Lost in translation

FROM- IBD

Where's The Crisis?

Fraud: The public is told that climate change legislation is urgently needed to save the planet. But the evidence that the global warming scare is all about power and politics, not the environment, keeps piling up.

The Waxman-Markey climate change bill that would establish a regime to limit carbon dioxide emissions through a cap-and-trade system was passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week. It was approved 33-25 after a speed reader ripped through its 946 pages, babbling aloud before the vote at the insistence of the opposition.

Only one Republican — Rep. Mary Bono Mack of California — voted for it while four Democrats voted against it.

The legislation might not get such a cushy ride on the House floor. Rep. Collin Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat who chairs the House Agriculture Committee, is threatening to derail it and says he has the support of 40 to 50 other Democrats.

Peterson is not opposing Waxman-Markey because he's a skeptic of global warming. Nothing so noble as that. His opposition is purely political. He wants parliamentary power over the bill. Should he fail to get it, he's willing to sink the legislation.
More...
Which brings up the question: If global warming were a grave threat, wouldn't getting a CO2 emissions restriction law passed and signed take precedence over lawmakers' objections on behalf of their constituents?

The fact that Peterson and so many Democrats would rather have no bill than to let it become law without input from the Agriculture Committee exposes the global warming scare: It's not about the environment — it's about power and politics.

This isn't the first time that lawmakers have demonstrated the true nature of the "fight" against global warming. In order to pick up enough Democratic support to move his bill out of committee, Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman granted emissions exemptions to carbon-producing companies in some districts held by uncommitted lawmakers from his party. If a real calamity were at hand, wouldn't he have resisted compromise?

Bill supporters will excuse Waxman's political moves, saying it's important to get a bill passed now as more restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions can be added in the future. But that doesn't square with the comments of Al Gore, who said Sunday that action is needed "this year, not next year" and has been demanding for years that officials make an "urgent" response to the "crisis."

Meanwhile, the climate hasn't changed the way the models predicted it would, and the public is weary of being hectored by alarmists. Watching Congress play politics over an issue that's supposed to be too pressing to ignore is only going to confirm the growing doubt.