Posted on 12/26/2006 7:10:53 AM PST by presidio9
"I've never seen industry so deathly afraid of the current politics surrounding climate change policy," a Bush administration environmental official told me. With good reason. As Democrats take control of Congress, once firm opposition to the green lobby's campaign of imposing carbon emission controls is weak.
Panicky captains of industry have themselves largely to blame for failing to respond to the environmentalists' well-financed propaganda operation. One government official says "industry appears utterly helpless and utterly clueless as to how to respond." But the Bush administration itself is a house divided, with support for greens and severe carbon regulation inside the Department of Energy rampant, reaching up to the secretary himself.
None of this necessarily means climate change will become law during the next two years, with President Bush wielding his veto pen if any bill escapes the Senate's gridlock. Rep. John Dingell of Detroit, reassuming chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee after a dozen years' absence, will try to protect the automotive industry from Draconian regulation. But over the long term, industry is losing to the greens.
The stakes are immense, as shown by the impact of the bill to implement the Kyoto proposal co-sponsored by Sen. John McCain, front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, the favorite Democrat of many Republicans. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates this measure would reduce gross domestic product by $776 billion, raise gasoline prices 40 cents a gallon, raise natural gas prices 46 percent and cut coal production by nearly 60 percent. Charles River Associates, business consultants, predicts it would kill 600,000 jobs.
Yet, Jonathan Lash of the World Resources Institute last week said McCain-Lieberman does not go far enough in reducing carbon emissions. Green extremists would prefer the severe legislation proposed by Sen. Barbara Boxer, the new chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
According to industry sources, Dingell has privately advised auto industry lobbyists to prepare for the worst. House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi is making carbon emission legislation a priority, and Dingell has warned Detroit that she expects him to move a bill through his committee. He will do his best to modify legislation, but he is obliged to follow Pelosi's wishes and cannot play Horatio at the Bridge.
The same dilemma faces Rep. Rick Boucher, a staunch ally of the coal industry who will become chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on energy and air quality. He must balance Pelosi's desires with the interests of the coal counties in his Southwest Virginia district.
Staunch foes of carbon regulation remain in the administration, headed by Chairman James L. Connaughton of the Council on Environmental Quality. But the Energy Department's top executive strata have gone green.
Since moving from deputy Treasury secretary to Energy secretary nearly two years ago, business executive and financier Samuel W. Bodman has kept a low profile. In a rare public utterance on global warning Oct. 5, 2005, he said an "increasing level of certainty" about global warming fueled by carbon dioxide "is real" and "a matter we take seriously." In private meetings, he has expressed dissatisfaction with administration policy. Bodman's under secretary, former Senate staffer David K. Garman, has shocked industry lobbyists with his criticism of the president's views.
In the background is a pending Supreme Court decision on what the Clean Air Act requires or permits the Environmental Protection Agency to do about greenhouse gas emissions. Even if the Court says the authority is merely discretionary, McCain or any Democratic president would then crack down on industry if nothing is passed before the 2008 election.
Ultimate salvation from U.S. self-destructive behavior may come from the real world. Most European Union countries, suffering higher energy costs and constraints on growth imposed by the Kyoto pact, cannot meet that treaty's emission level requirements. Furthermore, China is on pace to exceed U.S. emissions by 2010, meaning that unilateral U.S. carbon controls will have little impact on global emissions while driving American jobs to China.
This downside of Speaker Pelosi's green determination ought to resonate in union halls and coalfields of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. However, American industrialists, while wringing their hands, are not making their case.
Rick Boucher is a left winger who will abandon his people in a heart beat. The cause supercedes the constituents.
The Dems are holding the door wide open for the Reps on this issue, but I bet the Reps will not come together with industry to counter the green's claims. So many votes could be picked up through this issue. The green argument is so full of holes with dire economic impact upon the U.S. economy but some how the Reps will fumble the ball. Its a shame, but what can you say when Bush allows this type of dissent and leadership from his own cabinet members and McCain is leading the green's cause.
Ayn Rand was right.
"......Behind every cause such as global warming, the environment, you name it, you will find socialists and liberals. Socialism is the ultimate goal. Environmentism, unionism, feminism, peacism, vegetarianism are simply the means to get there.
Now, in truth, let's take this cow report at face value. Let's say that the cow emissions are more damaging than cars. Well, if that's true, let's move off the automobile as the cause of global warming since research doesn't seem to support that anymore. And let's move into another area of scaring people. Cows! Cows are going to kill us. Cows are causing environmental destruction. See how many people buy that. See how many people believe that.
So even now that the UN has put out this big report that it's cow flatulence, more damaging to the planet than CO2 from cars.
This will be ignored.
The car will continue to be attacked because it's not about pollution, it's not about cars, it's not about cows, it's not about emissions, global warming or greenhouse gases, it's about cutting America down to size." ~ Rush 12/11/2006
Occasionally. But not most of the time.
