Paul Chesser is in the New York Post this morning, lamenting Governor Paterson’s decision to subject the Empire State to the Center for Climate Strategies’ same old song-and-dance.

In state after state, CCS signs on as “technical experts” — dispassionate “facilitators” assisting a “stakeholder process.” In fact, it winds up exerting total control over the climate panel’s process — running the meetings, limiting the menu of acceptable ideas and prohibiting discussion of science. . . .
When the process is done, the result is always 50-some recommendations to the governor (for making executive orders) and the legislature (to make laws) that raise energy prices and diminish consumer freedom.
Ideas that have taken hold with other states’ commissions include biofuel mandates and subsidies, vehicle-idling limits, taxpayer-funded incentives to live near rail stations and pay-by-the-mile insurance premiums.
Beyond these specifics, CCS’ agenda mainly seeks to replace efficient fossil-fuel energy with such inadequate, expensive “renewables” as solar or wind power — or at least to massively penalize the use of fossil fuels and subsidize “renewables.” Such policies would force New Yorkers to pay millions more for energy — a burden that would fall hardest on the poor. . . .
State-level plans engineered elsewhere by CCS have promised that its proposals to raise energy costs will somehow bring vast economic benefits (“Green jobs! Cost savings!”) yet don’t even specify any gains on the climate.

The full story here.