Graham's Cap-And-Trade Pronouncement Reframes Hill Debate

Is cap and trade really "dead"? After all, didn't Sen. Lindsey Graham say so? The South Carolina Republican's recent remarks -- or snippets of them -- have ricocheted around Capitol Hill and beyond in recent weeks, lending momentum to the notion that the congressional effort he is helping lead no longer plans to implement a system that requires companies to buy and sell emission credits.

But Graham's remarks appear to be more political than substantive. Indeed, cap and trade remains very much a part of the debate on what legislation will look like when the closed-door negotiations are finished.

Graham was quoted Saturday in The Washington Post telling environmentalists "cap-and-trade is dead." The New York Times carried a similar quote in January that the senator later clarified, explaining he was referring to the large-scale, House-passed climate bill and a Senate counterpart approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee (Greenwire, Jan. 27).

In fact, Graham remains committed to putting a price on carbon emissions. And the proposal he is working on with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is likely to utilize the cap-and-trade mechanism when it comes to the electric utility industry, and later to manufacturers.

"I have no problem with trading as long as you don't devastate the economy," Graham said yesterday in an interview. "This is what solved acid rain. Some people on my side say, 'Just create incentives.' I say that's opening up the Treasury to every group in the country. I want to set emission standards and let the best technology win."

Lindsey, you’re on the wrong side on this issue. Carbon dioxide is a harmless natural substance that is actually highly beneficial to plant growth and agriculture. Adding some CO2 to the atmosphere in the future is no different than if solar energy output ends up being very slightly higher than expected in the future. It just causes a very slight, almost immeasurable, increase in the earth’s temperature. But heat does NOT build up over time because the earth has very efficient physical mechanisms for releasing heat back into space. If it didn’t have these mechanisms, obviously the earth would overheat in just a few weeks.

What has happened with global warming theory is that some academics mistakenly took some very simple atmospheric models that were never intended for climate forecasting and misused them for climate forecasting without thoroughly checking the results of their modeling against historical data. Then more academics jumped on that bandwagon, environmentalists jumped on the bandwagon (as they saw an effective tactic for preserving wilderness areas), the liberal media jumped on the bandwagon, and then liberal politicians finally jumped on the GW bandwagon. At that point, almost all discussion of the other side of this issue stopped in the MSM, and as a result much of the public was duped into believing this false theory.

Global warming theory has already been thoroughly discredited by reputable scientists. The evidence against GW theory is all here on FR (and linked sites) under the keyword “globalwarming.” I suggest, Lindsey, that you assign a few staffers to start reading these threads before you make an even bigger fool out of yourself. Talking to Sen. Inhofe and his staff about the false theory of global warming is a great idea too.

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