Sen. John Barrasso continued his campaign yesterday to stop the Obama administration from incorporating climate change into federal plans and policies, taking aim at an interagency report released in October that proposed ways for the federal government to respond to increased frequency of severe weather events and other effects of global warming….

Barrasso said that even the climate change adaptation efforts recommended in the report “will kill jobs, weaken our energy security and decrease economic growth.”

Right-wing to Americans:  No mitigation, no clean energy deployment, no clean energy R&D, no adaptation.  In short, you are on your own!

Bizarrely, the honest brokers and breakthrough bunch actually believe they can spend their time attacking climate science and climate scientists and cap-and-trade and aggressive clean energy deployment in order to ingratiate themselves into partnership with the right-wing, in the hopes of some sort of trickle-down, post-partisan climate policy.

But for conservatives, if you’re in the pocket of Big Oil and the corporate polluters, you’re going to demand cuts — not increases — in R&D for the clean energy competition, as you have for decades (see NY Times on “The dirty energy party”: “The Republican agenda is breathtakingly negative”).

And if you don’t believe in climate change, why on Eaarth would you spend a nickel adapting to it?  Here’s more from the E&E Daily story, “Barrasso intensifies efforts to stop Obama admin’s focus on adaptation” (subs. req’d), which makes that painfully clear:

Read more

By Tom Kenworthy, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) likes to portray herself as a small government conservative and ferocious opponent of wasteful federal spending. Earlier this year, she outlined her proposal to cut the federal budget by an estimated $423 billion by, among other things, eliminating the Department of Education, ending federal job training programs, privatizing the Federal Aviation Administration, cutting veterans’ disability payments, and eliminating all congressional earmarks. In a recent speech to South Carolina Republicans, she warned that President Obama would lead the nation to a $21 trillion debt. “We are talking Greece territory in the greatest country in the world. We are talking Greece,” she said.

But when it comes to spending $700 million on a bridge in her home state — and trampling on the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in the process –- Bachmann is an earmark-loving big-spender.

Today, Bachmann introduced legislation that would clear the way for building a proposed four-lane highway bridge over the St. Croix River that divides Minnesota and Wisconsin. The bridge would cross a section of the Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway that is part of the wild and scenic rivers system. The bill would overrule a finding last October by the National Park Service that the bridge cannot be built because it would “fundamentally change the scenic qualities that existed when the St. Croix was designated a national wild and scenic river in 1972.”

In a recent letter to the St. Croix County Board of Supervisors, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) said she supported an “appropriately scaled and designed bridge” but the proposed boondoggle is “fiscally irresponsible, environmentally damaging and will create a transportation mess for communities along Minnesota Highway 35 in the congressional district I represent.”

The conservation group American Rivers named the St. Croix one of the nation’s most endangered rivers in 2009, and denounced Bachmann’s legislation. Rebecca Wodder, the group’s president, said Bachmann’s earmark would mean construction of an expensive and “massive freeway,” that would “irreversibly damage the beauty of the Lower St. Croix.” By deeming the bridge consistent with the Wild and Scenic Rivers act, the legislation would set a dangerous precedent, American Rivers said.

House Republicans voted in lockstep this afternoon to protect corporate welfare for Big Oil, even as they call for draconian cuts to programs that everyday Americans depend on each day.  ThinkProgress has the story.

As the House of Representatives moved toward approving a stopgap resolution to avert a government shutdown for another two weeks, Democrats offered a motion to recommit that would have stripped the five largest oil companies of taxpayer subsidies, saving tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds.

Read more

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest private foundation, aims to help billions of people in developing countries.  The goal of its Global Development Program is “increase opportunities for people in developing countries to overcome hunger and poverty.”  Their Global Health Program “harnesses advances in science and technology to save lives in poor countries.”

I have been critical of their strategy before (see “Can the problems of the developing world be solved by ignoring global warming?“).  And Bill Gates’ annual letter this year does nothing to increase confidence.

There is no mention of global warming or climate change at all.  Indeed, the discussion of agriculture contains this rather naively Panglossian statement:

Read more

Note:  No head vise known to humankind can protect you from this op-ed — but for any survivors, I end the post with the joke of the day.

Quick Quiz — Who said what:

1. For many years, I, my family and our company have contributed to a variety of intellectual and political causes working to solve these problems. Because of our activism, we’ve been vilified by various groups.
2. I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.
3. Despite this criticism, we’re determined to keep contributing and standing up for those politicians, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who are taking these challenges seriously.
4. You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

Quotes 1 and 3 are Charles Koch in a head-exploding Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Why Koch Industries Is Speaking Out.”  Quotes 2 and 4 are Al Capone.

Let’s us have a moment of silence for the plight of the misunderstood businessmen.  Time’s up.

Koch’s agenda is to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few, especially himself, with no regard to the health and well-being of the many who will suffer along the way — and he will stop at nothing to achieve this.  He and his brother are the Al Capones of pollutocrats — or Bernie Madoffs, if you prefer the modern-day analogy.  They outspend Exxon Mobil on pro-pollution disinformation aimed at preventing action to preserving a livable climate.  They must make their billions as quickly as possible before the global Ponzi scheme they are pushing  collapses.

The policies of Gov. Walker, of course, would greatly harm the citizens of Wisconsin, again benefiting the super-rich pollutocrats at the expense of the middle class and poor.

