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Just a very small sampling of people that worked to get this historic bill passed through the House. It's a step in the right direction, but there's still a long ways to go.
Environmental Defense Fund compiled 10 of the most outrageous comments from the floor last week. Yes, they're bizarre. But, it's important to keep in mind that we are very likely to see much more of this as the bill moves to the Senate.
10) "Wake up, America. There hasn't been any global warming, which is what we heard over and over and over again – there hasn't been any global warming for 10 years." – Rep. Dana Rohrabacker (R-CA)
No warming for 10 years? Well, not exactly true. 1998 was the 2nd hottest year on record while 2008 was only the 8th hottest. So, if you only look at those two years, you might assume there hasn't been any warming. But, 2005 was the hottest year on record and the warmest decade on record is 1998 through 2008. The trends are clear. The planet is warming. Period.
9) "You want to talk about a massive new welfare program for energy? It's in here too… It's a whole new welfare program for energy." – Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR)
If you want to talk welfare, what about the hundreds of billions the oil, gas and coal industries have received in subsidies and tax breaks over the years?
8) "God has put us on this Earth as responsible stewards of these resources, and we ought to use them responsibly. This bill does not do it. In fact, it does nothing good. The only meaningful thing that it might do is provide a relatively meaningless photo op for our President in December in Copenhagen as he stands to brag about what America has done while the leaders of India and China laugh at us behind his back." – Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX)
We look forward to working with Rep. Conaway to strengthen this bill and to fight for the strongest possible international global warming treaty later this year.
7) "Energy producing states like Oklahoma will be economically punished and devastated." – Rep Tom Cole (R-OK)
Rep. Cole should have a look at climate models showing that Oklahoma could spend nearly the entire summer with 100+ temperatures by the end of the century. Talk about devastating.
6) "We should not be the first lemming to jump off the cliff." – Rep. Doc Hasting (R-WA)
That's an interesting point given that the U.S. is the only industrial country in the world that never ratified the Kyoto global warming treaty and that much of Europe is operating under a carbon cap right now.
5) "[For some, this bill is an] economic death sentence." – Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
As opposed to the current economy in which we are held hostage by our reliance on foreign oil and in which only last summer we saw gas prices exceed $4/gallon.
4) "The whole point of cap-and-trade is to make fossil fuels, or 85 percent of the energy we consume, more expensive." – Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
No, the point of this bill is to cap global warming pollution, put Americans back to work building out our clean energy future, and free us from our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.
3) "Do you want to throw away the economic prosperity for nothing, because that's what this bill does. And for what, to satisfy the twisted desires of radical environmentalists." – Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)
With millions of Americans out of work and the economy in recession, it might not be the best time to talk about "throwing away our economic prosperity" or to support the status quo.
2) "[This will bring us back to] hunting and gathering." – Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)
Yeah, when we look at solar panels, hybrids and windmills, that's exactly what comes to mind – hunting and gathering societies.
1) "The idea of human induced global climate change is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated out of the scientific community. It is a hoax… We need to be good stewards of our environment, but this is not it, it’s a hoax!" – Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA)
A global conspiracy involving thousands of scientists taking tens of thousands of measurements on everything ranging from ice core samples to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to sea level rise, hundreds of governments around the world working to address global warming pollution, dozens of science academies that have endorsed the reality of global warming and urged action, as well as hundreds of millions of people around the world who have joined the movement to promote global warming action.
And, we're all coordinating our activities to push this hoax because…?
I'm not sure if I'd call it a "small step", more of a "confused glance" in the right direction.
i still don't get how we can have a landslide midterm elections, a landslide presidential election, another landslide congressional election and we're still at the "well let's at least try to pass something" stage
Oh please, OK granted they probably didn't read the 1200 page bill themselves personally, that's what they have assistants and researchers for. To read it and summaries it.
