The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

Democrat governors in support of cap-and-trade, that is.

You just bop around YouTube (and especially Sen. Inhofe's neighborhood there) and there's no telling what you'll find. In a crowning height of hypocrisy, the chairman of the Western Governors Association and of the Democrat Governors Association, Brian Schweitzer of Montana, slammed cap-and-trade on Bill Maher's show last week:

Maher: ...it's an incentive to make clean energy.

Schweitzer: Maybe.

Maher: Maybe?! (with incredulous emphasis)

Schweitzer: It also says to the biggest utilities in America, "We're going to add a trillion dollars to your bottom line. We're going to franchise you, and only you, to be the only producers of CO2." I think it's the wrong approach.

Maher: You do?! (more incredulity)

Schweitzer: Absolutely.

Maher: But isn't that the Democrat approach?

Schweitzer: It might be some of the Democrats' approach, but I think if you want to get to the root of the problem, you establish a price of the cost of that pollution to the rest of society....

Worse than fellow WGA Democrats Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming and Bill Ritter of Colorado, Schweitzer joined the Western Climate Initiative -- whose goal is a cap-and-trade agreement among member states (AZ, NM, CA, OR, WA, UT, and MT)!! Now he says out of one side of his mouth that it's wrongheaded, while out of the other side he defends WCI (and WGA's management of it) to the hilt.

What kind of craziness is going on at WGA? Do you have to be a Wild West Looney Tunes to be a member? Apparently pandering to all the environmental groups who run and fund the place has driven the governors nuts.

topics:
Global Warming, Cap and Trade