John Dingell (D-Michigan) and Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) are divisive, obtuse, arrogant scumbags, pure and simple.
These two men are the prime movers behind a bill in the House Energy and Commerce committee, of which Dingell is the chairman and Boucher a subcommittee head.
Get this: The San Francisco Chronicle breaks the story and the draft legislation can be read here, supposedly and here.
This is an effort to thwart California and other states' attempt to lead the country in the right direction and it must not stand!
***FINAL OF 6 Updates*** Pelosi killed it today (6/5)...
Pelosi Statement on Legislation Addressing Energy Independence and Global Warming
Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on legislation addressing energy independence and global warming:
...
"Any proposal that affects California’s landmark efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or eliminate the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions will not have my support."
I can't say that there's a direct correlation between the huge response to this diary and the fact that she put out a press release TODAY, but again, we can make a difference. I think we did. I also think Pelosi would have squelched it anyway, because she is no freakin' dummy, but I suspect they noticed us.
OK, I guess there is a correlation. I received e-mail from the Speaker's office about this today as well. You guys and gals are all fabulous. Because of you, we had a good outcome.
Now let's figure out how we can all work together instead of being divided against each other over stupid things like this.
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Why is it always your friends who screw you over the hardest?
House Democrats, in their first draft of new energy legislation, would wipe out California's landmark global warming law -- despite their California speaker's promises that her party would use the state as a model to combat climate change.
The legislation would pre-empt California and 11 other states from implementing laws requiring automakers to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions across their fleets. The bill would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from granting the states waivers to put their climate change rules into effect.
But wait, there's MORE!
The bill would add language to the Clean Air Act stating that the Environmental Protection Agency administrator could not grant states a waiver for their vehicle emissions rules if "such state standards are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." In other words, any state rules seeking to curb global warming would be null and void.
The legislation also appears to limit the power of the agency to set federal climate change rules -- even though the Supreme Court in April ruled that greenhouse gases are air pollutants and the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate vehicle emissions or explain why it won't.
I think it's about time both of these men got a serious dose of reality. Obviously, neither of them represent constituencies remotely reflecting the average DKos member, but surely, SOMEONE out there must be able to mobilize voters in those respective districts.
This I cannot believe... what could both of these people be thinking? This bill not only wipes out any state efforts to fight global warming, but in a fine Republican twist, also forbids the EPA from doing anything to sanction those efforts by granting waivers that allow those states to cut their emmissions. (Removal of sophomoric comment here about Boucher's parentage).
Kevin Curtis, vice president of the National Environmental Trust, said environmentalists were stunned that Boucher would release a bill that was sure to stir an uproar in the speaker's home state -- at the time she is publicly challenging the Bush administration over its climate-change policies.
"We're scratching our heads," Curtis said. "It's no mystery to anyone that the speaker is from California. Why would he embarrass himself and the speaker by putting it in there?"
Is Boucher a closet Republican?
What the hell is wrong with him?
He's not really embarrassing himself. I think this is a deliberate attempt to embarrass Pelosi and the Democratic delegation from California. What other reason could there possibly be?
It's time this guy was squashed. Hard. This bill, even in its preliminary language, is so bad that I think it would be better to run a progressive Dem candidate against him in the primary, and beat him only to lose to a Republican. Just to get this guy out of office would be a service. I know I will make sure that any further contributions I make to any Dem organizations or candidates NEVER have a chance of helping this guy.
And as for Dingell (D-Ford/GM/Chrysler), he is rapidly distinguishing himself as one of the most obstructionist Dems in Congress on critical environmental issues. The Republicans never had to worry about him when the outnumbered Dems talked about raising mileage requirements. Now, the foundering Big Three know he is their big champion in Congress and he presents a huge obstacle to any meaningful mileage requirements or energy usage reform passing Congress. Since all such legislation must pass through his committee, Dingell stands as a huge block to any national effort to pass any meaningful global warming legislation of any kind.
Their draft legislation also gives the car companies another 15 years to get their average fuel economy standards to 36 mpg for cars, and 17 years to boost light trucks to 30 mpg. It also appears to give even more boosts to Big Ag in their efforts to convert corn to ethanol, thus driving up food prices for everyone even more (notice how expensive a gallon of milk is getting now???)
(NOTE: For my part, I think ethanol is a Big Ag scam and is not a solution to our dependence on foreign oil. Lowering consumption is the ONLY way we will achieve anything in the short term. It worked before, after the first oil crisis of the 70's. Some smaller farmers benefit from selling their corn crops for more than they would otherwise get, but who is getting the lion's share? ADM, that's who.)
Unfortunately, we really can't afford to wait fifteen or seventeen years. Not nearly good enough, guys.
We can put 16 1GHz microprocessors onto a single chip. We can have computers in our house that outperform Crays. We put a man on the moon using 1965 technology. We have determined beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is water on Mars.
So what the HELL is wrong with us when people IN OUR OWN GODDAMN PARTY cannot get a CLUE about the crisis we face?
The climate/carbon interface is a bleeding EMERGENCY, damn it!
There are times when it's obvious that people have been in office too long. Dingell is the poster child for Congressional Lifer Syndrome. He really needs to be put out to pasture. I wonder if anyone will step up to challenge him so long as he draws breath in Washington?
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Link to contact Boucher and Dingell and all other Dems on the committee (not that it will do much good, grumble grumble)
Go HERE and follow further links for more specifics such as committee members. You're all big boys & girls and I'm so mad right now I don't want to put any more work into it. I need to drink some beer or play three hard sets of tennis or play a guitar solo at volume 11 on my Fender Twin amp. Or something. Grrr.
