This morning I spoke on a panel on the legislative prospects for cap-and-trade kicked off by EPW chair Barbara Boxer. The California senator cited the death of a young girl in Ohio last year who developed a bacterial infection after swimming in a local body of water. Boxer blamed global warming for the presence of the pathogen — because, well, it’s never been this warm before.

I have small children, and therefore zero reservations about categorizing such abuse of individual tragedy as heartless. (Perhaps the senator believes this nonsense — which raises other, significant questions.)

As Boxer left, one lobbyist from an oil company pushing for this cap-and-trade scheme that, uh, is a shell of its former self, fawned to the senator, asking if she were frowning during the lobbyist in question’s remarks. The response? “No, I was smiling the whole time. I loved everything you said!”

Welcome to Capitol Hill. This set the tone for other lobbyists from rent-seeking industries who, when asked if a bill might pass, gushed, “We sure hope so!” Another cited the sale of CFLs as proof that customers will go green if given a choice — and as an argument for even more mandates (like the ones that help explain CFL sales), with no hesitation advancing that contradiction. Yet another offered windy remarks citing Hurricane Katrina as proof that “climate change” is here. Paging the Dimmock judge: You’re needed in Washington.

The least troubling remarks on this panel of experts (other than my own) came from the National Resources Defense Council. [Sigh.] So this is what the taxpayers face: A policymaking community thriving on cynical fairy tales, illogic, outright fabrications, and a slobbering love affair with the idea of picking your pockets in order to fund state-mandated wealth transfers to buy off the constituencies necessary to drag this scheme over the finish line.

Most of which points I made — while the august audience emitted the odor of recognition that the public will block this scheme, and were none too pleased about it. I look forward to the day the global-warming industry and their pals in Congress finally bite the bullet and try to force this on you. I have a feeling their delay arises from a shared suspicion that it will end in a way similar to the legislative anecdote with which I began my remarks: the 1993 BTU debacle.