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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Cantwell-Collins and Sigourney Weaver

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  April 22nd, 2010 at 09:46 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

There is a unique strategy shaping up in the United States Senate to get cap-and-tax passed. Lindsey Graham is going to go to the extreme side.

Graham’s support of the cap-and-tax global warming bill that passed the House of Representatives is the left’s dream version of a “climate change” bill, but the realists know it is not going to pass. Graham is going to offer a tweaked version of the cap-and-tax plan on Monday.

So here’s the strategy.

Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins are going to push an alternative climate change bill. They are going to get John Kerry and others in the Senate to go along with them. In fact, John Kerry is going to take up to two hours today to listen to a pitch on the plan. They want to get out ahead of Lindsey Graham’s Monday launch.

The legislation is called the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act, or CLEAR, and was dropped in December. Some people fear that while Lindsey Graham’s legislation will tax us into oblivion, the Cantwell-Collins bill will drive up economic costs.

No matter. It’s to stop climate change.

And they’ve enlisted Sigourney Weaver to be the public face for the CLEAR Act — a much prettier face and voice than Lindsey Graham.

How do I know all of this? I sat next to Ms. Weaver and the Cantwell-Collins plotters at breakfast this morning.

Remember: they are going to do their best to portray this as the reasonable alternative. Actually, the best portrayal is a lame effort to be seen as doing something on climate change because Congress just has to do something. Allegedly.

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COMMENTS

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  • Achance

    achance AT gci DOT net. The “Contact” on RedState gives me a “not found” and I don’t think I have your current email. Thanks!

  • smitch61

    I will keep fighting, but I have had enough of this crap sandwich, every stinking layer of it.

  • obladioblada

    and burdening the people, with a pious nod to environmentalism. No matter the insanity of the purported cause or the economic ruin it will wreak, Big Government needs Big Taxes. And Obama is delighted to kill the goose that lays the golden egg in his quest for central control and his version of economic justice. Feed the beast!

  • General_Confusion

    Once again a bill VERY damaging to the country, freedom and the economy almost went down to defeat.

    But wait the thanks to the RINO?s its going to be passed. They rescued the Health Care bill and by God their going to save Cap (the economy) and Trade (our freedom for statism).

    Question is this a good point to start discussing how incredibility important the moderates** are to the party?

    **aka good solid Democrats elected on the Republican dime. See Arlen Specter for details.

  • texasgalt

    before November. I am hearing Shelby is ready to deal on financial reg reform and now the cap and crap is coming.

    There’s going to be a lot of fixin’ to do in 2011.

  • JamesSmith130

    I assume here that at the end, Snowe, Collins, and Graham will vote for some version of cap and tax. I also assume that Harry Reid will have the 56 who voted for Obamacare on this as well.

    That leaves this abomination short one vote, and I think they will go after Brown for that vote.

  • spepper

    go figure– the enviro-lefties go to their typical font of pseudo-wisdom, the Hollywood Left, and drag out a show-pony, Sigourney Weaver, to do their propaganda media song and dance……loved her in the Alien movie series, but wondering if she realizes she is attempting to help unleash a real-life “alien” on us all, via global crap-and-tax tyranny based on complete FRAUD???

  • muggedbyrealism

    Erick, Sen. Graham does not support the House-passed bill (Waxman-Markey), which is why he has been working to write a different Senate bill.

    Some parts of the bill will be the same. Over $160 billion for advanced coal power incentives (more than the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project combined in today’s dollars). Total exemptions for agriculture. Border measures to protect domestic manufacturing from unfair competition from countries that do not control their emissions. And yes, cap and trade, but a much more scaled-down version.

    What’s will likely be new: refining is treated differently. Manufacturing does not have to comply with any regulations until 2016 or so. Major incentives for nuclear energy. OCS drilling. Incentives for natural gas. And even greater funds to defray impacts on consumer and industrial energy prices.

    Cantwell-Collins will not go anywhere, I predict. It is simply only because it has not gone through the legislative process. It pays a dividend back to consumers, but does not adjust well for higher prices that will be paid by folks in coal-burning states. And it raises a lot of money without a clear idea of how that money will be used.

    Sigourney Weaver was in town to discuss ocean acidification. What were you doing at a carbon event, Erick? Next one I’m at, I’ll say hi.

  • NeoKong

    Did she ask about me ?

  • spinoneone

    Richard S. Lindzen, PhD professor of climate and meteorology at MIT, had this to say in today’s Wall Street Journal.

    “Who would guess, from this statement, that the feedback effects are the crucial question? Without these positive feedbacks assumed by computer modelers, there would be no significant problem, and the various catastrophes that depend on numerous factors would no longer be related to anthropogenic global warming.

    That is to say, the issue relevant to policy is far from settled. Nonetheless, the letter concludes: “Our academies will provide the scientific backdrop for the political and business leaders who must create effective policies to steer the world toward a low-carbon economy.” In other words, the answer is settled even if the science is not.”

    So the religion aspect and the need for billions more for bogus research are settled matters. Unfortunately, the science to back these demands is, most definitely, not. We have to hammer home this message to the American people daily. They simply don’t trust the regime to get anything right or tell the truth. The is one more sterling example

  • crassus

    John McCain’s mini-me is nothing short of a disaster. He is just as much a arrogant, condescending nincompoop as McCain.

    I am firmly convinced that he needs to be thrown out in 2014. In fact, I supported his Democratic opponenet, Bob Conley over Graham in 2008. If amnesty ever passes, it will be due almost entirely to this man, who has made it his cause celebre for inexplicable reasons.

