Noted atmospheric scientist and Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Paul Krugman, has a rant in the New York Times today saying that House members — the “deniers” who voted against the pork-filled energy bill — were guilty of “treason against the planet.”
As Krugman wrote:
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.
He must have been watching a different debate. I was most taken with the fact that the Democrats didn’t seem at all perturbed about voting on a bill with 300 pages of amendments missing. But the Republicans were, and repeatedly asked how they were supposed to vote on a bill that no one had read in its entirety.
But no, Krugman didn’t think that the Dems were acting irresponsibly in blatantly bribing recalcitrant Members to vote “aye” to get the necessary votes for a bill that would drastically restrict energy use, increase energy prices, subsidize every remote technology favored by Dems’ constituents, and, incidentally, would have a negligible effect on the earth’s temperature.
He was too busy ranting about “the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial.” In his apocalyptic view:
. . . the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.
Note: Krugman is not an atmospheric scientist and did not receive a Nobel Prize for Physics.
In the wake of the release of the Waxman-Markey energy bill, many commenters have pointed to the drastic restrictions on domestic energy use to address greenhouse gas emissions, while some, like CEI, have pointed to the huge economic costs that would result — costs that would be paid for by consumers and in terms of reduced manufacturing and jobs. Few have noted a further economic consequence — the possible disruption of the world trading system because of the bill’s endorsement of carbon border taxes on imports from countries that don’t have an energy-repressive regime. Here’s what CEI’s Iain Murray has to say about that:
The bill as drafted clears the way for carbon protectionism. It envisages “rebates” to companies that have to pay higher costs than their international competitors, which amounts to illegal state aid under WTO rules. Further, it directs the President to institute what is laughably called a ‘border adjustment’ program requiring foreign companies to pay for the cost of carbon. This is nothing more than a tariff aimed at eliminating the competitive advantage of other nations. Taken together, these provisions represent the first shot in what is likely to prove a disastrous carbon trade war.
Margo Thorning of the American Council for Capital Formation and Bill Kovacs of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce provide hard and realistic criticism of carbon border taxes in National Journal’s Experts Blogs this week.
I have a post up about the terrible energy bill currently before Congress on The Hill’s Congress Blog. The teaser:
The Energy Bill currently under consideration in Congress is being widely touted as a compromise, because it includes some provision for drilling. The implication is that House Democrats, bombarded with complaints from their constituents over high energy prices this summer, have bowed to the inevitable and reached out to their Republican opponents to agree on a new dawn for drilling in the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth. The bill is simply a rehash of old measures aimed at making affordable energy more expensive, fronted by a bait-and-switch on drilling.
Much more detail over there.
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