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POPSClimate Bill ‘Radioactive’ -‘More Controversial Than Health Care’ “People forget what life is in the middle of the country, and I think that’s what we’re trying to talk about.” Reuters: McCain Assails Senate Democrats' Climate Bill (09/29/09) CQ: Senate Floor Action Unlikely Until Next Year (09/29/09) Energy Daily: Dems Worry about Impacts on Economy, Manufacturing, and Employment Back Home (09/30/09) Reuters: Long Road, Little Time for U.S. Climate Bill (09/29/09) AP: Senate Climate Bill Tougher than House Version (09/29/09) Politico: “Bill Dodges Some of the Most Contentious Issues” (09/30/09) Congress Daily: Dem: "I am not committed to cap and trade at this point under any circumstances," (09/30/09) E&E News: Boxer-Kerry Bill Draws “Mixed Reviews” By Senators (09/30/09) Washington Times: Senate Climate Bill Stricter on Emissions (09/29/09) http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=0b023b35-802a-23ad-49da-f4c4f8d823a6&Issue_id=
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POPSWhat The White House's Public Plan "Retreat" Really Means
That's why Senate Democrats felt free to explore the cooperative option in the first place. To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced that HHS Sec. Sebelius and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on television today in order to say anything about the public plan. Yesterday, Obama himself admitted that the public plan ain't really what the bill is about. The White House DID play up the potential cost-cutting that a public plan might, sometime down the road, produce. Afterall, given the political environment at the time they first started to argue about health care, they had no choice: the public, Democrats in Congress were mouths-agape about the deficit. In polling and focus groups, cost works well. And the public option -- combined with the handy-dandy IMAC price commission proposal -- are curve-benders. Before the health care debate began in earnest, I can tell you that very senior White House officials believed that some form of public plan was absolutely necessary to . . .
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POPSPrinceton Physicist Congress Stopping Climate Change is Hilarious “The idea that Congress can stop climate change would be just hilarious if the actions they propose were not so damaging to the American people and even more to the poorer people of the world,” Happer said. “The so-called facts they are getting are just not true,” Happer explained. “ This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. As our Congressmen learn more about the facts, they will change their minds” and reject man-made climate fears. 'CO2 is not a pollutant' - Earth in 'CO2 famine' Happer noted that “CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is essential for life.” He added that the Earth will “be a better place with more CO2.” Happer testified before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on February 25, 2009 . . .
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POPSEPA Admits Cap and Trade Won't Work Sen. Inhofe said. “With China and India recently issuing statements of defiant opposition to mandatory emissions controls, acting alone through the job-killing Waxman-Markey bill would impose severe economic burdens on American consumers, businesses, and families, all without any impact on climate.” Getting China and India on board with a carbon reduction plan is highly unlikely. Even then, a multilateral approach does not guarantee a successful system or the ultimate goal of global temperature reduction. Take a look at Europe: The experience of the European Union is Exhibit A. Emissions targets were set too high. Too many pollution allowances were given away to industry. The value of a carbon credit plummeted. Companies made windfall profits by charging customers more for energy while selling allowances they didn’t need. And the Europeans have not had much success reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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POPSI Demand Respect, General, "Could you say 'senator'?" "Why do some liberals apparently despise our military?" DeVore asks in a statement on his campaign's Web site. He says the use of "ma'am" is "a perfectly acceptable sign of military respect to both a U.S. senator or a senior female officer." Republican critics in the blogosphere and elsewhere are excoriating Boxer. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., called Boxer "a loose cannon" and an embarrassment to her party. "I just can't put up with that kind of thing when people think too much of themselves, and we see a lot of that in Washington," DeMint told Fox News Channel. Boxer is scum. California's beleaguered taxpayers would do well to throw her out on her kiester at the next available opportunity.
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POPSBoxer Predicts Climate Bill 'In Weeks' Not much to add here, other than it's welcome news. Although, if Democrats and the administration are as big a bunch of wusses about this as they have been about the stimulus, Boxer's prediction might just be sunny optimism. Here's hoping Obama realizes that bipartisanship is a two-way street and, if Republicans don't want to join in, there's nothing he can do to wise them up. He doesn't need them and bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship is actually pretty damned worthless. It's much better to actually get things done. Especially when voters gave you an honest-to-God mandate.
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POPSEU Climate Plan Cut to Shreds This was a predictable result. Almost two years ago, CEI president Fred Smith testified before the U. S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and warned that cap-and-trade is a lobbyists’ dream, because its complexity creates ample space to negotiate concessions for individual companies.
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POPSSenate Leadership Forgives Lieberman "It's a resolution of reconciliation and not retribution...I appreciate it," Joementum is reported as saying. For those of you keeping track of these sorts of things, the Democratic congressional leadership has established that nothing you do, no matter how shitty and disloyal, will get you kicked out of the party. From the same leadership who established the principle that there's no such thing as an impeachable offense, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Seems bass-ackward to me, though -- he loses the seat where he was doing good work and keeps the position where he can do the most harm. This stands a good chance of biting us all in the ass down the road.
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POPS$500 Billion Highway Bill Ahead? National Journal's Lisa Caruso does a nice overview of a brewing Beltway battle. We touched on the topic here: http://www.forbes.com/beltway/2008/05/21/washington-lobbying-transportation-biz-wash-cz_atg_0521beltway.html By the way, we mentioned a handful of stocks in that story - on average, those stocks have done horribly since.
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POPSComparisons Obama v. Palin are Dopey "If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, you've got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do so because your state is the closest state to Russia." But, hey, I love it when she winks at me.
