Whitehouse (D-RI) "Reaches Out" On Climate, Gets Questions On Whether Skeptics Will Be Jailed

[hatrack]

Yeah, Bipartisanship!!! We need more of it!!! Most of all, we need a nominee who will keep on keepin' on with heaping helpings of bipartisanship, reaching out, and working across the aisle!!!

Two liberal senators appealed to conservatives yesterday to support a carbon tax, opening what they hope is a rebooted debate on climate change that focuses on legislation over science. Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Brian Schatz of Hawaii chose to introduce an ambitious bill proposing a $45 fee on carbon dioxide at the American Enterprise Institute. The location was meant to convey an offer of partnership, they said.

"With this bill I extend an open hand ... to conservatives everywhere," Whitehouse said in a packed room. "Whether you want to pursue tax reform, support the free market for energy, or as Lindsey Graham suggested this week, simply be honest about the effects of climate change, I'm looking forward to working with you." Whitehouse was referring to the Republican senator from South Carolina, who's the only GOP presidential candidate to express support for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But intoning Graham's name and other conservative references to national security, lower taxes and morality didn't rouse overt support in the audience.

Instead, he and Schatz faced several grudging questions. One audience member claimed that Whitehouse supported jailing climate skeptics, which he declared himself to be. Another suggested the lawmakers had orchestrated politically motivated amendment votes on climate science to embarrass Republicans. Still another suggested that their bill would impose high costs on Americans for barely discernible decreases in future temperatures.

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Benjamin Zycher, a resident scholar at AEI, argued that the Obama administration uses a "deeply flawed" analysis of the social cost of carbon, upon which Whitehouse and Schatz base their carbon tax. He said a truly objective analysis would consider the potential benefits of warming on far distant events. "A future ice age is virtually a certainty," Zycher said. "The only thing we don't know is when it will occur. And so anthropogenic warming could be a huge benefit. We don't know."

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http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060020054