| Fred Upton, chairman of the House energy committee, once said that climate change is an important problem that requires a solution. Then, the teabaggers took over the party and threatened Fred Upton's chairmanship. So, Fred Upton stopped believing that stuff about climate change. He even helped move a bill that would have repealed lightbulb efficiency standards that Fred Upton once championed. So, about climate change ... a cap-and-trade scheme that mostly worked for acid rain in the early 90s is the favorite of business. Some activists think a system in which corporations don't profit, but that provides a payback to individuals is best. How about a carbon tax, which would artificially raise the price of burning carbon, which would then depress the amount of carbon everyone burns. Exxon, for reasons that escape me, likes the idea. Fred Upton does not. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) suggested Monday that Exxon Mobil Corp. isn’t pushing lawmakers especially hard for a carbon tax despite the company’s public embrace of the idea.
“I don’t think it is a very serious effort on their part,” Upton said on Fox News. Upton said he told Exxon representatives personally that it’s a nonstarter. “I sat down with the Exxon folks a couple of months ago and let it be known that this is not a proposal that, certainly under Speaker Boehner [R-Ohio], is going to be coming through in the House,” he said.
The ironic -- moronic, actually -- thing here is that the House GOP caucus generally prefers to do nothing on climate change because they say it will kill companies like Exxon that produce fossil fuel energy. |
