Would you sign a contract for how much you’ll be paid 40 years from now? Unless you were independently wealthy and could care less, of course not—because you have no idea how to gauge the purchasing power of that income in some future society. You have no way to guess what life will be like then, given the rapid changes you’ve seen just in the past decade alone. So it would be insane to bind yourself to a future salary a decade from today, let alone in 2050.
It would also be foolish to sign a contract that obligates you to limit how much you spend on food and transportation.
So why are world leaders rushing to sign a contract for how much their countries can emit–from nature and all of life’s activities–in 2050 by as much as 50% below 1990 levels? They have no idea what life will be like then—especially now that science and scientists are being called into question. Even if politics is not part of the scientific equation then, in all likelihood we could have the technology we need to make emission caps moot.
Even if the U.S. doesn’t sign a new ‘Kyoto II’ agreement in Copenhagen next week, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation to constrain American life to the tune of more than a household spends on groceries every year for eight years.
The problem with countering insanity, it’s been said, is that insane people think they are sane, so they keep on doing what they’ve been doing no matter the evidence.
Let’s hope enough sane leaders are going to Copenhagen who have the courage to say “the sky is falling” on climate hype, and demand we rethink this gambit through.
According to the Politico, “Barbara Boxer plans to bypass Republicans on climate vote.” Committee Republicans have refused to a markup of the Kerry-Boxer (S.1733) global warming bill because EPA has not conducted a full analysis of the legislation. Committee rules prevent Boxer (D-CA), who chairs the committee, from moving forward with a markup if at least two minority Senators are present. Committee precedent also prevents her from reporting a bill out off committee.
At 8:30 this morning, the EPW website announced the committee would indeed meet this morning, which indicated Boxer may be ready to ignore decades of committee precedent and report out the Kerry-Boxer bill. The procedural gambit gets complicated though, because committee rules prevent amendments from being considered without minority participation. According to E&E News PM (subs. req’d.), Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) acknowledged this difficulty:
Let me put it this way, I don’t know a way to take up an amendment without two Republicans present. That’s been the problem.”
That means that Democrats on the committee who expressed serious concerns over the 925-page chairman’s mark would not have an opportunity to debate and vote on their amendments. During last week’s hearings, Senator Baucus (D-MT) expressed his concerns, saying:
I have some concerns about the overall direction of the bill before us today, and whether it will lead us closer to or further away from passing climate change legislation. For example, I have serious reservations with the depth of the mid-term reduction target in the bill and the lack of preemption of the Clean Air Act’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.”
Baucus submitted 11 amendments to the chairman’s mark, including six of which dealt with the bill’s stringency or the role of the EPA. Despite such concerns, Senator Boxer did indeed move forward, reporting the bill out of committee. None of the Republicans were present, and Baucus was the only one to vote against the bill.
Boxer’s actions appear to have violated decades of precedent and despite the “success” of reporting a bill out of committee, the path forward seems very uncertain.