Stupid Republican budget tricks

As insurers get slammed by extreme weather and peak oil draws near, the GOP targets the EPA and energy efficiency

By Andrew Leonard
Salon.com

House Republicans will release a slate of proposed budget cuts on Thursday. High on their list of priorities, reports the New York Times, is the goal of crippling Obama's energy and environment initiatives. Republicans want to cut $900 million from energy conservation and efficiency programs and $1.8 billion from the EPA.

As indicated by the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Wednesday in which Republican legislators unsuccessfully attempted to savage EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, the GOP position starts with the premise that climate change is a hoax, and then falls back to a secondary line of defense contending that even if the earth is warming it's too expensive to do anything about it. Failing all else, we should just let the market take care of things. Republicans have even introduced legislation that would overturn the scientific finding that greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to human health. As for the rising price of oil? Who cares? Again, let the market be the arbiter.

As the world gets hotter, and scientific evidence supporting the theory of human-caused climate change accumulates, Republican politicians have become more united and more adamant in their refusal to accept that we should be making an effort to meet what will probably be the greatest challenge to human welfare since we climbed down from trees and started walking upright on the savannah. It's an amazing and impressive display, and has no parallel anywhere else in the world.

At this point, it seems clear that the only thing that could crack this mighty wall of ignorance is indeed the almighty market. One wonders whether any of the Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are paying attention to two news items this week: a Reuters special report published yesterday, "Extreme weather batters the insurance agency," and a Guardian article reporting new evidence that Saudi Arabian oil reserves are far less than previously estimated.

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