Gas prices have risen dramatically, and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) have proposed suspending the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gas tax over the summer, a proposal criticized as “stupid,” “pandering,” and “destructive nuttiness.”

But the problems with the proposal run deeper than the economic reality that the plan would add up to a “huge windfall for refiners” that also increases “our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia.” It is also the type of thinking that could lead to an utter breakdown of our national imperative to deal with global warming. Fuel taxes are the fundamental governmental mechanism for limiting the consumption of gasoline and making users pay for the costs of pollution — just as cigarette taxes capture the “negative externalities” of the societal health costs associated with smoking.

As Sir Nicholas Stern described in his report on the economic costs of global warming, “Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure that the world has seen.” Because polluters have never paid a price for the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, no steps were taken to avoid fossil fuel consumption. Read more

On his radio show this week, climate change denier Glenn Beck asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) if “a new peer reviewed study,” which he says shows that global warming “looks like it’s going to be on hold for ten years,” gives America “time to not spend the money on global warming and maybe concentrate on things like Social Security.” “Yes,” replied McCain:

BECK: You know, there’s a new peer reviewed study out today that says global warming now looks like it’s going to be on hold for ten years. Does that buy us any time to not spend the money on global warming and maybe concentrate on things like Social Security and fix some of those things that are right around the corner?

SENATOR McCAIN: Yes, Glenn, but where we may have a disagreement, I believe that the development of green technologies such as General Electric, the world’s largest corporation, has dedicated to the development of nuclear energy as the French are able to generate 80% of their electricity with nuclear power. There’s no reason why America shouldn’t.

Listen here:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2008/05/McCainBeckClimate.320.40.flv]

UPDATE: As Joe Romm explains at Climate Progress, Glenn Beck is misinterpreting a new paper in Nature that modeled the effects of interdecadal oceanic cycles on global surface temperature. In one sentence, the authors used the phrase “next decade” to refer to the period from 2005-2015 versus 2000-2010, instead of the common-sense definition of 2010-2020. The study in fact provides evidence to support that the next decade — 2010-2020 — will be the warmest on record and “is poised to see faster temperature rise than any decade since the authors’ calculations began in 1960.”

UPDATE II: Joe Romm also calculates what McCain’s nuclear goal means:

To satisfy McCain’s odd desire to be like the French and get 80% of our electricity from nuclear power in the coming decades would require building more than 700 (GW-sized) nuclear power plants by midcentury — more than one a month.

The Kansas House has again failed to override Gov. Sebelius’ veto of two coal-fired power plants for western Kansas. Short just one vote last time, proponents of the override were short four votes in yesterday’s count (which was 80 in favor of an override and 45 against).

Still, we know the coal company and advocates won’t stop yet. In the legislation that just failed, they tried to lure support with ‘green’ provisions, but clearly nothing substantial enough to negate the two huge coal-plants whose looming silhouettes sort of define the skyline at this point.

In any case, kudos to Kansas.

For more coverage of the events in Kansas, see the Climate and Energy Project live blogging as well as this long list of related posts, mostly from our very own intrepid Lois Lane:

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