Nancy Pelosi at the Detroit Auto show, surrounded by Methusaleh's squash partners, makes statements that are uninformed by the recent facts of greenhouse gases and the Obama administration. Mr. Pelosi rammed through the House a cap and trade bill last spring that is unacceptable to the U.S. Senate on an election year. The Obama administration, frustrated and hasty, used the EPA to issue a judgement that greenhouse gases can be controlled by mandates under the Clean Air Act. (Despite the fact that most of greenhouse gases are water vapor). Ian Talley, WSJ, tells me that the States, while claiming they want to comply with the EPA mandates requiring permits for more than 25k tons of greenhouse gases per year, are balking because they don't understand or trust the mandates. There is a chance that mandates will go so far as to require permits for a single motor left running to maintain a pipeline that could, in the course of a year, generate 25k tons of greenhouse gases. Other potential conflicts include seeking to build a new power plant, where rivals for the bidding could dispute each other's projected emissions. In sum, the EPA mandates have created a whole new ocean of engineering and litigation unknown. The States are crying "Uncle Sam!" and asking for a freeze at least until 2011. This is far, far from Nancy Pelosi's Nanny State dreaminess of green cars and electric motors. Is Mrs Pelosi aware that some electric motors have the potential of needing a permit to operate? And that the States, not themselves paragons of candid management, do not know how to manage a willy-nilly Federal government?
Not quite so uninformed, John. Gone, for instance, is the doomsday scenario of glaciers melting and polar bears drowning. Gone is the prediction of the Maldives slipping beneath the sea. What's replaced it is an emphasis on health (combatting pollution; in which, I'm sure, America is the worst); the promise of 'green' jobs (which is another three-card monty trick, but serves to sucker the gullible); energy independence (which is another way of saying, once we are able to run the country on batteries, we'll no longer have to worry about Israel or what happens in the Middle East), which ties in with security: rolling-back of the military and being able to use all that money in promoting 'social justice'. Finally, Pelosi adds, it's our moral obligation that we do this for fairness (to be determined by her) and for the good of the earth which, according to progressives, we (especially America) continue to destroy at an alarming rate. No, John, this speech is a pretty neat jig. Pelosi is well aware of the fiasco at Copenhagen. There are things now she dare not mention - and she doesn't. Yet, she can't let go of them either. She needs the money that the scam would theoretically generate.