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Global Warming Overreach
The Wall Street Journal ^ | April 24, 2009 | Kimberly Strassel

Posted on 04/23/2009 8:17:38 PM PDT by St. Louis Conservative

Congressman Henry Waxman played to the crowds this week with high-profile hearings designed to boost his climate legislation. To listen to the Energy and Commerce committee chair, a House global warming bill is all but in the recyclable bag.

To listen to Congressman Jim Matheson is something else. During opening statements, the Utah Democrat detailed 14 big problems he had with the bill, and told me later that if he hadn't been limited to five minutes, "I might have had more." Mr. Matheson is one of about 10 moderate committee Democrats who are less than thrilled with the Waxman climate extravaganza, and who may yet stymie one of Barack Obama's signature issues. If so, the president can thank Democratic liberals, who are engaging in one of their first big cases of overreach.

Not that you couldn't see this coming even last year, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi engineered her coup against former Energy chairman John Dingell. House greens had been boiling over the Michigan veteran's cautious approach to climate-legislation. Mr. Dingell's mistake was understanding that when it comes to energy legislation, the divides aren't among parties, but among regions. Design a bill that socks it to all those manufacturing, oil-producing, coal-producing, coal-using states, and say goodbye to the very Democrats necessary to pass that bill.

Such sense didn't deter Mrs. Pelosi, who first tried an end-run around Mr. Dingell in 2007 by putting Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey in charge of a new global-warming committee. When that didn't get her a bill, she helped her fellow Californian, Mr. Waxman, unseat Mr. Dingell. Environmentalists threw a party, and the Waxman-Markey duo got busy on legislation to please their coastal crowds.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: capandtrade; edmarkey; globalwarming; henrywaxman

1 posted on 04/23/2009 8:17:38 PM PDT by St. Louis Conservative
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Notice how quickly the non-debatable consensus of scientists concerning global warming and consequent climate-change has shifted to a hotly contested NIMBY, political brawl?$?$?


2 posted on 04/23/2009 8:21:54 PM PDT by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, then writes again.)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Saved by the enviro-whackos themselves?

That’s different.


3 posted on 04/23/2009 8:39:17 PM PDT by SouthTexas (When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people.....)
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To: Old Professer

Ever noticed how the Obama administration has done an end-run around common sense and gotten the EPA to do his work for him instead of a democratically elected (supposedly, anyway) congres?


4 posted on 04/23/2009 8:52:58 PM PDT by dr_who
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To: St. Louis Conservative; FrPR; enough_idiocy; Desdemona; rdl6989; Little Bill; IrishCatholic; ...
 


Beam me to Planet Gore !

5 posted on 04/24/2009 2:38:07 AM PDT by steelyourfaith ("The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." -Lady Thatcher)
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