Climate change: A few signs of legislative hope

Source: U.S. News

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the House bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, was passed by the House last June. The Senate bill, called The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, sponsored by Sen. John Kerry, has been languishing in the Senate since its introduction last September. Now that health care has passed, we may see some action.
Steven Pearlstein, writing in the Washington Post, points out that the passage of health care reform may have convinced Democrats that the perfect really isn’t the enemy of the good (a Voltaire phrase now associated with Ted Kennedy). Republicans may be ready to acknowledge that if they attempt to kill another piece of important and historic legislation simply to be ornery, they will miss out on significant concessions they could have won. Pearlstein puts the chances of passage at only 50-50, however.

Many in the environmental community have come around to Kerry’s view that this is the best shot they are going to have anytime soon at passing comprehensive energy and climate change legislation. And parts of the business community have come around to [Republican Sen. Lindsey] Graham’s view that they can’t afford another decade of uncertainty over regulatory issues, particularly with an activist Democrat in control of the regulatory agencies, just as they cannot afford to alienate an entire generation that has a keen interest in the environment and doesn’t look kindly on their intransigence. …
In the end, if Congress is unable to do something about global warming, it won’t be because of the opposition of “special interests,” but rather because of ideological zealots and Republican partisans who are determined to deny Democrats another victory, even at the cost of a planetary environmental disaster.

“Climate-gate” should be put to rest

Meanwhile, the “climate-gate” scandal has largely been put to rest. Unfortunately, the finding that prominent climate scientists are innocent will undoubtedly receive much less publicity than the original insinuations.
The controversy started last November, when hackers posted over a thousand emails, plus other hackaed documents, that purportedly demonstrated hostility towards skeptics of global warming. A British parliamentary review defended the research of scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.
A second review, by a panel of academic experts, has now concluded: “We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it.”
A third review of the allegations is expected shortly.

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