Contact: Matt Dempsey Matt_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov (202) 224-9797

In Case You Missed It...

The Washington Times 

Inhofe Earth Day Challenge: Focus Scarce Resources on Achievable Environmental Solutions 

By. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)

Link to Op-Ed

Ranking Member of Environment and Public Works Committee

The greatest challenges confronting the environment on Earth Day 2009 largely will be ignored by many of the most outspoken green activists. Despite spending enormous sums of money on massive advertising campaigns promoting the false notion that man-made greenhouse gases threaten our very existence, the American public remains unconvinced that climate change is a pressing concern; indeed, the public rightly cares much more about clean water and clean air issues.

“Pollution of drinking water is Americans’ No. 1 environmental concern, with 59% saying they worry ‘a great deal’ about the issue,” according to a Gallup poll released last month. “That exceeds the 45% worried about air pollution, the 42% worried about the loss of tropical rain forests, and lower levels worried about extinction of species and global warming.” Gallup observed the results were “notable,” because the last three issues “are widely discussed in the media and public affairs…”

A poll released this past January by the Pew Foundation finds similar results, with global warming rating dead last in a list among 20 voter concerns. Only 30 percent of the voters deemed global warming to be “a top priority.”

Therefore, the question must be asked on this, the 39th anniversary of Earth Day: at what expense are we ignoring many of the most pressing issues, environment in particular, to advocate for action on extremely costly policies that will have almost no impact on Earth’s climate?

Taking into consideration this very question, Bjørn Lomborg, adjunct professor, author, and head of the Copenhagen Consensus Center at Copenhagen Business School, previously gathered a number of the world’s most esteemed economists and policy makers to consider how, with limited resources, to prioritize the numerous problems the world faces. Testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at my invitation, Lomborg emphasized, “We have a moral obligation to do the most good that we possibly can with what we spend, so we must focus our resources where we can accomplish the most first.”

Notably, devoting resources to “solve” global warming consistently rank at or near the bottom of the list. Using a rigorous cost-benefit analysis test, the experts continue to find global warming “solutions” too costly for the results they may achieve. In fact, Lomborg notes, current global warming solutions would force us to spend $180 billion per year in mitigation for each year of the coming century –which provides a reduction in global temperature of a mere (an almost immeasurable) 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Lomborg writes, “Especially in the current economic climate, we have to prioritize what we do – we have to coolly look at the costs and benefits of policies.” Consider the numbers, Lomborg writes: “Whatever is spent on climate policies saving one person from hunger in 100 years could instead save 5,000 people today. This same point is true, whether we look at flooding, heat waves, hurricanes, diseases or water shortages. Carbon cuts are an ineffective response. Direct policies -- such as addressing hunger directly -- do a lot more.”

As demonstrated by my Senate report, featuring over 700 scientists who are speaking out against global warming alarmism, many, even on the left, are becoming increasingly concerned with the attention and resources devoted global warming solutions—to the exclusion of more pressing issues.

Consider Geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack, the former chair of Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, who publicly announced he voted for Gore in 2000 and said he would do so again. But Giegengack does not agree with Gore’s science views. “In terms of [global warming’s] capacity to cause the human species harm, I don’t think it makes it into the top 10,” Giegengack said in an interview in the May/June 2007 issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette.

Another is Denis G. Rancourt, professor of physics and an environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa, who believes the global warming campaign does a disservice to the environmental movement. As Rancourt wrote on February 27, 2007: “Promoting the global warming myth trains people to accept unverified, remote, and abstract dangers in the place of true problems that they can discover for themselves by becoming directly engaged in their workplace and by doing their own research and observations.”

Professor David Noble of Canada’s York University has joined the growing chorus of disenchanted liberal activists. Noble now believes that the movement has “hyped the global climate issue into an obsession.” Noble wrote a May 8, 2007, essay entitled “The Corporate Climate Coup” which details how global warming has “hijacked” the environmental left and created a “corporate climate campaign,” “divert[ing] attention from the radical challenges of the global justice movement.”

