Thursday, March 03, 2005

A RINO Stampede

Got another FreedomWorks alert email today. It warns of "backdoor attempts to adopt Kyoto-style CO2 regulations" in the Senate (where else?). Given that there are always such backdoor attempts (I wonder if anybody would ever have the guts to so describe gay rights legislation?) and they never get anyplace, it didn't raise my eyebrows very much.

Then I saw the identity of the senator pushing this Kyoto crap:

Senator Chuck Hagel (RINO-NE) has introduced a measure that could lead to Kyoto-style regulations on our energy use. The proposal, part of his pollution bill S. 388, would create an “early action credit” for ‘voluntarily’ limiting emissions, creating the framework for a greenhouse gas emissions cap.

First Arlen Specter wants to throw a huge sop to the trial lawyers by gouging the taxpayers, and now Chuck Hagel is joining forces with John McCain (along with Democrat Joe Lieberman) in trying, again, to sneak the nose of the Kyoto camel inside the American economic tent.

FreedomWorks provides a useful review of why the myth of global warming is economic insanity:

There’s no doubt that adopting the Kyoto Protocol could have disastrous effects on our economy. Because greenhouse gases are produced in the production of many forms of energy, limiting carbon-dioxide emissions would surely lead to energy rationing. In fact, President Bush rejected Kyoto in 2001 because it would have cost America $400 billion annually, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Despite the fact that in 1997 the Senate soundly rejected global warming policies that exclude developing nations and harm the U.S. economy by a vote of 95-0, Senator Hagel and a number of [fellow] liberal legislators are trying to resurrect this bad policy. Adopting “early action credits” would make it easier for the government to implement new restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and Kyoto-style restrictions on energy use.

For consumers, there is good reason to be wary of efforts to cap greenhouse gas emissions, because the costs can be substantial. Implementing the Kyoto Protocol, for example, would cost American consumers more than $400 billion annually. At the same time, evidence is mounting that suggests the Kyoto Protocol would have little effect on global climate, despite the tremendous costs it would impose on consumers.


Is it unreasonable to ask what part of "HELL, NO!!!!!" Senator Hagel and friends keep having difficulty grasping? Can't he look at Europe's stagnant growth, permanent double-digit unemployment, and lazy, selfish, shiftless, overindulged welfare classes and see that isn't a good thing to emulate? Can't he see that the express purpose of Kyoto is to kill the world's golden goose, the U.S. economy, especially seeing as the biggest polluters on the face of the planet, Red China and India, are exempted from the so-called "Protocol"?

It would seem that Senator Hagel has ingested a few two many of Sailor's "maverick" strawberries. You can help do us all a favor by clicking here and telling Nebraska's "Gilligan" to choke on his pollution bill as well.