Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but some opinions are just plain embarrassing. In a June 8 Op-Ed published in the New York Times, Stanford University professor Jon A. Krosnick postulated that the vast majority of Americans believe that global warming is both real and man-made, and – ergo – Senators would be well-advised to vote against the Murkowski Resolution when it comes to a vote today.
It’s pretty obvious that Krosnick, a professor of communication, political science and psychology, doesn’t actually understand the subject matter or what the Murkowski resolution is about. He starts his Op-Ed by declaring:
On Thursday, the Senate will vote on a resolution proposed by Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, that would scuttle the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to limit emissions of greenhouse gases by American businesses.
And he closes with this piece of advice:
When senators vote on emissions limits on Thursday, there is one other number they might want to keep in mind: 72 percent of Americans think that most business leaders do not want the federal government to take steps to stop global warming. A vote to eliminate greenhouse gas regulation is likely to be perceived by the nation as a vote for industry, and against the will of the people.
In between, he builds his dubious case using polling data that manages to disagree with just about every other poll on the subject taken in recent memory. But, it’s those opening and closing paragraphs that define the professor’s agenda, and which also serves to reveal the kind of ignorance of environmental science and regulation normally only seen among “senior fellows” at Media Matters.
The Murkowski resolution will hardly scuttle the EPA’s plans to limit emissions of greenhouse gases by American businesses. Between three regional cap and trade programs that are either in place or will soon go live (on the east coast, west coast and in the midwest) and state-level Renewable Portfolio Standards (which accomplish the same goals as cap and trade programs) thirty four states – covering over seventy five percent of the United States populace – are either already limiting emissions of greenhouse gases or will in the near future, with more to come. What the Murkowski resolution does is to stop the EPA’s foolish effort to use the Clean Air Act to accomplish what is already being accomplished.
This also speaks to Krosnick’s notions that senators will be voting on “emissions limits.” There’s nothing in the resolution that has anything to do with “emissions limits.” It’s a simple matter of whether Congress wants to delegate regulatory authority over greenhouse gas regulation to the EPA through a particular act of Congress – nothing more.
Polls over the past couple of years have consistently shown that Americans put a low-priority on addressing “climate change”. Krosnick claims that his polls demonstrate that three out of four Americans believe both that the planet is warming and that mankind is making that happen. Those results seem a little hard to believe, and more than a little convenient given the timing, but let’s give Krosnick the benefit of the doubt. So what? Science is not decided by a consensus of actual scientists – a “consensus” that doesn’t actually exist – and it shouldn’t be decided by public opinion surveys.
The truth is that the USEPA doesn’t want to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and state-level agencies want it even less. USEPA Administrator Lisa Jackson didn’t issue the Endangerment Finding that declared greenhouse gases a pollutant because she – or anyone in the regulatory community – hopes to face the nightmare of regulating these gases under the Clean Air Act. Rather, that action was a poorly-concealed threat aimed directly at Congress: pass a cap and trade bill or things are going to get ugly.
If Jackson were a mafia don, the Endangerment Finding would have sounded something like this: “Nice industrial base you’ve got there – it would be a shame for anything to happen to it…”
The Murkowski resolution aims to take blackmail out of play and force Congress to do its job by thoroughly examining the need for and wisdom of regulating greenhouse gases on a national scale, rather than passing the buck to a horde of faceless bureaucrats. If “climate change” is really as important to Americans as Krosnick thinks it is, isn’t that ultimately an argument that Congress should address the issue head on, instead of hiding behind Lisa Jackson’s skirts?
Kind of makes you wonder whether liberals really care about “climate change” at all, or if there’s something else – redistribution of wealth perhaps? – at play here.
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