There has been some discussion that the November election results might be good for a green environment. How so? For one thing, each committee chair will now be a Democrat, and for those who believe that one of the roles of government is to enact legislation to support a greener U.S., and global environment, this will be a good thing. One case in point is the committee chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Prior to the election the chair of the committee was Republican Senator James Inhofe. He lost his job as chair to Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. Inhofe is infamous for his claim (read on the Senate floor) that “he had “offered compelling evidence that catastrophic global warming is a hoax. That conclusion is supported by the painstaking work of the nation’s top climate scientists.” All this, of course, according to Senator Inhofe. However his own government as represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), now believe that climate change is an existing phenomenon. Inhofe’s views of people who support environmental protection, and his own government’s Environmental Protection Agency, as Nazi’s and the Gestapo, respectively. It’s unbelievable that a Senator with views would head the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. But it was so. Not anymore.

Senator Boxer, on the other hand, is on the opposite side of the political spectrum, and has been an advocate for the protection of the environment, and women’s rights. In an editorial in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Lyle V. Harris suggested, “progress may be measured by what green-leaning lawmakers will be able to prevent. Even though the administration has been unwilling to act on and a support global effort to curtail and reduce greenhouse gases, Boxer is from California, which has supported global warming legislation.

One bill that might have a chance in the next Congress is Climate Stewardship Act which was co-authored by Senator John McCain and Senator Joseph Lieberman. Although the bill failed passage in the Senate (43 to 55), optimism exists that there is bipartisan support, and something might happen to the bill in the next two years.

Another area that I hope will be influenced by the election results is the way science is used (or omitted) from public policy decision making. The Bush administration’s handling of science< is notorius for not using the opinions of outstanding scientists, or actually rewriting government scientist’s reports and recommendations. Let’s hope that this changes. We’ll see.