- Home
- About Us
- Contributors
- Departments
- Topics
- Back Issues
- Weekly Archives
- AmSpecBlog
- Subscribe
- Newsletter
- Advertise
- Donate
- Contact Us
- Daily Digest
- Templeton Essays
search
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
The Public Policy
O'Malley's Hot Air
This January, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley proposed legislation that he promised would fight climate change and "grow" the economy. This week, the state Senate passed the bill, with one of those "Who could disagree with it?" titles the "Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act." If it becomes law, voters will slowly begin to see how reducing Maryland's carbon footprint also hurts the state's economic prospects.
This isn't rocket science. It's basic math. Fighting climate change hurts the economy because almost all acts of economic production are powered by combusting fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), a process that emits greenhouse gases thought to cause global warming. Alternative "clean" energy sources such as wind and solar power are said to be the solution to climate change, but they are much more expensive than fossil fuels. So more clean energy = higher production costs.
Maryland's steel workers understand the tension between fighting climate change and economic growth, which is why they opposed a similar global warming bill last year. O'Malley won their support this time by exempting them from costly greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
O'Malley's bargain with the steelworkers is an acknowledgment that his plans are painful. Yet the governor tries to make his global warming policies sound easy, even profitable. His plan proposes precipitous emissions cuts of 25 percent below 2006 levels by 2020, while at the same time promising a "net increase in jobs and a net economic benefit."
In his press release, O'Malley trumpets a study that claims steep emissions cuts could "result in a net economic benefit to the state of approximately $2 billion." But his legislation only pays lip service to the study's severe "recommended goals" for emissions reductions in 2010 and 2015.
Put it this way: If the governor and the Senate truly believe that the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act is an economic opportunity, why do they delay binding emissions cuts until 2020? Why not start now?
It's just a little too convenient that the governor postpones real targets -- and therefore real economic sacrifice -- until he is safely out of office. O'Malley's lieutenants constantly praise the governor's "bold" leadership, but his style of governance more resembles James Buchanan's than Abraham Lincoln's.
O'Malley says Maryland simply "must take action on climate change" because the state is "so vulnerable to rising sea levels" due to its 3,100 miles of coastline. Really? According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the preeminent body of climate scientists, sea levels are expected to rise about 15 inches through 2100. That's only three inches more than sea levels rose over the last 150 years.
Somehow Maryland survived and thrived in the last century and a half. There's little reason to expect the state won't continue to prosper -- unless its politicians enact ill conceived climate plans that shackle economic growth.
And sea levels will only rise if temperatures actually warm. Temperatures haven't increased in seven years, despite a steady increase in global emissions of carbon dioxide. (Sorry, Al Gore.) There's even some early evidence that sea levels have fallen for the past two years.
But we digress. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act is part of Governor O'Malley's "Smart, Green, and Growing" legislative agenda. His expensive energy policies might be green, but they certainly won't lead to growth in Maryland's economy.
That the Maryland Senate would go along with this during a severe recession is right generous of them, we think. However, the House of Delegates may have a different opinion.
Comments
Leave a Comment
Related Articles
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- Two Weddings and a Demerol
- Michael Ledeen on Iran and Democracy
- Advent Is Coming
ADVERTISEMENT
Lawler Nicoteri| 3.6.09 @ 7:14AM
When politicians blather on about "Green energy", "green architecture", "green jobs", and the like it generally means that more of the taxpayer's "green" will be used for such projects.
Let our "leaders" come up with ways to conserve
the rapidly disappearing "green" in our pocketbooks.
Phil Hoey| 3.6.09 @ 7:32AM
I can hardly wait to see the 'environmental surcharge' on my electric bill. Well guess what? The more the idiots in Annapolis tax me, the less I spend so the sales tax revenue will continue to drop like a rock.
Melvin| 3.6.09 @ 8:26AM
Phil buddy, it's already here at least in North Carolina. Our electric bill rose by 20% recently due to a green initiative a number of years ago passed by former Governor Mike Weasly and his rubber stamp legislature.
I personally just love paying for expensive wind power coming from a wind farm from some Western State.
Something that we really need to think about and address that many Americans don't really notice.
Who is behind this grand push for Green Power, well my fellow Americans non other than the European Union whose companies are lobbying enmasse in for politicians to push their green power. I would also bet a nice shiney copper that these same politicians are receiving sweetheart deals from these companies by being offered massive amounts of cheap company stock to enact legislation that would force this Euro-crap on the American Taxpayer.
larrydalooza| 3.6.09 @ 8:55AM
Time to find which state loves our glorious life giving CO2 and move there. CO2 is minuscule (a trace gas), yet the foundation of life. Plants thrive at double the current amount. They are starved and begging for more. This is all crazy.
Dave| 3.6.09 @ 11:10AM
Man, if you think O'Malley's scams are a "pant-load" to deal with -- try living here in New Mexifornia under the leadership of Maria's other half, Arnold Schwartznenkennedy.
Like Ms. Shriver's overbite --- it's a mouthfull.
Doctor Right| 3.6.09 @ 12:14PM
In a Democracy, you get the government you deserve.
Unfortunately, in state's that are little more than fiefdoms for the Democrat Party (Maryland, New Jersey, all of New England, California...Let's call them "Dim-ocracies"), the rest of the people suffer too, along with the stupid, the lazy, the welfare queens, the dead, the illegal aliens, and the rest of the Dim-ocrat's reliable constituencies.
Until enough of the mind-numbed drones on the left who reflexively pull the lever for Liberal Dim-ocrats wake the hell up, states like Maryland will suffer needlessly with no-talent hacks like O'Malley.
But with no-talent hacks like Obama in the White House, fools like O'Malley are emboldened to further adventures into idiocy.
