four of the bill states the following about what the bill legislates:

“…requires reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States and achieving reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases abroad,”

What does that mean?  If this bill is made law with such broad language, does it mean Congress could make it illegal for all U.S. citizens to drive and say this bills permits them to make such a law?  Who knows?

Yet another example of the vague language appears in the first section of the bill where Reid states what this piece of legislation hopes to accomplish. 

“To make and encourage significant investments in green job creation and clean energy across the economy,”

Again, what does that mean?  How much money does he want to invest?  What makes a green job a green job?  I don’t really know, because that’s all Reid says about green jobs in the bill.  It is almost that he assumes everyone knows what a so-called “green job” is.  In the end, each person can interpret it as they choose.

And in the above statement is where the main problem lays.  Legislation needs to be clear and defined. If something is going to become law, it needs to leave no room for false interpretation and loop holes.  It begs the question, why doesn’t Reid just tell us exactly what he wants?  The reason, I believe, is that voters would revolt against his agenda.

Judging purely by the bill’s text, no one could ever tell what Senator Reid is pushing for.  So in the end, it’s best to not have a bill so broad that you could fly a 747 through it.  Then again, a 747 isn’t very environmentally friendly, so if S.5 is passed, it will probably be outlawed in the near future.