In 1974, Democrats made one of the greatest legislative blunders of the 20th century when they decided to reject Richard Nixon’s surprise offer to pass a universal health insurance plan. Liberals had convinced themselves they could get a better deal after the next election, where they were favored to romp. Instead, health reform stalled for decades.
Today, history is in danger of rhyming. Congress is considering a bipartisan permitting reform bill that would finally clear away the legal hurdles that cripple America’s ability to build new energy infrastructure, like power plants and transmission lines. It’s a potentially landmark piece of legislation that would help combat climate change by speeding the rollout of renewables while also tamping down on electricity prices.
Yet many environmental groups are pressuring Democrats to scrap the bill and start from scratch next year, when they will likely have more control over Congress. That way, they say, the party won’t have to make as many compromises with Republicans to get a deal done.
Democrats should know better. They need to remember their party’s own past, and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Like the permitting bill, the Nixon health reform plan was the product of a delicate compromise on a notoriously difficult issue. Instead of a national single-payer system, as liberals had sought, the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan would have been based on employer coverage. It had been hashed out in a three-way negotiation involving the White House, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills, who’d shepherded Medicare and Medicaid into law.
Nixon, by most accounts, wanted to enact a health reform bill to prevent Democrats from campaigning on one of their own. Kennedy, who had fought hard for a single-payer system, saw the compromise as an opportunity to get real healthcare coverage for working American families. Mills was a fiscal conservative who wanted to keep costs in check.
But the deal they fashioned fell apart, primarily thanks to pressure from powerful labor unions, which believed Democrats could get more sweeping reforms if they waited until the next Congress. Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate scandal, and his opponents were on the verge of winning a veto-proof majority in the midterms. The unions were certain they could roll the Republicans after the elections and get a single-payer system with no compromise.
They were right about the election outcome, but wrong about everything else. The economic downturn and stagflation dried up any public appetite for a massive new federal spending program. Meanwhile, Mills’ political power and career collapsed in scandal after he was caught having an affair with a burlesque performer. Prospects for healthcare reform died; Democrats would have to wait 36 years before they could pass a major overhaul, with the Affordable Care Act.
“I think about, every day, what a huge mistake I made not accepting Nixon’s proposal, and then building on the benefits package,” Kennedy later said.
Which brings us back to today. There is now broad bipartisan consensus that it is too hard to build infrastructure in this country, especially when it comes to energy. Much of the friction is found in our outdated permitting system, which requires expensive mountains of paperwork and allows opponents of projects to delay them to death with lawsuits.
For Democrats, these problems have been made more urgent by the need to fight climate change, since it will require quickly deploying immense amounts of zero-carbon electricity. Doing so will be difficult unless we can build more long-distance transmission lines to carry all that power. But those projects often end up stuck endlessly in permitting purgatory.
Yet reaching a permitting deal has proven challenging because, on both sides of the aisle, stakeholders have insisted that we are in a zero-sum game. A win for one fuel is a loss for another. Many Democrats are influenced by environmental groups who don’t want to lose their power to obstruct projects through litigation. Many Republicans have balked at increased federal control of interstate transmission line buildout because it is a threat to some utility markets.
The acute crisis of electricity supply and high prices has finally forced a reckoning and a potential deal. The key is that the bill doesn’t favor one type of energy over another. Instead, it will make developing both renewables and fossil fuels easier. That is the core compromise that brought together the legislation’s authors, which include Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), one of Washington’s most vocal climate hawks, and Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-W. Va.), an avid fossil fuel advocate. Both believe that their favorite fuels can compete and will win.
However, just as in 1974, powerful interest groups from the far left of the Democratic Party are envisioning a world in which no compromise is needed. They see an upcoming landslide in a midterm election where Democrats control both the House and Senate. They dream of a bill that expands only renewable development and makes new fossil fuel infrastructure impossible to build.
If anything, the case for walking away from compromise is weaker now than it was in 1974. While this Republican President is wildly unpopular, no one anticipates a 2027 veto-proof majority in either the House or Senate. In fact, getting to cloture in the Senate on an uncompromising bill will be next to impossible — meaning that no matter what, any permitting deal will need Republican votes.
If the uncompromising obstructionists on the far left derail this permitting bill, we could find ourselves decades away from achieving any meaningful reforms. How many members of Congress will reflect on this period as a lost opportunity that will not be realized in their lifetimes? Let’s not let another generational opportunity slip by.
Neel Brown is managing director of the Progressive Policy Institute.