  • gamechange11two

    and urged the 41 to stand firm. Anyone who lives in a redstate should be writing and calling to urge their senator(s) not to let this bill, nor any other bill, come to a vote for the rest of this session. Democrats managed it for two years, couldn’t the republicans swing it for 9 months? We’ve seen what the new bipartisanship is: cramdown, rinse, repeat. It’s time to stop it.

    The only thing standing between us and command and control is this shaky 41 senator minority. And the only thing standing between them and a sound victory this November are the few who always need to say, “Look, we got something done together”, while government and business collude to shuck every dime they can get from the public.

    They need to hear from fly-over country, with a strong reminder that we will be voting this fall, as will a lot of independents. Maybe they can’t read legislation, but they can read polls, and they know which way the polls are breaking. A little reinforcement could be helpful here.

    Ten minutes is all it takes to write a letter. A stamp, an envelope and a walk to the mailbox (you were headed there anyway) and you’re done.

    Don’t let them bring anything up for a vote. Perpetual debate is our strongest tool right now. For the rest of this session anything that passes in the senate is a done deal. Reconciliation is the new supermajority.

    I know this sounds a bit too Jefferson Smith and all, but what have you got to lose? Besides 44 cents?

  • gamechange11two

    and urged the 41 to stand firm. Anyone who lives in a redstate should be writing and calling to urge their senator(s) not to let this bill, nor any other bill, come to a vote for the rest of this session. Democrats managed it for two years, couldn’t the republicans swing it for 9 months? We’ve seen what the new bipartisanship is: cramdown, rinse, repeat. It’s time to stop it.

    The only thing standing between us and command and control is this shaky 41 senator minority. And the only thing standing between them and a sound victory this November are the few who always need to say, “Look, we got something done together”, while government and business collude to shuck every dime they can get from the public.

    They need to hear from fly-over country, with a strong reminder that we will be voting this fall, as will a lot of independents. Maybe they can’t read legislation, but they can read polls, and they know which way the polls are breaking. A little reinforcement could be helpful here.

    Ten minutes is all it takes to write a letter. A stamp, an envelope and a walk to the mailbox (you were headed there anyway) and you’re done.

    Don’t let them bring anything up for a vote. Perpetual debate is our strongest tool right now. For the rest of this session anything that passes in the senate is a done deal. Reconciliation is the new supermajority.

    I know this sounds a bit too Jefferson Smith and all, but what have you got to lose? Besides 44 cents?

  • jaybo

    This should be a no compromise position that conservatives take. We cannot allow republicans to aid in the continued growth of The Federal Government. I would even go as far as to say that any current republican politician that supports any legislation that grows government can no longer receive support from the party.

    As for me, I will no longer give money to republican organizations until they can assure me that “big government” republicans will no longer be accepted into the party.

  • Praying

    You can email them for free. Go to:
    http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
    for email and phone contact information.

  • gamechange11two

    Word on the street is that snail mail gets noticed a bit more than email. Only reply I ever got from my congressman was to a letter I wrote, printed and mailed.

  • harlan

    Today, in the Austin Liberal Statesman, the city outlined it’s energy plan for the next ten years. Here are the high points…

    Reduce coal generated electricity down to zilch.
    Use a hair more natural gas, but say three Hail Marys with every use.
    No increase in nuclear.

    So, from whence will the power come?

    Wood chips, wind and solar.

    Now, they briefly mention that solar ain’t gonna happen.
    Wood is going to have to burn, and the wood in Texas is very smoky. (Why do you think the barbecue is so terrific?)
    And no one wants to live within fifty miles of monster wind turbines and their sixty cycle hum.

    Great “plan”, Austin.

  • wolfgang

    Maria Cantwell has to get her legs un intertwined from those of CNBC’s and NBC’s political commentator John Harwood, the former Mrs Harwood having filed divorce papers alleging such. See powerline’s comments regarding MSNBC’s rather abrupt handling of Donny Deutsch’s American Anger programming. Only the news fit for consumption by the Left shall see the light of day from NBC

  • hickorystick

    to a Senator from Washington State? between hydroelectric and nuclear, that produces 95% of the electricity. Were doing our part, why vote for something that taxes our state more? Represent your own state, Cantwell. Same goes for Collins. Her state is 99% forest. No industry at all.

  • From ME to You

    We do have some industry but most manufacturing has and is moving south, literally and figuratively. We contribute to AGW by burning a lot of wood in the winter!!! ;-) )

    High energy costs combined with high taxes are driving what little manufacturing exists away.

    Mostly because of the ‘Massachusetts mindset’ (i.e. liberal) where the the state should provide everything.

    To paraphrase Louis XIV “L’etat, C’est tout!”

  • demooresr

    Cantwell has been a joke ever since she was elected

  • http://www.periodictablet.com superamerican

    Cap and Trade (capit, tradit and taxit, damnit) will pass; the Financial Industry Takeover bill will pass.

    REPUBLICANS HAVE NO BACKBONE.

    THEY ARE TOO EASY IN THEIR CUSHY JOBS, THEY WANT TO STAY THEY COULD CARE LESS ABOUT AMERICA.

    GETTEM OUT, DEMOCRATS, TOO. REAL CONSERVATIVES ARE THE ONLY PRAYER LEFT AND THEY AREN’T POWERFUL ENOUGH YET. BY THE TIME THEY ARE WE ARE ALREADY DOOMED TO OBAMA. HE WILL BE OUR DICTATOR. WAIT AND SEE.

    http://www.periodictablet.com

  • hickorystick

    If Senators took more interest in their state industrial and commercial interests, we wouldn’t have the debt we do. Lieberman had no problem saying nyet to the public option, because it hurt it’s insurance industry.
    Great state Maine. Wanna trade some lobster for spotted owl roast?

  • scipioafricanus

    Has Sigourney Weaver been wearing that blond wig again or has Lindsey starting wearing one?