In a blatant attempt to implement the unratified Kyoto Protocol the Clinton Administration has said it will ask the Congress for $4 billion next year to finance policies to address global warming. This is a sharp increase over last year’s funding. According to Gore, the move represents "significant new investments … to accelerate our aggressive, commonsense efforts to meet the challenge of global warming."
Many programs are included under the initiative such as a $200 million "clean air partnership fund" that would "generate millions more in state and private funds to help reduce greenhouse gases." The money would be used to retrofit buildings, purchase fuel-efficient automobiles and "promote public-private partnerships…including voluntary efforts by companies to improve energy efficiency." Much of the money would be tied to promises of state matching funds.
Other programs include: $1.4 billion for research and development of energy-efficient technologies and renewable energy programs, tax credits for purchase of energy-efficient homes and equipment, $122 million to develop cleaner burning, coal-fired power plants(Associated Press, January 26, 1999).
http://www.globalwarming.org/article.php?uid=357A Clear Skies Smokescreen
To put the issue in context, it’s worth recalling that when President Clinton left office, the biggest electric power polluters—including Southern Company, American Electric Power and Cinergy—were running scared. Using authorities in the existing Clean Air Act, the Clinton administration had brought lawsuits aimed at compelling cleanup of aging, coal-burning power plants that had been illegally modified to keep running without modern pollution controls. The Clinton EPA had also set in motion a plan to require every power plant in the nation to clean up toxic mercury emissions by 2008.
No sooner had the Bush administration taken office than these and other big polluters (all big Bush campaign contributors) lined up outside Vice President Cheney’s office to request regulatory relief. Cheney, in turn, directed the EPA to reconsider its policy of enforcing the law. In the process, the Bush administration developed a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to air pollution—don’t ask the biggest polluters to clean up, and don’t tell the public the truth about what’s really happening. Enforcement trailed off, and Bush appointees crafted an illegal plan to permit power companies to continue spewing toxic mercury for decades.
But the big power companies remained concerned that a future administration could revive enforcement of the law. And so the “clear skies” plan was born, with support of the biggest and worst power polluters. From the outset, the real goal has been to cut breaks for the biggest polluters—to postpone cleanup deadlines into the mid- 2020s, to eliminate pesky provisions of current law and to take away states’ rights that would permit a state attorney general like New York’s Eliot Spitzer to enforce the law. The Bush plan also would, in effect, grant coal-burning power companies a shield against calls for them to limit carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming.
The White House has consistently misrepresented the “clear skies” plan since it was first unveiled three years ago. It claimed that the Clean Air Act must be changed to make further progress against air pollution.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050307/a_clear_skies_smokescreen.php
:shrug:
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