***UPDATE***Just made the Rec List. Thanks to everyone. Kamarvt has this trenchant comment below in repsonse to my "What is wrong with them?" moment:
our corporate overlords of necessity buy many suits with a (D) label on them as well as the more common (R) label suits...
...The auto companies just took this very issue to court here in Vermont, but were unable to present a very good case. So the overlords are taking the other route - get the fed gov't (a much tamer pet than the judiciary, so far) to kneecap anything the states enact.
It's business as usual, and it needs to be canceled.
I think it will take a revolution to do so.
Global Warming is the great issue of our times, rivaling in my view a World War, and these guys are standing in the way of beginning to deal with this. In retrospect, Boucher doesn't sound like a complete slimeball, and surely Dingell has to be reachable to some extent. It's time we stepped up and made our voices heard. The link above provides phone numbers and links to all relevant congressmen. To press forward with this horribly wrong-headed legislation is gibbering madness.
***2nd UPDATE***A comment struck a nerve and I thought I'd amplify up here... The ways in which the auto industry does things is going to be a thing of the past in the not too distant. Future, I mean.
I will make a prediction: in less than ten years, driving a sport-ute or a smoke-belching sports car will be akin to smoking in a crowded restaurant, or to aiding Al Qaeda, with proliferating regulations across the country to match.
Times change. The tailfin electro-cooled Candy Colored Baby days are long gone. The world is connected now and the choices in our daily lives have global consequences.
Make no mistake: taking the long term, the (not-so) Big 3 and all other auto companies are going to have to do things radically differently. Technological innovation and severe governmental regulation of mileage and consumption are a matter of WHEN, not IF. This may involve heavy gas taxes, severe CAFE mandates for dramatically higher mileage consumption technology, and banning of sport-utes and smoke-belching Camaros, or more likely all of these things tied up in a declared National Emergency.
I don't want to see auto workers lose jobs. I also don't want to see Americans be unable to have the freedom and mobility that an auto gives them. But we need to start thinking outside of our little constrained boxes because there is an INTERNATIONAL EMERGENCY going on. If we act now (or as soon as Bush leaves office, because little can be done while he remains) then the situation (viz. Global Warming and the American auto industry) may still be savable.
But if those like Boucher and Dingell find ways to actively oppose and do harm to those of us who want to act on the great issue of our times, then they will be steamrolled by history.
***3rd Update***One last update and I must get back to work. It is extremely humbling for me to see people posting messages saying that they have contacted their representative. All this activity is vital to the life of our Republic and to our planet. Never doubt it. You guys and gals are all great and I thank you for your response and for stepping up to defend your principles. I am not important in any way. All of you are much more so because you are doing this.
Keep shining the light.
***Update #4*** Jeesh. ANOTHER stupid update? OK, I have to modify my earlier statement above about wanting the car companies to roast. That was out of line. This is because we've had some very interesting folks from the UAW and from the Detroit/Michigan region come in and discuss this topic.
The execs of these companies have a lot to answer for. The workers, and the unions, are probably going to need to be change agents if the Big 3 are ever going to start doing the right thing. If the unions were to foster acceptance that something radical needs to be done to encourage innovation and technology advances, and persistently agitate for them, and aggressively implement them, there is a chance that American cars could recapture leadership. I see this as the only way for union jobs to be protected long term.
And these folks need to start putting a bug in Dingell's ear about this too. If there's pressure from the grass roots in the constituency he serves, he will listen to reason. He is not an idiot.
Just going about things the old way and trying to hang on until the pension kicks in is not gonna work any more. I will not believe most union folks think that way.
A national dialogue (a summit, as it were) needs to be opened about climate change policy. It is vital to the survival of a major middle-class job base in the United States and very much to the viability of our economy. And to the viability of our planet!
Unfortunately, while Bush is in office, none of this will happen in a meaningful way.
***UPDATE #5***Cunctator just dug up the key passages in the subcommittee discussion bill:
The Clean Air Act will be changed, under the discussion draft, to state:
No such waiver [of State motor vehicles emissions standards] shall be granted if the Administrator finds that-
...
(D) such State standards are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But wait, there's MORE!
SEC. 102 (b) EPA FUEL REGULATIONS.—Section 211(c) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7545) is amended by adding the following at the end thereof: ''(5) The authority of the Administrator to promulgate regulations under this Act regarding greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicle and nonroad fuel is limited to the authority under title VII.''.
(c) EPA VEHICLE REGULATIONS.—Section 202 of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7521) is amended by adding the following new subsection at the end thereof: ''(n) CONTROL OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.— The authority of the Administrator to promulgate regulations under this Act regarding greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles is limited to the authority under title VII.''.
The draft bill invents a new Title VII to implement the restrictions...
The Administrator [of the EPA] shall promulgate regulations requiring that the average carbon intensity of all motor vehicle and nonroad fuel sold or introduced into commerce in the United States be reduced beginning in the calendar year 2013.
Of course, there are giant loopholes in the proposed legislation:
The Administrator may adjust the average carbon intensity standard to a level other than that prescribed by paragraph (2) based on a consideration of energy, environmental, economic, and safety factors; the time necessary for the development and application of the requisite technology, giving appropriate consideration to the cost of compliance and the cost to consumers; and the extent to which the average carbon intensity standard will assist motor vehicle manufacturers in complying with fuel or carbon efficiency standards established by the Secretary of Transportation.
2013 is a more acceptable date but still not good enough. It leaves six more long years before any meaningful changes can occur. who knows what can take place between now and then? Further delay in the face of all the evidence is madness.
This kind of legislation, even in draft form, is equally as pernicious and evil as anything the Republicans have ever come up with. It needs to be strangled in its cradle.
Another poster mentioned that Pelosi's staff publicly stated that this will never happen. If so, I've found no evidence of it. The pressure needs to be applied.