OPINION/COMMENTARY

Posturing and Reality on Warming

For the first time, the Senate is about to vote on whether to restrict national emissions of carbon dioxide -- the respiration of our civilization and our economy -- in an attempt to control the world's uncontrollable climate. This legislation has absolutely no basis in science.

The bill in question is S.139, sponsored by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat, and John McCain, Arizona Republican. Both are global-warming hawks who see an opportunity to bring about the Kyoto Protocol through a legislative back door. Both also know it won't do a measurable thing about the Earth's temperature and that it hasn't a snowball's chance in a Washington summer of passage.

But that's not the point. S.139 is designed to embarrass President Bush and to embolden the Senate's green posturers by neutralizing the 1997 Byrd-Hagel "Sense of the Senate" Resolution which, 95-0, stated the Senate would never entertain any climate change treaty that would cost American jobs. Instead, expect S.139 to get between 30 and 40 votes. No doubt, the green lobby will crow about rapidly growing support for instruments like the Kyoto Protocol and (egad) beyond...

Dioxin Shenanigans: Why the is EPA Afraid of Independent Peer Review?

If he makes it past a bruising Senate confirmation process, Utah Governor and EPA Administrator-designate Mike Leavitt will soon face an even bigger challenge. How does he deal with an entrenched EPA bureaucracy that - if it can get away with it - is perfectly willing to put its own narrow regulatory interests above those of the public it is supposed to serve?

As Leavitt prepares to take the reins at the EPA, the agency is set to release its long-awaited reassessment of dioxin. But the document the EPA is about to foist on the public has set off alarm bells in Congress where lawmakers rightly fear that the agency has sacrificed science for the sake of expanding its already vast regulatory empire.

Eleven years in the making, the EPA study is supposed to review the scientific data to determine whether exposure to dioxin in the environment poses any significant risk to human health. The EPA's findings could then serve as the basis for regulating the sources of dioxin emissions...

Fearful that the agency was cooking the books on dioxin, Congressman James T. Walsh (R-NY), chairman of the House Appropriation Committee's subcommittee on VA, HUD, and independent agencies, has twice - in February 2002 and again in February of this year - asked the EPA to submit its dioxin reassessment to the National Academy of Sciences for independent review.

Walsh's requests have fallen on deaf ears. Stiffing Congress has done little to allay the suspicion that the EPA doesn't want an independent entity mucking around its handling of dioxin...

Farming On Trial

British farmers must be wondering if they've been transported to Alice's Wonderland. Suddenly, normal farm activities like combating weeds in the fields are akin to crimes against nature.

Last week, the UK government released the results of its 3-year farm-scale evaluations (FSEs) supposedly examining the environmental impacts of genetically modified, or "GM" crops. According to the headlines in scores of UK newspapers, the results indicate that two of the three GM crops were "damaging to wildlife."

The Guardian headline read, "Two GM crops face ban for damaging wildlife." Commentator John Vidal says the trials provide "a legal basis for banning the two crops under European Union rules, which say that either health or environmental detriment must be proved."

This is a sham. They aren't talking wildlife; they're literally talking about weeds. The FSE measured the number and density of weeds and associated insects in the crop fields. The researchers call it "farmland biodiversity" and assume that fewer weeds and dependent bugs in farm fields means fewer birds and other critters off the farm. The FSE researchers refer to this assumption as "the negative impacts of cleanliness."...

Cooler Heads Project

Schwarzenegger's Campaign Cheers Environmentalists

According to Greenwire (Oct. 15), California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger's "policy agenda reads like an environmentalist's wish list." He has set a target of reducing "air pollution by up to 50 percent, through incentives for clean fuel usage, and build hydrogen car fueling stations along California highways. The governor-elect also supports the state's renewable portfolio standard (RPS), which would require that 20 percent of the state's power come from solar and wind power by 2017."

In addition, he has promised to defend the state's greenhouse gas legislation against legal challenges, saying, "California's landmark legislation to cut greenhouse gases is now law, and I will work to implement it and to win the expected challenges in court along the way."

Schwarzenegger's campaign was not wholly attractive to the environmental lobby, which reacted badly to his suggestion that he might want to close down the state's environmental protection agency as part of his campaign against government bureaucracy. However, Terry Tamminen, an unpaid adviser to Schwarzenegger on environmental issues, and executive director of Environment Now, told Greenwire that he hoped the new Governor would be able to work more closely with the White House than Gov. Davis did on issues like global warming and air pollution, saying, "As a Republican governor, Arnold is much more likely to be able to work with the Bush administration to resolve differences. California could persuade the federal government to take another look at those policies."

Kyoto Ratification Latest

Since March of this year, eleven more countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol: Botswana, Ghana, Guyana, Kyrgyzstan, Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Namibia, Moldova, St. Lucia, Solomon Islands, and Switzerland. Of these, Switzerland is the only Annex I country subject to emissions controls under the pact, responsible for 0.3 percent of the emissions concerned.

Switzerland's ratification brings the total percentage of Annex I emissions belonging to countries that have ratified the protocol to 44.2 percent. The USA (36.1), Australia (2.1) and Russia (17.4) together make up 55.6 percent, meaning that as long as either Russia or the U. S. fails to ratify the protocol, it cannot go into effect.

Eco-radicals Twist Tax Law to Feed Habits

Corporate misbehavior remains much in the news in America. One day it is Enron; next it is the New York Stock Exchange. Big Labor, too, must routinely be called to account. Now comes a study, "Green-Peace, Dirty Money: Tax Violations in the World of non-Profits," from Public Interest Watch, demonstrating the importance of scrutinizing nonprofit organizations.

PIW charges the radical environmental group Greenpeace with misusing tax-exempt donations for political purposes. Greenpeace, it says, is "the most egregious offender we reviewed," and thus warrants a thorough investigation. Greenpeace activists sometimes risk life and limb trying to blockade bases and ships and invade businesses and power plants. Alas, the group lacks an appreciation for the importance of protecting humans as well as whales and plants.

There may be no more avid antagonist to technological innovation than Greenpeace, which sees danger in every advance and most ferociously opposes changes that offer the greatest potential benefits. If the organization had its way, we'd all be living in primitive hovels with dirt floors, sharing our single room with farm animals while enjoying the wonders of cholera, smallpox and typhoid...