Liberty Matters News Service
February 14, 2002
President Bush Outlines GreenHouse Gas Policy
President Bush announced today a new
policy to address reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
The president last year refused to comply with demands that the
United States cut back use of fossil fuels to 1990 levels, arguing that
such a policy would place severe economic hardship upon Americans. The new policy will focus on a gradual slowing of so-called
greenhouse gases, rather than the more draconian reductions called for
by the International community. Mr.
Bush also voiced objections that developing nations such as China and
India were exempt from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
Members of the environmental lobby complained that the plan to
index greenhouse gas emissions to economic output would only serve to
allow the heat-trapping particles to continue to add to the problem of
“global warming.” The
president’s plan focuses significantly on tax incentives to
businesses, farmers and individuals to encourage the reduction of air
pollutants as opposed to mandatory cutbacks of the International global
warming Kyoto Protocol. Mr. Bush said the government in 2012 would reevaluate
its success in cutting greenhouse gases and consider a new, possibly
tougher system.
Bush
Offers Alternate Pollution Plan
Another Study Debunks Global Warming
Global Warming fear mongers point to
melting ice caps in the Antarctica as proof that the world is rapidly
warming and soon islands in the Pacific will disappear under the waves.
Two new studies of temperatures and ice cap movement in that same
area indicate that is not the case.
In fact, Antarctica is becoming colder.
Dr. Peter Dorman and his team of scientists have determined that
since 1986, temperatures have been dropping an average of 1.2 degrees
Fahrenheit per decade and similar downturns have occurred since 1978 in
the McMurdo Dry Valleys of east Antarctica.
When the scientists noticed that “glacial ice wasn’t melting,
streams weren’t flowing, lakes were shrinking and microorganisms were
disappearing, they decided to expand their data collection and
discovered that “Antarctica as a whole had gotten considerably
colder." The study
seems to confirm what 17,000 scientists have previously determined;
there is no “global warming.”
Guess What? Antarctica's Getting
Colder, Not Warmer
Full
Steam Ahead
Never mind scientific studies to the
contrary, proceed full speed to implement the Kyoto Protocol, say some
politicians. Fearing their
state will collapse from the effects of impending global warming,
leftist California politicians are backing legislation requiring “the
state Air Resources Board to adopt by January 2004, regulations that
achieve the ‘maximum feasible and cost-effective reduction’ of
carbon dioxide from cars and light trucks…”
Although carbon dioxide is not a threat to human health nor does
it form smog and there are no scientific standards to support the
proposed regulations, politicians say it is better to err on the side of
caution. Former Sacramento
Mayor Phil Isenberg, now a lobbyist for the alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers, exposed the folly of the bill, saying;
“There’s a grand commotion about global warming, but we’re
not about to buy into a regulatory program based on whimsy.”
In Texas, a group of environmentalists are attempting to
implement the Kyoto Protocol by slipping regulations into the back door.
They have petitioned the Texas Natural Resource Conservation
Commission to consider requiring “reductions in the amounts of C02
emissions from all sources: cars, trucks, power plants, and
manufacturing. The Commission’s findings prompted TNRCC Executive
Director to recommend that the federal government require increased
vehicle fuel efficiency along with development of hybrid vehicles and
alternate fuels, among other suggestions.
The efforts to implement Kyoto continue despite a lack of
scientific evidence to support its claims.
Radical
Enviro Groups Push to Enact
$35 Billion Energy Tax on Texas
Texas
Regulators Enter The Global Warming Fray...
PLF Files
Suit Against San Francisco
The Pacific Legal Foundation has taken a case on behalf of Tom and Robert Field, the two owners of a small hotel located in San Francisco. The owners of the 95 year-old San Remo Hotel had rescued the historic building from destruction and spent over $1 million to restore it to its former Victorian charm. Instead of showing gratitude to the brothers and other entrepreneurs for restoring the city’s nasty eyesores, San Francisco city officials enacted an ordinance requiring them to set aside a significant number of rooms for the homeless. For example: only 27 rooms of the restored Cornell hotel could be reserved for tourists, while 31 rooms must go to the indigent. The City allowed the hotel-owners to be released from the requirements for a small fee - $600,000 in one case and
$567,000 in another.
The Field brothers paid the fee under protest, but then sued the
City. The City
claimed the owners must share costs for housing those displaced by the
renovations of the old hotels, but that argument seems to ignore the
U.S. Constitution, as well as, the benefits the City will accrue from
added revenue from tourism. The
California Supreme Court heard the case, December 6, 2001, but as of the
date of this story, has not ruled.
Small
Hotels: San Francisco's Scapegoats for Housing the Homeless
Public Supports Wildlife In Word Only
A new poll conducted by Ducks
Unlimited indicates the public likes wildlife, all right, but not enough
to donate money on its behalf.
In fact 63 per cent could not name one organization dedicated to
wildlife and natural resource conservation, while 82 per cent said they
were not members of, nor had they donated to any such organization in
the last two years. Fifty
seven per cent couldn’t identify any non-government organization that
protects the environment. The
radical greens continue to lobby politicians with figures indicating
saving the environment is the overriding concern of the American public.
Maybe it is, as long as the price is paid with other people’s
money and liberties.
Americans
Interested In Wildlife But Do Not Donate