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green lobby is livid that President George Bush retracted his support
of costly new limits on utility
emissions
last week. How dare he defy them because of a mere energy crisis!
“A breathtaking betrayal,” fumed Rep. Henry Waxman, who evidently
regards his home state of California as a model of a sustainable
energy.
Yet, even as the folly of green energy policy has been exposed in
his own backyard, Mr. Waxman and his brethren still seem to think
that their take on environmental matters is sacrosanct. That they
have come to believe so can partly be blamed on the GOP in general,
and Mr. Bush in particular.
For three decades now, Republicans have largely ceded environmental
policy to the Left. Even when faced with absurd propositions —
a ban on chlorine, say, or Kyoto Treaty constraints on economic
growth — the GOP typically retreats to the sidelines, from
whence comes an occasional mumble about cost. Some, like Rhode Island
Sen. John Chafee, actually embrace the liberal orthodoxy that sanctifies
Mother Earth.
Granted, the GOP’s environmental squeamishness is partially rooted
in the political reality that the media operates as a lobbying arm
of radical environmentalism. Attempting to communicate scientific
evidence through this filter can be a daunting task. Take, for example,
last week’s issue of Time magazine which, despite the deep
split within the scientific community on the extent and consequences
of global climate change, “reports” that “industrial emissions .
. . are slowly turning the earth into a hothouse.”
But whether from fear of attack or sheer ineptitude, the GOP has
utterly failed to craft and convey a coherent environmental platform
that would engage voters. Faced with claims of melting ice caps,
all the convoluted talk about cost-benefit analyses isn’t too persuasive.
On a campaign swing through industrial Saginaw, Mich., last fall,
Mr. Bush evidently tried to curry environmental favor (and, perhaps,
temper opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Reserve) by
pledging to impose new restrictions on carbon-dioxide emissions.
Power plants are the principal industrial sources of CO2, which
is emitted when coal and natural gas are burned to produce electricity.
While also naturally occurring in enormous quantities, CO2 is implicated
as a “greenhouse gas” by global warming theorists.
But had Mr. Bush given more than passing thought to this proposal,
he would have recognized the obvious pitfalls. Coal-fired power
plants — which emit the larger share of CO2 — provide
more than half of the nation’s power. In key industrial states like
Michigan, the figure is closer to 80 percent.
No smokestack technology even exists to capture CO2, so utilities
would effectively be forced to retrofit plants for natural gas or
significantly limit power production. Energy costs, meanwhile, would
soar (a DOE study estimates by $115 billion a year) as power plants
consumed more costly supplies of natural gas.
(Ironically, the very same folks who now decry the Bush tax cut
plan as a windfall for the “rich” also advocate emission restrictions
that would disproportionately impact lower-income Americans.)
Bush supporters defend the president by noting his consistent campaign
statements in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol for its harmful economic
impact. In his second debate with Al Gore, for example, Bush addressed
a question about global warming: “There’s differing opinions (on
the science),” he said, “and before we react, I think it’s best
to have the full accounting, full understanding of what’s taking
place.
And they point out that his CO2 pledge was but one reference in
a policy statement in which he unequivocally opposed any regulation
that would so drastically raise energy costs.
Upon his arrival in Washington, however, Bush effectively sabotaged
this position by appointing a true believer as EPA chief. And in
so doing, Republicans again have surrendered environmental policy
to the greens ... with predictable results.
At a Feb. 27 Senate hearing, for example, Christie Todd Whitman
directly contradicted Bush’s position on global warming, warning
lawmakers: “There’s no question but that global warming is a real
phenomenon, that it is occurring. And while scientists can’t predict
where the droughts will occur, where the flooding will occur precisely
or when, we know those things will occur. The science is strong
there.”
Indeed, Bush’s ill-conceived CO2 pledge may never have resurfaced
had Whitman not underlined it in television interviews and at a
European conference of environmental ministers. With Whitman at
EPA’s helm, the carbon-dioxide flap won’t be the administration’s
last environmental headache.
The president’s choice of EPA chief is eerily similar to his father’s
appointment of William Reilly, who actually championed the 1990
amendments to the Clean Air Act, which have proved to be the most
costly environmental regulation in U.S. history.
Consider the consequences. Asked in a 1990 interview why, in seeking
reform of the Act, the EPA had lobbied for acid-rain regulation
that directly contradicted its own scientific evidence, Reilly replied:
“Well, there are other reasons to pass it. For example, we need
to address global warming.”
In the absence of GOP leadership, then, many industrial interests
also are caving. Major CO2 producers like Cummins Engine, BP Amoco,
and Murphy Oil, for example, are simply using climate change to
gain a competitive advantage and as a PR weapon. Figuring that the
fight for rational policy is lost, these and other companies are
now undertaking costly CO2 reductions in hopes of selling government-inspired
emissions “credits” down the line. That the investment will yield
little environmental benefit is, of course, beside the point.
Fortunately, Mr. Bush realized this week that curbing CO2 emissions
would be reckless for an economy short on energy and flirting with
recession. Perhaps Whitman will wise up as well. But the CO2 contretemps
would have been avoided altogether had the president been more careful
with his words — and with putting together his environmental
policy team.
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