Disgusted Dem Puts Screws To Colleagues On Global Warming
Dingell
Wall Street Journal:
Usually Congressional subcommittee hearings are as routine and tedious as they sound, but John Dingell managed to enliven one on Thursday. The venerable Michigan Democrat had the candor to point out that if climate change is really the transcendent challenge his party says it is, then Congress should bother to pass legislation, not outsource policy to the Environmental Protection Agency.
For months, the little tyrants of the global warming caucus – Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey – have been trying to force the EPA into declaring that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant under current clean air laws, which could result in a cap-and-trade program by regulatory decree. Such posturing allows Democrats to display crocodile outrage and take credit for “leadership” on a popular goal, while shifting the blame for the costs of achieving it onto the EPA. In the bargain, it insulates them from political consequences and avoids the grubby business of actually crafting some global warming “solution.”
The charade is too much for Mr. Dingell, the Chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. Diverging from his prepared remarks, he said it was leading to “a glorious mess” and called the liberal bluff: “As a matter of national policy, it seems to me to be insane that we would be talking about leaving this kind of judgment, which everybody tells us has to be addressed with great immediacy, to a long and complex process of regulatory action.”
If the conclusion on CO2 is desperately self-evident for the EPA, Mr. Dingell suggested, then the same should be true for the Democratic majority – even more so. Regulating carbon involves “inherently political decisions that should be made by the Congress. It should not fall to EPA by default.”
Mr. Dingell also made a useful point about “the wonderful complexity” that would result assuming his colleagues got their way. If CO2 is regulated like a conventional pollutant under the 1970 Clean Air Act, it would trigger an economy-wide cascade of new rules and mandates. Just about everything that emits carbon would be affected, including cars, factories and power plants, but also farms, schools, hospitals, restaurants, office buildings, etc. Mr. Dingell was perhaps overstating his case when he said it had “the potential for shutting down or slowing down virtually all industry and all economic activity and growth,” but not by much.
Mr. Dingell sardonically emphasized that he supports regulating greenhouse-gas emissions in a “comprehensive, exhaustive, thoughtful and intelligent way.” But if he was only indulging what he views as a political inevitability, he also knows that the costs will fall disproportionately on some constituencies over others, most notably his blue-collar voters. His indiscretion underscored the separation between Democratic blandishments about painless global warming controls and the economic reality.
This isn’t the first time that Mr. Dingell has had some fun with the politics of global warming and drawn the wrath of Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the green lobby. Last year he proposed a carbon tax to force his fellow Democrats to be more truthful about their environmental artifices. He may be one of Congress’s last honest liberals.
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Last time I checked, Humans also emit carbon dioxide. Maybe the libs would like to save the world by offing themselves.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:18 pm“Waiting to Exhale” …
April 12th, 2008 at 1:27 pmAfter the hearing ordeal my firm went through with Dingell I could never characterize him as anything but another freaking self serving democrat political hack. But I keep repeating myself.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:47 pmBT THEN!! if they can’t legislate it… They will outsource it to the EPA and use the judicial system to get their way. Pussy’s!
April 12th, 2008 at 1:50 pmHonest Liberal? You spout oxymorons. Today’s liberals are as dishonest as the Clintons.
April 12th, 2008 at 2:02 pmI think the “honest liberal” label was one of sheer relativity.
April 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pmAnd I don’t mind seeing the paint peel off the Democrat wall because party members are busy in-fighting or exposing each other.
April 12th, 2008 at 2:45 pmRemove CO2 from the planet and the “Greens” would become the “Browns”.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:17 pmThis is the biggest farce ever created by a bunch of worthless politicians who go to their office everyday and find a mole hill in the middle. They then proceed to use the entire day to make a mountain out of it.
Global warming is a farce. Democrats plan to use it as an excuse to create more bullshit committees to dictate policy and raise costs. News flash, the earth climate is cooling, not warming.
Al Gore and his science is a big farce. He is just out to cash in by using his influence on his Democrat pals to change the rules. They will committee, make policy,regulate and raise factory costs and taxes and the American Citizens will pay for it.. Biggest cow pattie ever flopped on an unassuming public.
Al Gores should do the right thing and give back The Nobel Prize. Hollywood should ask for their Oscar back.
April 12th, 2008 at 5:53 pmAS WE ALL KNOW, PLANTS BREATH CO-2 TO SURVIVE.
April 13th, 2008 at 5:57 amTHESE DUMB SHITS WILL KILL US ALL.