This article reminded me of something that I have been thinking about John McCain. How can someone who has the best interest of the United States at heart and truly believes in freedom be in favor of some of the legislation that he has sponsored? McCain-Finegold is the most objectionable, but any bill that encourages the implementation of the Kyoto protocol would be just as bad. This man can never be allowed to become POTUS. I do not believe in conspiracies, but he could almost be a communist "plant" who is attempting to destroy the US from within.
Sometimes it seesm that the "sky-is-falling" hysteria that comes from the enviro-wackos can only be matched by the "ski-will-fall" hysteria from their opponents regarding the economic impact predicted.
In every single circumstance ever, the cost of reducing emissions or pollutants have been far lower than industry estimates.
In the case of reducing CO2 greate efficiency and lower fuel use might actually offset the increased cost of energy. The increase in energy security by using wind and fuel grown in America will have a huge positive impact as well.
In this circumstance Novak is acting as a mouthpiece for Exxon and the power companies who own old coal fired plants.
Let him come with a solution to America's dependence on foreign oil before bemoaning the cost.
What would the world look like if we had just spent(borrowed) $500-$800 billion to build wind-turbines and nuclear power plants and covert American automobiles to plug-in hybrids?
Oil would be $10 a gallon. The Russians and Iranians would be hat in hand, and Saddam might have fallen anyway.
I wonder at what point, what line must be crossed, before good men will stand up and tell the socialists and one-worlders and the treasonous America-haters amongst us that their attacks on our nation, our people, and our freedoms will not be tolerated? When will good men promise to deliver mayhem to those who threaten our way of life?
Are there any good men, I wonder?
"In the case of reducing CO2 greate efficiency and lower fuel use might actually offset the increased cost of energy. The increase in energy security by using wind and fuel grown in America will have a huge positive impact as well."
I don't know what a "greate" is, but much of the rest of your two sentences is in great need of revision.
The first sentence is delusional in its optimism.
The second is perhaps more so, in that neither wind energy notr alcohol have any possibility of significant impact on America's energy needs. Burning corn for fuel will only raise the price of food.
Are you perchance a rancher hoping to use Green whackos to raise the price of beef? ;-)
And here we find Republicans like McCain and Schwartzenegger trying to make political hay with the GANG-GREEN vowell movement!!!
None of this legislation is likely to pass the Senate. We still do have 41 conservative senators.
(not sure what "notr" is)
I agree with the second half of your statement. I think it is ultimately a bad idea to have food and fuel be one and the same.
On the first half of your statement, I would wonder if you haven't had your head in the sand for since the 1970s. Windmills produce energy almost as cheaply as coal at around 3-5 cents/kwh at optimal conditions.
So you are way of on your information.
The major issue with wind is inconsistency, distance from market and ability to store it. These factors will and are being overcome everyday. Naturally they are very threatening to the power companies. For whom I would guess you are working and perhaps, given your spelling-police orientation, maybe for whom you are even writing propaganda and disinformation.
Essentially your statement says that since we cannot find alternatives and fossil fuels are by definition finite, our civilization is doomed. Amazing how to enviro-wacko left has taken the conservative mantle of optimism. I for one continue in the tradition on the conservative environmentalist and optimist about what can be achieved.
You my friend would have been warning Columbus that he would fall off the edge of the earth.
LEt's make sure I understand you. You think that an energy source that is undependable, intermittent, difficult and expensive to store, ad nauseam - this is better than nukes?
WHat is wrong with burning coal? What about the oil we have here?
Why is it wrong for America to stop paying inflated prices to Muslims when that money HAS, IS, AND WILL BE used to atttack us?
The Crusades are back, remember? They started it, too.
So, after wanting to lead America down the enviro-socialist prim rose path, you think I am paid by some cabal of fossil fuel burners?
YOU ARE RIGHT!
I burn fossil fuels. Every day, and I even pay others to do the deed for me all night, too! My Rangie runs on gas, not moombeams, star dust, or even the fumes from some bong.
Alcohol requires energy to distill, and unless the whole process is done with junk cellulose, the whole process is a trading of one form of energy for another with increased complexity and make work jobs being the main product.
As for my exploratory drive, and how I would have advised Columbus, consider that those who know me recognize that that drive is waaaaay overdeveloped, and my sailing friends know that.
PS One of them regularly competes in races like the St. ete/ Isla Mohares (sp) race.
As for the edge of the world bit, if you find it, let me know and I'll split the profits from the exclusive rights to the video of it with you.
PPS Beware of the many false premises parading under the rubric of "We gonna do GOOD!" Edmund Burke long ago stated that those loudest for the public good had it least at heart. As a past member of Sierra Club's FLEXCOM, trust me when I tell you that enviro "initiaves" are to increase membership, get votes, and also to assure the donation/bequest flow.
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