(Not) Blowing Hot Air

August 25, 2005

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Zoe Kentucky here, the East Coast blogger in da’ house, writing anonymously from Washington, DC. I have a background in progressive politics and I know far too much about America’s theocratic right. (I’ve been studying them for half of my life.)

I’m not in the mood for a lengthy introduction, so I’m just going to dive right in here. (splish!)
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Since President Bush isn’t terribly fond of working with other nations to tackle global environmental issues (cough, Kyoto, cough), some states are taking a Do-it-Yourself approach.

Officials in Connecticut and eight other Northeastern states have reached a preliminary agreement on an initiative led by New York Gov. George Pataki to freeze power plant emissions at current levels and reduce them by 10 percent by 2020, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
(snip)

Such an agreement would be the first of its kind in the nation and comes after the Bush administration decided not to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming and rejected joining more than 150 other nations on the Kyoto anti-emissions treaty.

Pataki, a Republican who is eyeing a 2008 presidential run, has opposed the Bush administration’s actions and said states should go their own way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if the federal government would not act.

Once a final agreement is reached by negotiators, it would be subject to approval by the legislatures of the nine states.

(snip)

Pataki, a Republican who is eyeing a 2008 presidential run, has opposed the Bush administration’s actions and said states should go their own way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if the federal government would not act.

Once a final agreement is reached by negotiators, it would be subject to approval by the legislatures of the nine states.

See? That wasn’t so hard. Republicans can understand the benefit of working together to protect the planet and preserve the health of its inhabitants. Rumor has it that states in the west are considering a similar pact.

Apparently Bush missed that day in kindergarten where they talked about cooperation and playing well with others. (Ok, ok, that’s probably not the only day he missed.)

As far as I can see the only thing the coalition is missing is a catchy name.

I’d say they are pro-life, but that’s already been taken, no?

  • Heeeyyyyy Lies, interesting. If we could pre-empt the term to this more soundly-deserving definition, than the spastics would have to get their own catch-phrase. “Pro-OurIdeasAreRight”…. hmph.

  • Not trying to be a pessimist, and I am an advocate of what these states are doing, but until the vast “midwestern” states and southern states start joining these coalitions or forming their own, the results will not be all that great. Most of the problems the northeast part of the country experiences are due to the emissions from the industrial/formerly industrial states located to their west. But this is a great start, and if successful it might establish a nice outline for these other regions to hop on board.

  • This won’t survive a constitutional challenge though, will it? As eggregious as many of the recent abuses of the commerce clause have been, this seems to come clearly within its purview. Can an actual lawyer (I just play one on TV) comment on this?

    Having raised that question, I’d like to state for the record that I think its a great idea. I’d prefer to see something like this happen at the federal level, but I’m glad to see it happening at any level. I wonder how the yet-to-be-named coalition.

  • Agreements between States, under the U.S. Constitution, require the approval of Congress. As a purely voluntary statement of a consensus, they might escape Congressional scrutiny.

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