big business fights climate change

Just in case you wonder, Democrats are not that different from Republicans. All lawmakers listen to the beat of one drum: big business and its campaign contributions. Even if doing so goes against the wishes of voters, or common sense. These lawmakers figure their donors will be successful at convincing voters anyhow. History has shown that they are often right to think so. Nobody is as brainwashed as the American voters. American voters are the only ones who gladly and proudly vote against their own interest as is clearly shown by what is happening around Health Care Reform.

A democratic senator from West Virginia, aka coaltown, John D. Rockefeller IV introduced a bill that would put a two year freeze on the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants. It was just one of many proposals from both chambers designed to delay or overturn the EPA's regulations.

What is Senator Rockefeller IV worried about? That fossil fuel prices could go up? How is that for logic? Fossil fuel prices should go up. They should go up by a lot. Anyone who cares for the future of humans on the planet knows that. Only higher prices will deter people from wasting energy and producing more greenhouse gases.

Guess what Rockefeller is waiting for? Clean coal? He calls it a technological breakthrough to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels. He also said," Today we took important action to safeguard jobs, the coal industry, and the entire economy." What he really meant was, "today we are setting back environmental regulation by several decades to please my big business campaign contributors."

The oil and mining industries immediately started lobbying for Rockefeller's bill, although the American Petroleum Institute was clearly upset that the bill did not go far enough. "We don't know why the freeze on EPA authority isn't made permanent," a policy analyst for the Institute said.