Jim DiPeso

John McCain visited a wind technology plant in Portland Monday to tell the world that America wouldn’t fritter away another eight years before confronting global climate change.

It’s a message that the world needs to hear, from the halls of Congress in Washington to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. At Republicans for Environmental Protection, we thought it was a good speech, so we sent out a press release calling attention to it.

That’s when the creatures from the Internet black lagoon emerged, dripping with scorn about “tree-hugging morons” and filling up our president’s in-box with scientifically illiterate swamp gas about the global warming “hoax.”

The following day, a Tuesday, I attended a forum about environmental issues that McCain held near Seattle with a panel of Washington State business leaders, political dignitaries, and an Eagle Scout. He talked about seeing firsthand the impacts of climate change in the polar regions, developing energy technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and his confidence that America has the smarts to solve the problem, no matter what the doom-and-gloom, it-can't-be-done hand-wringers on the political right say. ...

read more

comment | permalink | print | email |

share

reddit digg Del.icio.us facebook newsvine stumble What is share?

My office phone rang and a chirpy 20-something calling from the 514 area code was on the line. A short time into the call, I knew what it was: an oil industry-sponsored opinion survey that smelled like a push poll.

With $4-per-gallon gasoline prices drawing near, what better time, in the industry's view, to make a renewed push to open up America’s coastal waters to drilling rigs. A poll designed to show that the voters support more drilling is a predictable part of the lobbying and PR strategy that is gathering steam.

The questioner tossed a lot of industry arguments my way – e.g. much of the oil that we use originates in North America, oil company profits are not out of line with other industries, scads of untapped oil lie beneath the coastal waters.

She asked me to rate the arguments' importance if they were verifiably true. For each one, I said, "not at all important." ...

read more

comment | permalink | print | email |

share

reddit digg Del.icio.us facebook newsvine stumble What is share?

You know that the Democratic race for president has become a roving Salvador Dali painting when Hillary Clinton starts comparing herself to Theodore Roosevelt. Take that, Barack Obama!

Hillary mentioned the Rough Rider as a role model for her proposal to slap a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. In point of fact, TR’s Justice Department initiated antitrust litigation against the Standard Oil trust, the monopolist behemoth of his time. Roosevelt did not oppose large corporations on principle, and carefully chose targets for antitrust action.

Historical quibbles aside, Senator Clinton’s proposal is of a piece with Democrats' usual line of attack against high oil prices – promises to vigorously police Big Oil and stop its supposed price gouging.

Ho hum. As the summer driving season nears, lawmakers in both parties have scraped threadbare ideas off the bottom of the banality barrel to show the voters that they’re doing something.

Neither the Democrats' sloppy populism, nor the drill-till-we-drop legislation submitted by Senate Republicans deserves to be taken seriously. ...

read more

comment | permalink | print | email |

share

reddit digg Del.icio.us facebook newsvine stumble What is share?