Minority Leader holds up vote on key climate legislation
Invoking a custom of the House which allows party leaders as much time as they should need to discuss a bill or amendment, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) wrapped-up the Republican Party’s case in opposition to the Waxman-Markey climate bill by busting-out a filibuster, of sorts; poring through an amendment to the bill that was delivered late the night before.
Repeatedly highlighting the fact that it was submitted at 3:09 A.M., Boehner read aloud portions of what he called, “Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax”, often pulling bits and pieces completely out of context to launch into the Republican talking points about how the bill will kill the American economy.
President says cost to average American in ten years will be equivalent to one postage stamp per day
Invoking the now-familiar messages heard throughout both his campaign and much of his presidency, like growing new jobs, moving off foreign sources of energy and building a clean energy economy, President Obama implored the U.S. Senate to move forward with a version of the Waxman-Markey climate bill passed by the House of Representatives on Friday.
“My call to every senator, as well as to every American, is this,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly address, “We cannot be afraid of the future. And we must not be prisoners of the past. Don’t believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth.”
The League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club today launched a new television ad “amplifying President Obama’s call “for Congress to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The ad employs video from the President’s Tuesday press conference, in which he made the case for clean energy and expressed support for the Waxman-Markey climate bill.
The ad, relying simply on the words of the President, stands in stark contrast to the fear-laden ad released on Monday by the Newt Gingrich-led and billionaire-sponsored American Solutions for Winning the Future.
“The President’s voice is the most powerful, but he is only one of the millions of Americans who want to move to a 21st Century sources of clean, American energy,” LCV President Gene Karpinski said in a release. “In 30 years in Washington, the coalition that has formed in support of this bill is one of the most powerful I’ve ever seen because the vote in question is the most critical we’ve ever faced.”
‘American Solutions for Winning the Future’ scaring Americans into action?
With all signs pointing to a Friday vote in the House of Representatives on the Waxman-Markey climate bill, the right-wing political action committee behind the “Drill here, drill now, pay less” campaign of last summer, yesterday launched a last-ditch effort to block climate change legislation by scaring the crap out of you.
The ad, produced by the group American Solutions for Winning the Future, urges you to contact your Representative to tell them how scared you are of the devastating economic impacts of climate and energy legislation. The new commercial was released on the heals of a Congressional Budget Office report that found the annual cost of the Waxman-Markey climate bill would be an average of $175 per household — far less than previous GOP cost estimates.
Led by former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, American Solutions for Winning the Future is no garden variety political organization. Financed by a host of high-profile billionaire-backers including Casino Kingpin and third richest person in America, Sheldon Adelson; co-founder of PayPal and staunch libertarian Peter Thiel; Cincinatti businessman and second-biggest contributor to the GOP, Dick Farmer, and; textile magnate and patron of right-wing causes for almost 50 years, Roger Milliken, the organization has emerged as one of the most powerful and, perhaps, reactionary PACs on the American political landscape.
The first-ever report exclusively focused on the global human impact of climate change indicates that more than 300 million people are seriously affected by climate change at a total economic cost of $125 billion per year.
Earlier today, former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, announced the results of a report on the human impact of climate change. The study, Human Impact Report: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis, emphasizes the present impacts of a changing climate, pulling the debate away from a focus on “future generations.”
Speaking at a press conference in London, Mr. Annan said, “Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. As this report shows, the first hit and worst affected are the world’s poorest groups, and yet they have done least to cause the problem.” Read the rest of this entry »
Conservative host Glenn Beck (who recently argued on his show that the government shouldn’t handle more than nine problems at a time because a person can only juggle nine objects at a time) interviewed Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) about the recent memo concerning EPA’s supposed global warming fallacies:
After much wind from the GOP leader, George Stephanopoulos asks House Minority Leader John Boehner what the Republican plan is to deal with carbon emissions. Boehner responds that all the fuss over carbon dioxide is “almost comical” and turns to cows to avoid coming up with a solid answer.
This interview was conducted on April 19 on “This Week.”
The Republican Party is in a bit of a rough patch.
The League of Conservation Voters yesterday launched a petition to tell Republican congressional leaders Rep. John Boehner (KY) and Sen. Mitch McConnel (KY) that they have a choice: Either follow the leadership of Republican governors like Charlie Crist of Florida and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California in building a clean energy economy, ending our attachment on foreign oil, and addressing climate change, or; “Follow the leadership of Rush Limbaugh by proposing no new ideas, providing tax breaks to oil companies, and ignoring global warming.” Watch the LCV’s 54-second snark attack:
Red, Green and Blue brings together voices from across the political and ideological spectrums to discuss and debate critical environmental issues and current events.