Take heart, though...Obama himself, in less than 60 days, is already doing his part to stir "the Great Awakening"...
It's coming. It may take a year or two, but it's coming.
Look for fewer and fewer people to actually admit they voted for this fool. The first signs will be the people who say "Well, I didn't vote for THIS, that's for sure...". As they begin to realize, as Marylanders are with O'Malley, that his stupid policies target them, too, they'll get on-board real quick.
Obama will make Jimmy Carter look like a genius. Our job is to enable the process.
FYI, I'm from Maryland, but I live in New Jersey, so I must be a glutton for punishment...
...How much is land going for in Alaska?
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.6.09 @ 12:59PM
O'Malley. O'Stupid. So says O'Stalin.
Joe| 3.6.09 @ 2:08PM
Kick the Green bums out. Please people wake up here in MD. Stop voting for these liberal Green bums.
jr| 3.6.09 @ 4:42PM
With Hussein leading the charge, how can O'Malley go wrong. Fortunately I got away from the Dim's taxes in Maryland a few years ago. In state taxes, I now pay only for what I purchase. I think I was paying about 5% then had to add half that for county tax - as well as paying the county for property and other taxes.
Michael Tomlinson| 3.6.09 @ 5:24PM
What O'Malley has done for Maryland (bankrupting the state and running jobs out of Maryland) Barack Obama will do for America. Happy Days are Here Again thanks to the Obama Depression!!
ccd| 3.6.09 @ 6:20PM
if republicans didn't want democrats in charge, the republicans would run canidates for office
Alan Brooks| 3.7.09 @ 12:26AM
and living in a Wild Wild West state I can tell you the governments out here are even more corrupt than back east. Think about it, if governments weren't so corrupt energy would already be too cheap to meter.
Jim O'Brien| 3.7.09 @ 8:05AM
Assuming O'Malley knows how, he should read Peter Farrara's article, "Why the World Is Getting Warmer, Even Though It Is Getting Colder" in the March issue. Man-made global warming is like a pagan religion, and it's a hoax. Unfortunately, millions of people don't know some basic facts, such as the fact that "greenhouse gases" are Good. Without them, the earth would be too cold. A major greenhouse gas is Water Vapor. CO2 is only present in the atmosphere in trace amounts, about 380 parts per million, et cetera.
Marc Jeric| 3.7.09 @ 1:04PM
Perhaps some of remember the globaloney cooling scam of the 1970's (see Newsweek April 28, 1975); when that did not work the government-paid "scientists" (vast majority of them rejects of private enterprise) came up with globaloney warming hoax of the 1990's; and now, after 11 years of substantial cooling we are dealing with this "climate change" flimflam. Well - whatever works to bring our commies to eternal power! To arrive there they need wide-spread poverty - no communist regime ever obtained absolute power without war, poverty, crime, class envy, extreme crisis, pestilence, disorder. See on the internet "Global Warming Petition Project" to read the names of 31,072 independent scientists (with 9,021 PhD's among them) debunking this conspiracy of the far left.
Skep41| 3.8.09 @ 11:47AM
Maryland's timid attempt at economic suicide will be dwarfed by the national government's coming attempt to nationalize the weather. Everything liberals know is wrong. The science is definitely established beyond a doubt on that question. Now they are going to act out the idiocy that their hippie professors taught them with such gravity in college. That they can so blithely take our society over a cliff tilting at the climate windmill shows how out of touch with reality they are. And we are for electing such half-wits.
stmichrick| 3.8.09 @ 1:59PM
Don't you know we're beyond 'climate change' now?
The new situation is 'climate chaos.'
Darryl Hannah said so the other day.
I heard her.
Pingback| 3.8.09 @ 2:58PM
» Names Don’t Get Much Greener Than O’Malley links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Morry Rotenberg| 3.8.09 @ 3:54PM
The next time any of you encounter an anthropogenic global warming acolyte simply ask the following: what caused the glaciers that carved out the Great Lakes to melt some 14000 years ago? Certainly it wasn't anything that primitive man did at the time, or were we more advanced than we think? The internal combustion engine didn't appear on the scene until some 13850 years later!
Pingback| 3.11.09 @ 11:54AM
Cooler Heads Digest 6 March 2009 | GlobalWarming.org links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Freya| 3.14.09 @ 11:14PM
Morry,
That's like saying no one died from bullets or bombs during the days of the Roman Empire, therefore millions of people couldn't have died in World War II. It's like saying there were no airplanes two centuries ago, therefore the idea of going across the continent in a few hours is ludicrous.
Freya| 3.14.09 @ 11:16PM
It's an ambitious plan, but it can work, without undue economic cost. It might surprise you all to know that over the last decade, Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, and the UK have all reduced their carbon emissions to under 1990 levels, and in the same period, enjoyed a GDP growth rate that was higher than that of the US.
wholesale shoes| 7.8.09 @ 5:07PM
We are professional cheap kids shoes online store .We provide Nike shoes cheap ,Nike air jordan,cheap kids clothing
cheap womens clothing,Nike shoes online store,Nike shoes cheap,Nike shoes for kids,air jordan sneakers,nike air jordan,air jordans,brand shoe,shoes brand, dropship Nike shoes , brand clothes,brand clothes ,shoes brand,cheap kids clothing for cheap wholesale Air Jordans shoes for kids & women.
bnjnjkn| 8.20.09 @ 1:39AM
Always leading the avant-garde of fashion without compromising traditional craftsmanship of luxury leather goods
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Replica
Louis Vuitton outlet is also active in other ...
CheapLouis VuittonReplica Handbags,Purses,Wallets Outlet and
Louis Vuitton Replica
Designer Bags,Shoes Outlet Store - discount price is our special offer, ...
Louis Vuitton Outlet