Now more than ever, as the economy suffers both at home and around the world, we must focus our resources where we can achieve the greatest results. Unfortunately, the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress seem too narrowly focused on pushing the agenda of the so-called environmental community. That agenda focuses obsessively on global warming and it involves job-killing regulations that would dramatically expand the government’s power, with no impact on climate change. We could do more for the environment and the economy if we set aside global warming alarmism and focus on real issues, real problems, and the lives of the people affected by them. That should be our Earth Day pledge for 2009, and a principle that guides our focus for the future.

# # #

Posted by: Matt Dempsey Matt_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov (202) 224-9797

EPA Endangerment Finding Will Destroy Jobs, Harm Consumers  

By Senator James Inhofe

April 20, 2009

Link to The Hill Blog

Last Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency initiated what could indeed become a very dangerous regulatory process for this country.  EPA proposed an “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare.  This move by EPA will unleash a torrent of regulations that will destroy jobs, harm consumers, and extend the agency’s reach into every corner of American life.  While such regulations will create another massive burden on the economy, there will be no positive effect on global climate change as a result.

A year ago, Representative John Dingell correctly stated that an endangerment finding will produce a “glorious mess.”  EPA now has the power within its reach to regulate emissions from schools, farms, hospitals, assisted living facilities and other sources that meet minimum thresholds in the Clean Air Act.  Need confirmation? Just by looking through the comments filed in the docket to EPA’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for greenhouse gas emissions, one is struck by how broadly the Clean Air Act would apply.  Any major economic development could be open to review by the EPA.  The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis found that potential EPA greenhouse gas regulations would destroy over 800,000 jobs and result in a cumulative GDP loss of $7 trillion by 2029.

Some now claim this is why it is time to pass cap-and-trade legislation.  Unfortunately that would replace one very bad approach with another.  In last year’s debate on the Lieberman-Warner-Boxer climate bill, the enormous costs of cap-and-trade legislation were exposed.  What Congress should pass is a simple, narrowly-targeted bill that stops EPA from implementing regulations that will have a significant negative impact on the American economy and do nothing to affect climate change.

# # #

Posted by: Matt Dempsey (202) 224-9797 Matt_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov

EPW FACT OF THE DAY: INDIA SAYS, ‘HECK NO, WE WON’T GO’ 

“If the U.S. acts, the rest of the world will follow.”  This is a common trope asserted by eco-enthusiasts bent on passing cap-and-trade.   No international agreement is possible, they say, unless the U.S. first assumes the burden of mandatory carbon reductions.  We now hear that the U.S. can gain “leverage” in international negotiations in Copenhagen later this year if EPA makes a finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act.  Presumably, this means such action will coax China, the world’s leading emitter of CO2, and India, the world’s third largest CO2 emitter, into accepting binding emissions cuts.  “Unless we show that we are capable and willing to regulate and limit our emissions, we are not going to get an international agreement,” said David Bookbinder, the Sierra Club's chief climate counsel.  Similarly, Annie Petsonk, international counsel with the Environmental Defense Fund, said, “To the extent that the endangerment finding pushes that process domestically, that's important for our negotiating partners to know.”

FACT: Developing countries, particularly India and China, have stated unequivocally that, regardless of U.S. action, they will never impose carbon straitjackets on their economies.  "If the question is whether India will take on binding emission reduction commitments, the answer is no,” a member of the Indian delegation to the recently concluded UN climate conference in Bonn told the Washington Post.  “It is morally wrong for us to agree to reduce when 40 percent of Indians do not have access to electricity.”  As an aside, the Indian delegate added, “Of course, everybody wants to go solar, but costs are very, very high.”  As the Post pointed out, more than 60 percent of India's power is generated from coal.  “As India rapidly climbs the list of global polluters, analysts say coal will continue to fuel the economic demands of the country's 1.1 billion people for two decades.”   But India “has repeatedly said that it will not compromise on growth by committing to emission reduction goals set by developed nations, which it deems bigger culprits when it comes to pollution.”  Rajenda Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said India is “very unlikely” to change its official position.

# # #