Green Daily

As predicted in an earlier post, the Senate is slated to take up S. 3036, America's Climate Security Act, this week. The Senate will vote this evening on a cloture motion to close debate and proceed to a vote on the measure; the bill's supporters are confident they have the 60 votes needed to pass the motion.

(The bill number is different -- it started life as S. 2191 -- and the main sponsor is now Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, although it is named for the original drafters, Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Warner.)

S. 3036 enjoys widespread support - from General Electric and PG&E to the Teamsters to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to the Environmental Defense Action Fund and the Nature Conservancy.

But it appears that the bill is already a lame duck. And for reasons that make me want to ask, "Is anyone at the White House familiar with the word 'irony'?"In a statement released today (sorry, no online version), President Bush indicated that he'll veto the bill.

In his statement, S. 3036 is the "wrong way" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because it:
• sharply raise[s] the price of gas, raise taxes, or demand drastic emissions cuts that have no chance of being realized and every chance of hurting our economy;
• impose[s] burdensome new mandates on top of ones that were enacted just last year;
• leave[s] limitations on nuclear power generation and waste disposal unaddressed;
• create[s] a system that will squeeze household income, cost many jobs, reduce growth in the economy, impose a huge new tax, and create uncontrolled spending;
• take[s] unilateral action that will undercut efforts to get developing countries to limit their emissions while having negligible effect on GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations and global
temperatures....

In particular, one thing caught my eye. The statement reads, "[T]he bill includes...$750 billion in new mandatory foreign aid financed by auction revenue and emission allowance giveaways to foreign countries, without any control or oversight through the annual appropriations process." I think it is important to point out that the $750 billion refers to the Climate Change Technology Board. The Board would have the authority to distribute that level of funding over time; specifically, the $750 billion would be spread out until 2050.

But to my main point: Is anyone at the White House familiar with irony? From this sentence, one wouldn't think so. After all, the entire conflict with Iraq -- all five years plus -- have been funded "without any control or oversight through the annual appropriations process." All the funding for the war has been in the form of emergency supplementals. The latest one, H.R. 2642, contains $99.5 billion for FY2008 and $65.9 billion for FY2009, not a cent of which came via normal order.

(Edited to remove IBEW from the list of supporters as per Jim Spellane, of IBEW''s Media Department. My apologies for misrepresenting the union's position.)