Category: Miscellaneous

Democrats are trying yet another name change in their quest to cripple the American economy with greenhouse gas regulations.

Sen. John Kerry announced last week that the Senate climate bill due out this week will be a “pollution reduction” bill not a “cap-and-trade” bill. According to E&E Daily, Kerry said,

“I don’t know what ‘cap and trade’ means. I don’t think the average American does. This is not a cap-and-trade bill, it’s a pollution reduction bill.”

So the Democrats have gone from “global warming” to “climate change” to “clean energy” because the public doesn’t buy what they’re selling. Now they’re jettisoning “cap-and-trade” hoping that some other name will stick to the wall.

While Democrats can call economically disastrous carbon caps whatever they want, they can’t buff the cap-and-trade turd or any other carbon cap regime into a public policy popsicle.

Hey John, why don’t you just call it the “Free Candy for Everybody Act of 2009”?

Democrats are trying yet another name change in their quest to cripple the American economy with greenhouse gas regulations.

Sen. John Kerry announced last week that the Senate climate bill due out this week will be a “pollution reduction” bill not a “cap-and-trade” bill. According to E&E Daily, Kerry said,

“I don’t know what ‘cap and trade’ means. I don’t think the average American does. This is not a cap-and-trade bill, it’s a pollution reduction bill.”

So the Democrats have gone from “global warming” to “climate change” to “clean energy” because the public doesn’t buy what they’re selling. Now they’re jettisoning “cap-and-trade” hoping that some other name will stick to the wall.

While Democrats can call economically disastrous carbon caps whatever they want, they can’t buff the cap-and-trade turd or any other carbon cap regime into a public policy popsicle.

Hey John, why don’t you just call it the “Free Candy for Everybody Act of 2009”?

… these are words that go together well…

… based on this Dana Milbank-article in today’s Washington Post about Michelle Obama shutting down blocks of Washington, D.C. so that she can pose as shopper of over-priced “organic” groceries at a local market — $5 for a dozen eggs?

Milbank’s article is must-reading if you haven’t already shaken your head in disgust today at the Obama administration.

Democratic legislators in New York want to give ACORN part of the $112 million that the state has raised from the sale of carbon allowances through the Northeastern Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

ACORN is the “community organizer” enterprise that has been exposed by Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck as little more than a ground-based campaign for socializing America.

According to a report in ClimateWire:

… Groups like ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, would receive some of the $112 million in carbon revenue to train workers in weatherization programs and to enroll residents in the programs.

“The organizations, such as ACORN, that would be eligible to receive this money were strong political supporters of the very same people that were pushing to get the bill passed,” said Mark Hansen, a spokesman for Republican state Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, who voted against the measure.

Skelos sent a letter yesterday to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo asking him to freeze all state money going to ACORN and its local affiliate, citing the U.S. Senate’s vote on an amendment Monday to deny the group federal housing grants. The vote came after two ACORN employees were videotaped in Baltimore giving tax advice to two actors posing as a pimp and prostitute…

Imagine how much money Democrats would funnel to ACORN if a national cap-and-tax regime is enacted.

The ad below was developed by the World Wildlife Fund, allegedly in an attempt to dramatize the death toll from the  2004 Asian tsunami. The ad’s caption reads:

“The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it. www.wwf.org.

Thw WWF’s message is, of course, a subliminal warning about the much-dreaded global warming.

Following the Asian tsunami, I wrote a column for FoxNews.com — “Enviros Surf Tsunami Tragedy” — pointing out how the greens were trying to exploit the tragedy by linking the tsunami to global warming.

The greens complained to FoxNews.com about my column to no avail. (See note at end of column.)

Now, more than four years after the tragedy, the greens are still lyin’ and denyin’.

Click here for the story in The Guardian.

Missouri utilities say the Waxman-Markey climate bill will cause electricity prices to spike in 2012, according to an August 31 letter to Sen. Roy Blount (R-MO).

The letter says that rates:

• Would increase 12-26% in 2012
• May go up as high as 50% before utilities switch into gas
• May goes up by as much as 77% after utilities switch to gas

Missouri electricity is currently 80% coal-generated.

Unfortunately, they suggest six ways to improve Waxman-Markey, including more free allowances, more time, price caps, emergency off-ramps, fewer restrictions on offsets.

The creator of the cap-and-trade concept told the Wall Street Journal that he doubts the scheme will work for greenhouse gas emissions. According to the article:

Mr. [Thomas] Crocker sees two modern-day problems in using a cap-and-trade system to address the global greenhouse-gas issue. The first is that carbon emissions are a global problem with myriad sources. Cap-and-trade, he says, is better suited for discrete, local pollution problems. “It is not clear to me how you would enforce a permit system internationally,” he says. “There are no institutions right now that have that power.”…

The other problem, Mr. Crocker says, is that quantifying the economic damage of climate change — from floods to failing crops — is fraught with uncertainty…

“Once a cap is in place,” he warns, “it is very difficult to adjust.” For example, buyers of emissions permits would see their value reduced if the government decided in the future to loosen the caps…

Crocker’s last point is more correctly expressed as there being a great deal of uncertainty about whether climate change is necessarily a bad thing. A slightly warming planet, after all, is most likely much more desirable than a slightly cooling planet.

From the Daily Telegraph:

It looks as though Al Gore will need to work on controlling public opinion rather than greenhouse gases.

Global warming alarmism and support for greenhouse gas regulation is slipping in eco-cidal California, according to a new survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.

According to the survey media release:

Most residents (66%) support the 2006 California law (AB 32) that requires greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020. Support has declined 7 points from July 2008 (73%) and 12 points from 2007 (78%). The decline is sharpest among Republicans (57% 2008, 43% today).

While most see global warming as a threat (47% very serious, 28% somewhat serious) to the economy and quality of life in the state, the percentage of residents who categorize the threat as very serious has declined over the past two years (54% 2007, 52% 2008, 47% today.) Residents are divided over whether the state government should take action to reduce emissions right away (48%) or wait until the economy and state budget situation improve (46%). In July 2008, when the plan to implement AB 32 was being discussed, a majority (57%) said the government should adopt it right away rather than wait (36%).

“Californians clearly support policies to improve the environment,” says Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of PPIC. “But in the current economic climate their support has dropped a notch.”

The Climate Protection Action Fund, a subsidiary of Al Gore’s Repower America, paid $60,000 to the Glover Park Group during the second quarter of 2009 for lobbying on Waxman-Markey.

We earlier reported that Al Gore’s venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, paid $100,000 in lobbying fees so far in 2009.

Al Gore failed to disclose any of this when he testified in April before Congress in favor of Waxman-Markey.

Click here for the CPAF lobbying report.

ClimateWire reports that a Gore spokesman failed to respond to several requests for comment. No matter. Had the Gore camp responded, it likely would have been with a face similar to that below, when Al Gore denied at the April House hearing that he had any business relationship with Goldman Sachs.

WASHINGTON, July 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — President Obama’s nominee to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), David Michaels, should be grilled by the U.S. Senate about his links to trial lawyers and other anti-science activist groups, JunkScience.com says. Continue reading Obama OSHA Pick Supports Junk Science in Courts and Public Policy; Senate Should Probe Links With Trial Lawyers, Radical Environmentalists