The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : You Say 'Bankrupt', I Say 'Liberate'

Text Size

The Spectacle Blog

You Say 'Bankrupt', I Say 'Liberate'

By Chris Horner on 3.7.11 @ 2:56PM

John Broder writes in the NYT (h/t my father, as I, not training a puppy at the moment, cancelled my subscription):

Later in the week, a subcommittee of Energy and Commerce is preparing to mark up the Upton-Inhofe bill. The Republican majority is likely to approve it, just as the Democrats approved the sweeping climate change and energy bill that Mr. Waxman sponsored two years ago when his party controlled the committee. That bill, co-sponsored by Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, eventually died in the Senate. (emphasis added)

Not quite. Waxman-Markey was a purely partisan bill rammed through on a partisan basis, but-for 8 Republicans hopping on at the end all from basket case blue states where no 'green' pose is deemed too expensive or foolish. Upton has Democratic co-sponsors. '[T]wo senior House Democrats', in Politico's telling, including Minnesota's Colin Peterson who, last time negotiated for and brought along at the end a bloc of 30+ Members. And any reporter worth his salt knows the strong-arm machinations keeping, e.g., Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) off of Inhofe's version, for the moment. Surely Broder knows both facts but chose to instead present the Inhofe/Upton bills as equivalent to the Dems' power play.

The latter bill sought to -- in the words of its driving force -- cause your 'electricity rates [to] necessarily skyrocket', and 'bankrupt' coal; 'Because I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it -- whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.' Meanwhile the former restores the Clean Air Act to the way it was interpreted for 35 years, meaning, on at least this point, to the way it was written.

Just like peas and carrots to an NYT reporter. To an occasional NYT reader, however, comparing the two is either cynical advocacy in the guise of reportage or ignorant.