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POPSPalin: some comic relief
If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless." A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick." If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organization from a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000,then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African American voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced. I f you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of
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POPSObama's Senate service, Part 2 Especially focused on foreign policy and veterans' affairs; becomes chair of Foreign Relations' Committee's subcommittee for European Affairs.
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POPS4 Senate Dems urge EPA chief to resign I've watched this foot-dragging, Bush's-ass-kissing hack testify on C-SPAN and he is one of the most frustratingly not-so-subtle stonewallers ever to grace a Congressional hearing.
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POPSWill Reid Bring A Vote To Open New Areas For Exploration “Some people are just scared of the accusation that not leasing more acres has an impact on oil prices,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, a senior Democrat from Oregon. “It just doesn’t.” Democratic lawmakers say the Reid-Bingaman proposal seems to be gaining momentum, though these same sources questioned whether Pelosi would schedule it for a vote in the House. But Pelosi has balked at scheduling any drilling legislation for a regular floor vote because that would give Republicans an opportunity to force vulnerable Democratic incumbents to vote on difficult amendments. Votes against expanded drilling would open Democrats to accusations that they had blocked efforts to lower record gas prices. Votes for Republican amendments to encourage more drilling, however, would anger environmental activists. Republicans are demanding votes on several amendments and have pledged to block Democrats from moving to other issues until drilling receives floor votes.
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POPSSpencer Before The Senate A few days ago, Dr. Roy Spencer gave testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer. To say his testimony wasn't at all what she wanted to hear, would be an understatement. Spencer doesn't descend to the level of many of his opponents and call Forster a 'denier' or a 'heretic'. Unlike them, apparently, he has some confidence in the soundness of the science backing his position. Obviously when that's the case, there's no real reason to resort to that sort of nonsense, is there? Or, shorter version, "you politicians need to sit back and relax until the science is is complete on this, but there are indications enough to doubt the initial take on all of this and policy shouldn't be implemented that may be both costly and unnecessary". Naturally Congress, which is up to its armpits in costly and unnecessary legislation is unlikely heed that warning unless enough of a ruckus is raised to make them.
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POPSCheney's office corrupts EPA regulations Officials with the White House and Cheney's office requested the removal of "any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change," wrote Burnett, who declined to tell reporters who specifically called for the changes. Burnett's letter also details efforts by the administration to influence the EPA's response to the U.S. Supreme Court's April 2007 decision in the case of Massachusetts vs EPA. The ruling requires the agency determine whether greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health. An "endangerment" finding would require the EPA to take action to regulate and limit greenhouse gas emissions.
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POPSClimate Bill Underlines Obstacles environmental activists, resent having to vote for anything authored by Lieberman in light of his active support of the presidential bid of GOP Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). And several senators are questioning why they are being asked to vote on a lengthy substitute version of the bill that Boxer and her allies just introduced a week and a half ago. "This is just a money grab," said James E. Rogers, the chief executive of Duke Energy. Rogers says he supports a cap-and-trade system but argues that this bill raises too much revenue from coal users while diverting too much of it to other purposes. "Only the mafia could create an organization that would skim money off the top the way this legislation would skim money off the top," he said. Duke, with customers in Ohio, Indiana and the Carolinas, relies heavily on coal-fired plants.
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POPSAnalysis of Lieberman-Warner Reveals Massive Economic Pain EIA also found Lieberman-Warner would result in up to a 9.5% drop in manufacturing output by 2030. “Despite this gloomy EIA analysis, proponents of Lieberman-Warner are still claiming the bill will not impose economic harm to America. Only in Washington could higher energy prices be characterized as not negatively impacting the U.S. economy. If Democrats have their way, Americans will pay significantly more at the pump, in their homes, and in many cases, with their jobs, all to accomplish an undetectable impact on the climate. “The question now is which U.S. Senator will dare to stand on the Senate Floor a month from now to vote in favor of significantly increasing the price of gas at the pump?” Both government and private sector analysis have shown the cost of the Lieberman-Warner bill to be extremely painful.
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POPSCarbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who is shepherding climate legislation through the Senate as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the new findings "make it clear we must ACT NOW to address global warming." "It won't be easy, given the makeup of the Senate, but the science is compelling," she said. "It is hard for me to see how my colleagues can duck this issue and live with themselves." The Earth has already warmed by 0.76 degrees Celsius (nearly 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Most scientists warn that a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) could have serious consequences.
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POPS Still Recycling The Discredited Conspiracy Theory The hundreds of others in the report — climatologists, oceanographers, geologists, glaciologists, physicists and paleoclimatologists — voice varying degrees of criticism of the popular global-warming theory. Their testimony challenges the idea that the climate-change debate is "settled" and runs counter to the claim that the number of skeptical scientists is dwindling. "Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media," atmospheric scientist Nathan Paldor, professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said in the report. Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb
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POPSSenate Debates “Planetary Emergency” As Snow Falls Nothing inspires taking on the “planetary emergency” of global warming like the first snow of the winter in Washington, D.C “We look around right now and see the snow on the trees – standing out here and say ‘Where is global warming when you need it?’” Sen. James Inhofe (R.-Okla.) said to the Business & Media Institute. Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the EPW Committee, said he was optimistic the bill wouldn’t make it into law, despite overwhelming support from committee members.
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POPSStumbling Into Democracy The legislative Dems, while not full fledged vertebrates yet, have shown signs of awakening. This spit in King Bush's eye is a start. Yet there is wonder among many Democrats what exactly the plan is? They want action, and they want it now. This burying of the Impeachment Resolution has pissed off a lot of Dems and this doesn't really make up for what is perceived as too much politicking and not enough doing. Now the wait is on for what's to follow. It doesn't appear that the leadership will listen yet to the people's voice.
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