House Republicans Unveil Plans to Boost Greenhouse Gases, Leaving Mandate on Jobs and Economy Behind

Representative Darrell Issa, from California

House Republicans yesterday unveiled draft legislation yesterday that bans the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The legislation, which will easily pass in the House, is another sharp rebuke to the Obama Administration, just days after Representative Darrel Issa reportedly was asked by the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank) to attack decades of regulations and consumer protections.

Perhaps the more scary part of this story is that Democratic lawmakers might just go along with it. Already a handful of Senators are supporting plans to impose a two-year moratorium on EPA attempts to, essentially, do its job. It's almost as if Republicans, so intent on proving that government is inefficient, will go to the extraordinarily length of sabotaging efforts to take practical and necessary steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, just to prove their point.

Daily Kos author Jed Lewison pointed out today that, "Conservatives can claim climate science is a hoax until they go blue in the face, but that won't change the immutable fact that dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere traps solar energy."And while he's completely right, there is another reason why conservatives should be going blue in the face -- this bill would also be bad for the economy. In fifty to a hundred years from now, there simply won't be much oil or gas to go around. With the explosion in the use of energy, especially in China and India, it's imperative that we continue to capitalize on the benefits that clean energy will give us now, but more importantly in the future.

China already understands this, and in many respects they are already ahead of us. Reversing decades of energy policy is not only bad environmentally, but economically as well. But I suppose it's not news that Republicans are proposing yet another bill that has nothing to do with their mandate on jobs and the economy.

Further Reading:

Huffington Post: House GOP Readies Severe New Restrictions on EPA
Daily Kos: GOP Unveils Pro Greenhouse Gas Legislation