Regardless, after embarrassing the hell out of ourselves for the last 8 years to the rest of the world population, it great to show we're not some slim bag maniacal imperialist society bent on world domination. It's going to take alot to dig out from where we are, but at least we have the support of the rest of the world. Most of it anyway.
User1 responding to a comment by asparagus
07.1.09 - 4:20 pm
What I'm worried about are all the small businesses and transportation companies that might have to make cutbacks in order to counter any fines or new equipment brought on by following regulation change
Trucking companies are already having to switch over to clean Diesel technology to get into most ports.
However, independent drivers and owners of smaller companies could very well be forced to lay off drivers, or shut their doors altogether due to the exorbitant prices replacing an entire fleet would entail.
Clean burning Diesels with advanced, particle filtration aren't exactly cheap and rebates could only cover so much.
There's also the whole idea of prohibitive truck-parking and idling laws that both affect a drivers pocketbook.
Environmentally impactive to a degree, but that's more of a NIMBY issue that crept into other facets of the social-ills realm.
Then there's the original idea of thinking energy needs and delivery/production methods could be changed overnight.
Coal, while dirty, is plentiful and relies on relatively simple technology to burn.
With many plants already in existence, we should do what we can to keep these open and clean burning while getting the renewables in place to take over the load when ready.
Diesel exhaust is responsible for 71 percent of the cancer risk from air pollution in the state of California. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach account for more than 25 percent of the cancer-causing diesel exhaust in the region, and emissions have gone up at least 20 percent since 2001. Cancer risk maps show the results vividly: The susceptibility to cancer from air pollution is evident throughout the Los Angeles Basin, but it concentrates alarmingly around the ports, along freeways heavily used by container trucks, and in the inland warehouse and rail yard districts that are the trucks' most frequent destinations. The California Air Resources Board released a report in 2006 that calculated the annual toll of premature deaths attributable to the movement of goods. The number was 2,400 statewide, or six deaths per day.
I'm already well aware of this, but until we have an alternative in place to either retrain or reroute drivers into other areas, we'll have to roll with the punches.
Only idea I could think of would be to find a relatively, abandoned area of coastline and redesignate that as a port.
As far as truck-yards as concerned, the desert I live in could sure use more of them up here.
Aside from dirt, all we have here are cookie-cutter houses and unemployed construction workers trying to sell their toys.
That's easy for you to say, since you're not the one gasping for a breath of fresh air! So you're going to find an abandoned area of the coastline huh? This I gota see! And yes your desert community could use more diesel trunks, but you're lacking one important thing, a port!
User1 responding to a comment by bentstrider
07.1.09 - 5:15 pm
All I'm saying is you've got to consider the impact this will have at lower-levels of the totem-pole.
Yeah, upper-management will merely get chewed out and have to take a few sick days, but the truck drivers and others that attend to the ground floor could face lay-offs and displacement out of their chosen fields.
C'mon Allan, truck-driving is a chosen profession of mine and when it comes to the downturn in general business we're all suffering from, I would feel their hurt too.
Yeah, no good driving job yet, but I'm going to keep searching 'til I'm either with a kick-ass company, or boring youngsters in class with tales of my glory-days.
Not to mention I've been in that area plenty of times and never noticed the change in air-quality.
But then again, the winds I consistently bitch about bring it all up here anyway, so I'm tarred either way.
Well, some of those "dirtbags" do have children of their own you know.
Yeah, some kid might be able to breathe again, only to get pounded by the kid whose dad just got laid off.
Anywho, if this goes through and all of this does happen, let us hope they have some consolation in place for the many that will be adversely affected.
If not, then the smart ones will do like many others have and just leave for Idaho, or some other place that isn't prone to becoming green-conscious.
On another note, I still long to get on a truck and do it mainly for the solitude and, well you get the idea hopefully.
Just read the article you linked to. Holy shit. Yeah, I'd already come across info about the North American Union and the thousands of plastic coffins all over the U.S. Not quite sure what to make of all this.
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