The subhead for the WSJ opinion piece could only have been written by some editor at the paper recently hired away from the Ministry of Truth (aka Minitrue):

Read more

Wonkette ran a good piece yesterday, “Earth-Raping Dictator-Supporting House GOP Brings Styrofoam Back.”  [And folks think my headlines are strong!]

I’m reposting it below — and not just because they link to CP.  It exemplifies what the House GOP are all about.

Read more

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and members of the Democratic Policy Steering Committee convened a hearing today on securing America’s energy future. CAP’s Junayd Mahmood has the story.

Democrats called the hearing in front of the steering committee in order to hear from witnesses the GOP would never invite to House energy committees. Witnesses testified in favor of cutting oil subsidies and enacting long-term energy policies aimed at fostering renewable energy. This would create millions of American jobs, and significantly reduce national security risks.

Read more

Now that ThinkProgress and others have exposed the poisonous influence of the Koch billionaires on American politics, Charles Koch is fighting back. In a rambling op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, the pollution-conglomerate CEO announced that he’s proud of propping up Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) in his fight against public unions and the middle class. Koch goes on to attack the “crony capitalism” of businesses that have enmeshed themselves with the public sector:

Government spending on business only aggravates the problem. Too many businesses have successfully lobbied for special favors and treatment by seeking mandates for their products, subsidies (in the form of cash payments from the government), and regulations or tariffs to keep more efficient competitors at bay.

Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.

The Koch empire — with subsidiaries ranging from cattle ranches to think tanks — is perhaps the ultimate example of crony capitalism. The Koch brothers influence government by whatever means necessary — lobbyists, campaign contributions, non-profit donations, television ads, grassroots organizing, pundits, media, lawsuits. They’ve funded an entire generation of conservative operatives who will fight for special favors for their multi-billion-dollar pollution enterprise. They’ve spent over $40 million lobbying Congress since 2008 on dozens of pieces of legislation. They’ve unleashed lawyers on numerous environmental and health regulations.

The American public want clean air, safe water, and a healthy planet. If Charles Koch actually believed in the “open market” and raising our “standard of living,” he would allow our democratically elected government to take action to protect Americans from global warming pollution.

The virulence of the Koch brothers’ opposition to climate policy — to anything that would make polluters instead of society pay for the cost of their pollution — is purely a matter of self-interest. The immense profitability of their carbon holdings depends on their freedom to pollute without consequence.

If their pollution was fairly priced in a free-market system such as the cap-and-trade markets the Koch successfully demonized in Washington, the Kochs would be facing costs of anywhere from $1 billion to $40 billion a year. Spending well less than $1 billion a year on their political and philanthropic activities, the Kochs have made a brilliant investment to defend their killer business model.

The Kochs have gamed our economic system by subverting the government just like any other crony capitalist.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao: “We must not any longer sacrifice the environment for the sake of rapid growth and reckless roll-outs, as that would result in unsustainable growth featuring industrial overcapacity and intensive resource consumption,”

Pretty amazing stuff:

China issues warning on climate and growth

China’s environment minister on Monday issued an unusually stark warning about the effects of unbridled development on the country’s air, water and soil, saying the nation’s current path could stifle long-term economic growth and feed social instability.

Read more

Newly-empowered House Republicans are once again pushing for Bush-era runaway energy development on the West’s public lands under the guise of “vigorous oversight” of the Obama administration’s public lands policy.

The House Natural Resources Committee will today hold a hearing into a long-overdue December decision by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to finally exorcise one of the most damaging legacies of disgraced former Bush Interior Secretary-turned-Big Oil executive Gale Norton. Republicans, including Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), have been apoplectic about Salazar’s decision to return to Reagan-era wild lands policies. Continuing a trend of letting industry lobbyists set their agenda, the Republicans on the Natural Resources Committee have called lobbyist William G. Myers III to testify today.

Myers has been a registered lobbyist for several energy and mining concerns, as well as other anti-regulatory groups like the Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Public Lands Council, and the National Association of Manufacturers. Myers, however, is perhaps best known for being a failed George W. Bush judicial nominee and the subject of an Inspector General’s rebuke for his Bush-era service as the Interior Department’s solicitor.

At the time of his nomination for a seat on the Ninth Circuit Court Appeals — a circuit that hears many important environmental cases — Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called his radical anti-environmental views “off the deep end.” While Myers had no experience as a judge or courtroom advocate, he did have one key qualification: his multi-million dollar lobbying campaign for coal producers in former Vice President Dick Cheney’s home state of Wyoming that would have allowed them to gain near-monopoly over one of the world’s largest coal supplies. (The coal merger he advocated for was subsequently overturned by the Federal Trade Commission on a 4-1 vote after an investigation.)

After a bipartisan group of Senators blocked Myers’ nomination, he became the first judicial nominee in history to withdraw because of his anti-environmental views. In addition to his stridently anti-environmental views, Myers was also known to have strongly anti-gay, anti-choice, and even anti-birth control views.

Tapping Myers to testify is yet another sign that House Republicans will stop at nothing short of a full return to the misguided and destructive lands and energy development policies of the Bush administration — policies that would benefit a few special interests and their lobbyists at the expense of local communities throughout the West.

You can read his comments here.  I don’t think his math — or his analysis — adds up.  My response is there, too (which is why I’m turning off comments here).

Note:  In Firefox, you have to hit refresh on links to my comments.  The IT folks are working on it.