Monday, August 17, 2015

Global warming overload



Since its inception, the Obama administration has engaged in an all-out push to adopt ever-stricter global warming regulations. Recall that Barack Obama was the only presidential candidate – at least as far as I can remember – who took office vowing to bankrupt any company in an entire American industry that refuses to adhere to his environmental agenda.  

When President Obama’s attempt to impose a carbon-trading scheme on the U.S. economy proved too extreme even for a Democrat-controlled Congress to approve, the President remarked that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. And since then, his administration has passed crushing global warming regulations through unilateral, administrative means. Despite the extensive list of taxpayer subsidized green energy disasters – Solyndra, Fisker Automotive, Beacon Power, A123 Systems Inc, EnerDel, to name a few – the administration’s green policies march ever forward.   
The latest salvo is the president’s new “climate action plan,” which mandates drastic reductions in carbon emissions from power plants over the next few decades. The plan provoked a thoughtful Wall Street Journal article discussing the administration’s claim that these regulations will not result in higher electricity prices that hurt the poor. That argument, the Journal noted, is refuted by the plan itself, which demands that states launch redistribution schemes to lessen the regulations’ impact on poor communities.

The climate plan also led to observations that despite the massive harm it will do to the economy, it will barely have any effect at all on global warming – the problem it ostensibly aims to address. However, the plan did have at least one immediate effect – an array of business groups and states is vowing to sue the government to stop these punitive regulations.   

To drum up support for these economically destructive policies, global warmists resort to apocalyptic rhetoric, with President Obama claiming there is “no greater threat to our planet.” As Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I have torespectfully, disagree.   

Separately, the Nunes Digest is updated here.