Rep. John Dingell

Now that the election is over there’s one House race left to watch: Dingell v. Waxman.

John Dingell is the Ann Arbor/Detroit Representative who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee.  E&C is the key House committee of jurisdiction for climate policy and Dingell has been unabashed in his reluctance to move climate policy forward.   Considering the aggressive moves by other Congressional Dems – particularly Bingaman, Boxer and Markey — on trying to move the policy conversation forward within the Democratic caucus in advance of January 2009, Dingell has been the bottleneck to movement.

Now, the always-aggressive Henry Waxman, #2 on the E&C committee, has started a push to wrest the gavel from Dingell.  The differences in philosophy and approach between the two men are quite clear, especially on climate.  Dingell has been upfront about protecting the auto industry at all costs and being reluctant on carbon regulations (see for example), while Waxman is clearly itching to move forward on carbon caps.

Last week, radio king Rush Limbaugh riffed on the idea of “the haughty John Kerry” being appointed Secretary of State in an Obama administration, traveling the globe and stepping in it wherever he went. Not a bad choice, but if we’re going to try getting our money’s worth in entertainment over the next four years – given that we’ll be paying top dollar – how about Al Gore for the job?

Forget any sort of environmental leadership position that would limit him to America – The Goracle simply cannot be contained. Within mere days of the Obama win, Gore exploded like Chernobyl all over the op-ed pages of the New York Times:

“The inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he — and we — must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.”

If ever there were two items fairly capturing much of the theme of Red Hot Lies — cruising up the charts nicely here in its first few days off the press, thanks to all — these are the two.

First, establishment scientists attack heretics, then refuse to release the data they claim supports their alleged debunking of what, in this case, increasingly appears to be a fatal flaw in the alarmist thesis: the alleged “fingerprint” of greenhouse warming continues to not exist.

As I detail in RHL, the global warming industry have a long and unhappy history of making claims they apparently cannot back up and, when challenged, clinging to their data like grim death, claiming it was lost, apparently fabricating data, having journals publish helpful conclusions without ever asking to see the numbers, and so on. When the data are released, things don’t end well for the alarmists — as the Hockey Team’s original and now latest flailing bears out.

A coal-fired plant like this was soundly rejected based on fears, not facts

State panel rejects proposed coal-fired power plant

The state Public Service Commission on Tuesday unanimously rejected a proposed $1.3 billion 300-megawatt mostly coal-fired power plant proposed by Wisconsin Power & Light at Cassville.

In justifying their decision, commissioners cited the cost, inefficiency and carbon dioxide emissions of the proposed plant.

Rob Crain, a spokesman for WPL and its parent company Alliant Energy, said the commission's written decision will be reviewed, but an appeal is unlikely.

Why bother getting elected officials’ votes when you can accomplish your purposes by presidential fiat?

An article in yesterday’s Washington Post reveals just what the future will look like under the new president.

The president-elect has said, for example, that he intends to quickly reverse the Bush administration’s decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles…California had sought permission from the [2] Environmental Protection Agency to require that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles be cut by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, effectively mandating that cars achieve a fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon within eight years. Seventeen other states had promised to adopt California’s rules, representing in total 45 percent of the nation’s automobile market.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm

Gov. Jennifer Granholm has been drinking the "green jobs" Kool-aid, recently announcing that she is creating an energy department and naming an energy czar to pursue "alternative" energy and "create thousands of jobs." Yet in these times of economic distress, the governor's priorities are misplaced.

Environmental protection comes at a price -- after all, someone has to pay to keep air and water clean. However, politicians like Granholm claim that clever government policies can result in environmental protections that simultaneously grow the economy.

If something sounds too good to be true, it is. Environmental protection still comes at a price, and Granholm's green jobs initiative threatens Michigan's ailing economy.