OPINION/COMMENTARY

The Bill That Wouldn't Die

You may hear the creak of a coffin-lid today as the alarmists' favorite domestic energy suppression measure rises from the grave. This particularly pungent revenant is the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act 2003, 2004, 2005, an attempt to establish the principle that caps on energy use are the way to combat the threat of global warming. In fact, the CSA would do absolutely nothing to reduce temperatures, its only effect being to put a few hundred thousand Americans out of a job. But, hey, it's in a good cause. The CSA, or as it has become more widely known, McLieberman, was defeated comfortably on its last outing in October 2003 by 55 votes to 43, with ten Democrats joining the majority of Republicans to reject it. If anything, the Senate elections last year reduced the number likely to vote for it, so the chances of this undead Bill doing anything more than shambling a few steps before disintegrating in the harsh sunlight of political reality are slim at best. The same cannot be said of three new Bills on climate change announced this week by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R.-NE). He said he would introduce the Bills (one aimed at encouraging international consideration of technological development, one a domestic equivalent, and one making permanent tax breaks for investment in research into the issue) in order to get the White House more 'involved' in the issue. "We have been out of the game for four years," he told the liberal Brookings Institution, "That's dangerous." The idea that the US has been "out of the game" surrounding global warming is somewhat odd....