Governors Pushing Caps on Greenhouse Gases (Warner-Lieberman Bill)

Frustrated with the slow progress of energy and global warming legislation in Washington, the nation’s governors have created regional agreements to cap greenhouse gases and are engaged in a concerted lobbying effort to prod Congress to act.

Beginning Monday, three Western governors will appear in a nationwide television advertising campaign sponsored by an environmental group trying to generate public and political support for the climate change legislation now before the Senate.

The 30-second ad features Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican of California; Jon Huntsman Jr., Republican of Utah; and Brian Schweitzer, Democrat of Montana, standing in casual clothes in scenic locations talking about the threat posed by greenhouse gas emissions. The nation’s governors are acting, but Congress is not, they say. "Now it’s their turn," Mr. Schwarzenegger says.

Separately, in Milwaukee on Wednesday, nine Midwestern governors and the premier of Manitoba signed an agreement to reduce carbon emissions and set up a trading system to meet the reduction targets. The Midwestern accord is modeled on similar regional carbon-reduction and energy-saving arrangements among Northeastern, Southwestern and West Coast states.

The advertising campaign is underwritten by Environmental Defense, an advocacy group that is pressing for quick action on a climate change proposal ...

The Lieberman-Warner legislation would cap carbon emissions at 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and set up a system for polluting industries to trade emissions credits to meet the goals. ... it would provide incentives for research on capturing and storing carbon dioxide from power plants and subsidies to help the poor handle the higher costs of electricity in a carbon-constrained economy.

The bill is now before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. ...Senator Barbara Boxer, said she hoped to bring to bill to a vote of the full committee by Dec. 6. ...

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6940

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Environmental Defense recently endorsed a document called the Earth Charter, which blames capitalism for many of the world’s environmental, social, and economic problems. The Charter maintains that “the dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species. The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening.”

ED’s President is Fred Krupp, who was a member of President Bill Clinton’s Commission on Sustainable Development and served on Clinton’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.

ED receives financial support from the Vira I. Heinz Endowment, the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Bauman Family Foundation, the Beldon Fund, the Blue Moon Fund, the Bullitt Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America, the Energy Foundation, the Howard Heinz Endowment, the Heinz Family Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, and the Surdna Foundation.

Taxpayer-financed sources of revenue for ED include the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency, which give enormous sums of money to the organization. As of 2004, ED’s total net assets were $54.2 million.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1215921/posts

Environmental Defense, Inc (The Point)
News Central ^ | Sept 12, 2004 | Mark Hyman
Posted on 09/14/2004 2:00:51 PM PDT by Angry Republican

“If you ask me, it’d be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it.”

That very bizarre statement was said by Amory Lovins, who received a quarter of a million dollar Heinz Award for the Environment from the $1.24 billion war chest of foundation money that is controlled by Teresa Heinz Kerry. Such statements illustrate the irrational mindset of environmental extremists.

The Capital Research Center watchdog group reports that Heinz Kerry has been active in funding radical groups that have blocked U.S. efforts to achieve energy independence. In fact, Heinz Kerry has been a trustee of the extremist group Environmental Defense for 20 years and has served as vice-chair for the last 12. She has suspended her activities during her husband’s presidential race.

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