The Party Of No Huffs And Puffs

Knowing that the best way to kill climate change legislation is to swamp it in "emissions", the Party of No gears up to prove if you can't dazzle them with logic, bury them in bovine excrement.

Former President George W. Bush, urged on by some industry groups, opposed U.S. participation in global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Many House Republicans are carrying on that fight, saying the Democrats' climate-change bill will hurt consumers at a time when the United States is struggling with an economic recession.

"American families are struggling to make ends meet, yet Democrat leaders in Washington want to tax them for using the only energy sources available to them," said Representative Tom Price of Georgia, who heads a group of House conservatives.

Democrats have countered that they will try to reimburse consumers for higher energy costs associated with reducing carbon emissions. Those higher costs could hit Midwestern and Southeastern states, which rely heavily on coal to drive electricity production, particularly hard.

According to lobbyists and congressional aides, House Republicans have prepared well over 100 amendments to the bill, which likely would slow committee work on it.

Still unknown was whether Waxman and Markey had successfully negotiated demands by some fellow Democrats that all or a portion of pollution permits be given to U.S. industries, instead of sold to them.

Giving away the credits would save polluters money at first. But some opponents fear firms might raise energy rates on consumers anyway while at the same time holding permits that will gain value for them in the future if they want to trade them away.

The carbon tax argument is baloney. By and large the cost of carbon emissions can be neutralized by switching to greener energy sources: solar, wind, and biomass. But the Republicans are trying to kill this bill with the same false arguments that killed universal health care 16 years ago: "It'll double your bill every month!" No, it won't. We've already been through the lies on this, but the media repeats them as fact anyway. It's beginning to take its toll at the latest Gallup poll on global warming found.

Although a majority of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is either correctly portrayed in the news or underestimated, a record-high 41% now say it is exaggerated. This represents the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject.

The younger you are, the more you believe something needs to be done about global warming, the Gallup poll also found. But of course, the GOP wants to block all that. After all, this is a country where a third of us still believes Saddam caused 9/11 and had WMDs (including the woman who would have been our Vice-President), and less than half of us believe in evolution.

Can't account for the crazy factor.