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Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis
CANCUN, Mexico - U.S. negotiators came into the U.N. global warming summit with a weak hand but a bold move: a pledge that Congress and the president will enact climate change legislation well before the decade is through.
It's a promise that the rest of the world has seen the United States make-and break-time and again. At the 1997 Kyoto summit, then-Vice President Al Gore made the same pledge-even as the Senate passed a resolution refusing to ratify the Kyoto treaty. At last year's summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, President Obama declared that the United States would lead the way in forging a treaty to replace Kyoto, starting with action at home. But even with a Democratic Congress, the climate bill went down in flames. And now, with a new Republican House, action on climate-and, very likely, on major clean energy initiatives-seems doomed for at least two years.
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Monday, November 29, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis
For eight years, the world waited for a U.S. president to help stop global warming and save the planet.
So far, Barack Obama hasn't lived up to the expectations.
Cap-and-trade legislation Obama promised two years ago on the campaign trail is dead and buried, and his administration is attempting to regulate carbon dioxide emissions and cover billions of dollars in pledges without majority support in Congress.
Internationally, heading into the United Nations-led climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, next week, prospects for a multitrillion-dollar transoceanic carbon market are in tatters and a new binding treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol remains years away.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
Roll Call: Inhofe Is Happy to Stand Apart - "He's not seen as a rebel around here by any means ... but he's an independent thinker," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said of the Oklahoma Republican. Inhofe, 76, is comfortable being a contrarian. In an interview last week, he recalled a time when one of his grandchildren "came up to me and said, ‘Pop-I, Why do you always do things that nobody else does?' ... and I said, ‘because nobody else does.'" ..."This earmark debate is a great example" of Inhofe's indifference to public opinion or peer pressure, Graham added. ... Inhofe's colleagues said he is motivated by principles, not politics: "He's very passionate and he can be as partisan as the best of them. But deep down, he wants to help people," a second Republican Senator said ...While most Members look to avoid intraparty confrontation, Inhofe appears to welcome it, taking pride in often being the most hated man in the room.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Improving the Service of the Federal Bureaucracy, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, National Infrastructure and Public Works Accomplishments, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
In an era of change, Sen. James Inhofe is unapologetic about standing his ground.
"He's not seen as a rebel around here by any means ... but he's an independent thinker," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said of the Oklahoma Republican.
Inhofe, 76, is comfortable being a contrarian. In an interview last week, he recalled a time when one of his grandchildren "came up to me and said, ‘Pop-I, Why do you always do things that nobody else does?' ... and I said, ‘because nobody else does.'"
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Monday, October 25, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis
For some, global warming is the sinister cause of every problem plaguing the world-even the conflict between India and Pakistan.
This misapprehension has apparently taken hold of Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to Bob Woodward's new book, Obama's Wars, Holbrooke believes there is a "global warming dimension" of the India-Pakistan conflict. "In one discussion about the tensions between Pakistan and India," Woodward wrote, "Holbrooke introduced a new angle. 'There's a global-warming dimension of this struggle, Mr. President,' he said." Woodward wrote that Holbrooke's "words baffled many in the room." It's not hard to see why.
"‘There are tens of thousands of Indian and Pakistani troops encamped on the glaciers in the Himalayas that feed the rivers into Pakistan and India,' [Holbrooke] said. ‘Their encampments are melting the glaciers very quickly. There's a chance that river valleys in Pakistan and perhaps even India could be flooded.'
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Associated issues: Global Warming, Climategate
By way of preamble, let me remind you where I stand on climate change. I think climate science points to a risk that the world needs to take seriously. I think energy policy should be intelligently directed towards mitigating this risk. I am for a carbon tax. I also believe that the Climategate emails revealed, to an extent that surprised even me (and I am difficult to surprise), an ethos of suffocating groupthink and intellectual corruption. The scandal attracted enormous attention in the US, and support for a new energy policy has fallen. In sum, the scientists concerned brought their own discipline into disrepute, and set back the prospects for a better energy policy.
I had hoped, not very confidently, that the various Climategate inquiries would be severe. This would have been a first step towards restoring confidence in the scientific consensus. But no, the reports make things worse. At best they are mealy-mouthed apologies; at worst they are patently incompetent and even wilfully wrong. The climate-science establishment, of which these inquiries have chosen to make themselves a part, seems entirely incapable of understanding, let alone repairing, the harm it has done to its own cause.
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Monday, July 12, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma
Last November there was a world-wide outcry when a trove of emails were released suggesting some of the world's leading climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Keith Briffa called "a nice, tidy story" of climate history. The scandal became known as Climategate.
Now a supposedly independent review of the evidence says, in effect, "nothing to see here." Last week "The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review," commissioned and paid for by the University of East Anglia, exonerated the University of East Anglia. The review committee was chaired by Sir Muir Russell, former vice chancellor at the University of Glasgow.
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Friday, June 25, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis
PERRY, OK -- He's been called an idiot, a climate killer, and one of the worst enemies of the planet, and it couldn't make Jim Inhofe more proud.
To Oklahoma's senior U.S. Senator, the insults just validate his efforts to expose what he says are the lies and exaggerations of global warming alarmists. And, as he told our Oklahoma Impact Team, his efforts are finally paying off, because public opinion on the issue is shifting.
Recent polls show this claim to be true.
A Pew Research Center poll done last October showed that Americans who believe there's "solid evidence the earth is warming" had dropped from 71 percent in 2008 to 57 percent. Also, a Gallup poll this March showed that the percentage of Americans who feel the seriousness of global warming is being exaggerated had jumped from 31, in 2008, to 48.
Poll results like those have Senator Inhofe feeling, not only validated, but vindicated.
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Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis
Detroit News Editorial: Senate should keep EPA from usurping Congress' lawmaking powers: The U.S. Senate has an opportunity Thursday to establish that Congress still matters when it comes to governing the nation. No matter how individual senators feel about the underlying issue of regulating greenhouse gas emissions, the Senate should assert its authority to write laws. The Senate is scheduled to vote on a measure to repeal regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency that greatly expand the EPA'sability to regulate carbon dioxide emissions by placing severe limits on industries that emit the gases.
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Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis
This is the last opportunity for a lot of the Democrats voting in the Senate to vote against a massive government take-over. Initially, when Senator Murkowski talked about doing this, I said that my only concern is – it’s unlikely you’ll reach a majority. And if that happens, then people, like some of you in this room, will mischaracterize that as supporting a type of cap-and-trade. That’s definitely not the case. I’ve changed my mind a little bit now, because I think there are a lot of people out there…the motion to proceed is the last opportunity to be on record against this massive government take-over.
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