Republicans block effort to subpoena global warming documents

Senate Republicans blocked a new effort to obtain Bush administration documents on global warming -- and did so today by doing nothing.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is already looking into whether higher-ups in the administration -- and perhaps someone in Vice President Dick Cheney's office -- tried to squelch a finding that global warming would harm the nation's welfare.

And the Bush administration has tried to turn aside the committee's efforts to subpoena the EPA administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, and another official as it tries to find out whether the Bush administration's  refusal to let California implement a tailpipe emissions law was based on politics rather than on science and law.

Today, the Senate Environment Committee sought to subpoena EPA papers that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the committee, said had concluded that "the welfare of the American people is endangered if steps are not taken to avoid the ravages of unchecked global warming." She read them under an agreement that blocks wider distribution.

According to excerpts the committee released, the December, 2007, EPA document said that in the agency's judgment, "the elevated, combined atmospheric concentrations of the six greenhouse gases are reasonably anticipated to endanger public welfare."

Why did Johnson conclude that the nation's welfare would be hurt? Because, the document states, the sea level will continue to rise, exacerbating "storm surge flooding and shoreline erosion; heat waves will be more intense and last longer, wildfires will worsen, and water resources will be strained."

Bottom line: More greenhouse gases will make life worse in the United States.

Boxer's effort to get broader access to the report, however, was turned aside. It takes two Republicans to join the majority Democrats to issue a subpoena.

None showed up.

Our colleague Richard Simon reports, however, that Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the committee, issued a press release calling Boxer's efforts "a political exercise that is intended to score more political points to help keep this issue of alleged administration interference alive in the press as long as possible."

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo: Sen. Barbara Boxer. Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Comments

[Eve W. Stevens]

Maybe somebody should let Barbara know that the theory of carbon dioxide causing global warming has been shown to be untrue. However she listened to Roy Spensers testimony, she should know.

[Ozonator]

Simmer's Eve,

Try some quality homework even if you have to put both knees in braces. You do not tempt with the cloned fruits of Evil Inhofe and Roy “d-rage” Spencer ideological loins. In reality, their Senate dog and pony routine with a colorless and tasteless chemical must be view in comparison with their obliviousness to the concurrent spinning chunk of predicted global warming called Hurricane Dolly.

[Bob Burk]

Thank god for Bush and Cheney standing up to these Church of Global warming wackos. Hey if we fight these kooks off long enough, we will be in an ice age as climate is in a constant change with or with out humans. Tell me Church of Global Warming people what percentage of the C02 in the atmosphere is attributed to human sources and what percentage is attributed to natural sources? (I know the answer, but I want to know if you do)

[Brad Arnold]

In my opinion, the solution to elevated levels of CO2 is to promote a technology that profitably removes the CO2 from the air. Sound like science fiction? 4th generation fuel production converts CO2 into fuel biologically. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3143324579216781273&q=Craig+Venter+4th+generation&ei=l3iJSOD0H4Om4QKh_c3tCw&hl=en

"Even with the most assertive emissions-reduction targets, we're not talking about a real reduction in CO2 levels, we're talking a reduction in the rate of growth. Either we have to question the nature of industrial society, or we have to consider other solutions." --Jay Michaelson, Boston University, 2 April 2008

[Dan-in-PA]

Eve, your comment is ignorant.

We have the EPA staffed with highly trained scientists who have drawn their conclusion after years of investigation. That conclusion was presented to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson.

That paper, submitted by scientists who are paid for their efforts by the American Taxpayer (you AND me), does not belong to the administration. It belongs to the American people.

Boxer has requested, and rightly so, that document.

Your hereos, the GOP panderers, are blocking MY access to the conclusions of the professional staff of the EPA.

Roy Spenser's testimony has absolutely ZERO correlation to the American people's right to review a tax payer funded professionally paper.

You are ignorant. Not because you drank the kool-aid. You are ignorant because you think THAT has anything to do with THIS congressional effort.

[springman]

What we need and must demand is that a full investigation be conducted, in the open public, of the whole Bush administration. There has apparently been a complete disregard of the rule of law by our government and this we cannot tolerate. Justice must rule if we are to ever take the high road again as at this point we are no better than lowest of nations and I am ashamed.

[GeorgeR]

"...their obliviousness to the concurrent spinning chunk of predicted global warming called Hurricane Dolly." WHAT? A CARIBBEAN HURRICANE IS A SPINING CHUNK OF PREDICTED GLOBAL WARMING?
If you think Hurricane Dolly is a harbinger of global warming what would you say The Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 was? Or, what about the Category 4 hurricane that hit Cape May, New Jersey in September 1821, or the Long Island Express in 1938, or how about the Newfoundland Hurricane of 1775 and the Nova Scotia Hurricane of 1873? If a Texas bound hurricane in the Caribbean means global warming, then those that hit far to the north must mean something far greater than global warming, right? Sometimes I just can’t figure out people’s logic… or is it stupidity?

[Sal B]

Why and how can anyone think that the millions of tons of gases our society spews into the air every second of every day could ever hurt anything? Why, it's unimaginable!

The only thing coming out of the tailpipes of our cars and the smokestacks of our factories is pure, clean air that babies should breathe in deeply! To believe otherwise is just silliness.

Any contrary view is due to liberals, who just aren't thinking straight!

[Ozonator]

Poor Geogy Pogy (Posted by: GeorgeR | July 25, 2008 at 10:02 AM):

You forgot to include Viking lichen farmers in Greenland hit by an unknown typhoon as told by Evil Inhofe’s Marc “mass murderer” Morano who did necrophilic Vulcan Mind Melds on exhumed bodies between reindeer porn shops. Such Scandinavian settlers are still “spining” (Georgy’s abuse of spinning) in their graves.

In reality, you misuse of science is no better than that of NOAA’s Dr. Landsea and LABI Limbaugh’s Roy “d-rage” Spencer. Today’s global warming can be a tool to understanding the past and future. Global warming is not a planetary time machine for those who fail to do homework. Based on global warming components and the only one to call it in the “air”, I started predicting a Hurricane Dolly on 7/3/08. My predictions were ultimately ~75% correct. The Georgy Pogies were only engaged when it came to rewriting history and ecology - the ultimate display of their expertise.

Based on generation of “SPINING CHUNK OF PREDICTED GLOBAL WARMING”, the next significant hurricane ecosystem will hit above a line from Cuba to Corpus Christi and most probably with cause death and destruction, in a descending order of likelihood - for the Canadian Maritimes, big hairy deal EIB aka Palm Beach - Miami, and Houston - Baton Rouge.