Where's The Crisis?

The Waxman-Markey climate change bill that would establish a regime to limit carbon dioxide emissions through a cap-and-trade system was passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week. It was approved 33-25 after a speed reader ripped through its 946 pages, babbling aloud before the vote at the insistence of the opposition. Only one Republican — Rep. Mary Bono Mack of California — voted for it while four Democrats voted against it. The legislation might not get such a cushy ride on the House floor. Rep. Collin Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat who chairs the House Agriculture Committee, is threatening to derail it and says he has the support of 40 to 50 other Democrats. Peterson is not opposing Waxman-Markey because he's a skeptic of global warming. Nothing so noble as that. His opposition is purely political. He wants parliamentary power over the bill. Should he fail to get it, he's willing to sink the legislation. Which brings up the question: If global warming were a grave threat, wouldn't getting a CO2 emissions restriction law passed and signed take precedence over lawmakers' objections on behalf of their constituents? The fact that Peterson and so many Democrats would rather have no bill than to let it become law without input from the Agriculture Committee exposes the global warming scare: It's not about the environment — it's about power and politics...IBD