U.S. Senate climate warming hearing delayed until July (when it will be hot)

Reuters Environmental News Service ^ | June 20, 2002

[cogitator]

US Senate climate warming hearing delayed until July

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats said yesterday they would postpone a hearing on global warming until July, when Bush administration officials have promised to clarify if the president agrees with a recent report concluding that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities were the main cause of global warming.

The report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency caused a stir because it aligned the administration for the first time with scientists who believe car emissions, and pollution from power plants and oil refineries are to blame for rising global temperatures.

Previously, President George W. Bush had maintained there was not enough scientific evidence to prove human activities were the main cause. The president raised more questions when he dismissed the report as a product of the federal "bureaucracy."

The Democratic-led Senate Commerce Committee had scheduled a hearing for Thursday to determine if Bush and his top aides supported the new EPA report.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a member of the panel, said the Thursday hearing was postponed until July after the administration said top officials from the EPA, Commerce Department and White House were not available to testify.

"Because of several conflicting statements from the White House and the agencies there is a great deal of confusion over the administration's policy," Kerry said in a statement.

"We need to hear from senior officials and not, as the president says, the 'bureaucracy'," he added.

EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said last week she was not aware of the climate change report until it was sent to the United Nations and published on her agency's web site.

Bush, a former Texas oilman, has said he favors incentives and market-based programs to encourage voluntary pollution cuts by U.S. power plants. The president has been criticized by the European Union, as well as Democrats, for not doing enough to reduce carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming.

Environmental issues are expected to play an important role in many of the November congressional elections that will determine control of the House and Senate.

[cogitator]

It would seem that at least one thing is clear here: Christie Todd is not paying attention.

[Thebaddog]

Nobody will be around to hear the hot air. This is a small victory.

[Jack Wilson]

The unseasonably cool weather would have interfered with some of the planned outdoor activities.

[Reeses]

How much carbon dioxide creation can be attributed to wild fires, especially Colorado's largest ever, started by a federal employee? Should highways or off road and motorcycle paths be built through national forests to create fire breaks, prevent global warming?

[cinFLA]

It would seem that at least one thing is clear here: Christie Todd is not paying attention.

Or was blind-sided on purpose.

[My Identity]

Kyoto Paradox I:
Climate is an extremely complex, chaotic, coupled, non-linear, time-dependent system
with massive, external, naturally-occuring inputs and wide variability in measurables.
Therefore,
To say we can control it by tweaking a small set of factors is ridiculous on its face.

Kyoto Paradox II:
Climate is an extremely complex, chaotic, coupled, non-linear, time-dependent system
with massive, external, naturally-occuring inputs and wide variability in measurables.
Therefore,
You can no more successfully predict the outcome of doing something than you can of
not doing something. In other words, the impact of trying to "fix" a climate "problem"
is as unpredictable as the impact of ignoring it.

[Ben Ficklin]

ping

[Argus]

Maybe the Dems got a look at this week's London SPECTATOR feature article laying out the abundant evidence that the globe is about to experience a new Ice Age.