'Paign, Management

Industry launches campaign against Lieberman-Warner climate bill

Posted at 8:05 AM on 20 Mar 2008

Energy industry and business trade groups have launched a concerted campaign against the Lieberman-Warner climate bill. The bill, which would establish a cap-and-trade system to reduce U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, is much less stringent than some other climate bills in Congress, but Lieberman-Warner is so far the only one to pass out of committee; it's scheduled for a Senate vote in June. Industry and business groups are sponsoring a 17-state anti-climate-bill tour to head off the legislation. The centerpiece of the roadshow is an industry-funded study stressing huge job losses and energy price hikes due to the bill. Also this week, some 70 conservative and religious leaders wrote a letter to senators urging them not to support the Lieberman-Warner bill, describing it as "a vain attempt to change global average temperatures." The letter also characterized the bill as economically catastrophic and questioned the reality of climate change, declaring that even if climate change is real, the warming so far is negligible and "may be beneficial" to humans.

sources: Associated Press, Associated Press

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Comments: (5 comments)

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warming may be beneficial?

Can someone please inform these people that climate change is not only about temperature? Are droughts or floods beneficial?

by freeztar at 11:37 AM on 20 Mar 2008

Brain damage

Are these conservative and religious leaders brain damaged?Scientist all over the world have confirmed that the earth is warming.I can't see how rising ocean levels,increased flooding,loss of crops due to higher temperatures and less rainfall,and harsher hurricanes doesn't constitute a disaster for the human race.Maybe they think that god is only kidding and that god will not wipe out or at least reduce the population of the earth.Don't they read the papers or do any research to find out the real facts?They sound like a bunch of pollyannas.
There will be wars over food,water,and energy.There will be political upheavals and they can pray or look the other way until god comes down from heaven and it still won't stop global warming.

Why not ask why!?

by usandthem at 11:40 AM on 20 Mar 2008

There was a small typo:

Global warming may be beneficial to SOME people (at some time, just not most people most times, and the bad times might kill you.)

by catman at 7:30 PM on 20 Mar 2008

the letter

I read the letter and its wrong on many fronts: There will be job gains, not job losses by shifting to a green economy. Re Economic growth, even the Bushwhacked EPA, says that economic growth by 2050 with the L-W bill will be only 1% less than it would otherwise have been. Re. extra food costs of $20 billion - do those lunatics have any idea what this country spends in Iraq in just one month? They give no references for their so called "climate data" so it sounds like one of those bogus references to me. All in all, its a pathetic attempt by a bunch of reactionaries to cling to their outdated beliefs (and outmoded lifestyle I might add)

cheers

by snedunuri at 10:31 AM on 29 Mar 2008

let's put this in perspective.

Before I begin, let me say: I am just as angry as you are about the lack of political clout the environmentalists have had in recent years, and it irked me to no end when I read about people denying the existence of global warming. It's undoubtedly the most important issue facing us today.

BUT, keep this in mind: the Lieberman-Warner bill is not necessarily going to fix anything, or at least not fast enough. If half of the info in this blog is correct (http://energysmart.wordpress.com/2008/01/30/voicing-reaso ...) the bill was half-assed to begin with. Surely we should try to educate people who are ignorant, and fight against those who are just plain greedy, but let's get upset when the future bills that will actually help something are being heavily contested. The motive for shooting this bill down is what's upsetting (of course it's preposterous to think that climate change is in any way beneficial), not the bill itself. Not implemented until 2012, and giving away billions of dollars to polluters instead of making them pay NOW for the rights to contribute to the problem? This is how it's phrased: "Provides for the distribution of emission allowances, including initially giving allowances to: (1) specified owners and operators of covered facilities; (2) states; (3) load-serving entities that deliver electricity to retail consumers; (4) the Secretary of Agriculture to reduce GHG emissions in the agriculture and forestry sectors; (5) international forest protection activities; and (6) the Emission Allowance Account for covered facilities in the electric power and industrial sectors." (found at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN02191:@@@L ...).

Now look at #6. The biggest polluter -- the producers of electricity -- are being given allowances by two guys who support McCain? This is a soft bill, if that other blog is even close to accurate, so let's focus our anger and attention where it really counts... when Bush is no longer president.

In conclusion, I move that we start a national campaign to have the future newly-elected Obama get down on one knee and beg Al Gore to be his Secretary of Energy.

by greecyspen at 12:33 PM on 11 May 2008

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