Truth the First Casualty

Last week, it was the "IMPEACH BUSH" crowd that filled the Statehouse. Thursday afternoon this well-organized bunch of regular Joes popped in to lobby their legislators, they told me, to "vote no on H. 520."

Which one's H. 520?  That not the Global Warming Bill that just came out of the Senate, is it?

"It's the tax on fuel oil and propane," they told me. In fact, these guys, about two-dozen,  were mostly  guys who bring it - fuel oil and propane - to your house. Hired-gun Lobbyist Shawn Banfield of William Shouldice Associates was having them fill out slips of paper to have delivered to their individual representative, urging them to "Vote no on H. 520."

One little problem: H. 520 does not include a tax on fuel oil and propane.

That was in the original version, but removed three months ago. It never made it out of committee. What Sen. Peter Shumlin finally replaced it with as a funding source was a 5-year $35 million surcharge to be imposed on the unanticipated whopping profits the Louisiana-based Entergy Corporation, owner of Vermont Yankee Nuclear in Vernon, all 650-megawatts, has been reaping of late.

That money will be used to bankroll a new energy efficiency utility to be designed by the PSB, that will do what has to be done - cut fossil fuel use. Time is running out. It's called global warming, and even in the best-case scenario, things are going to get worse before they show any inkling of improvement.

Gov. Jim Douglas, however, has shot to Entergy's defense, portraying it as a bad message to the business community.  Entergy could not have a better spokesman.

Coincidentally, while a certain segment of the Vermont business sector was shamelessly doing a brazen job of distorting the truth under Montpeculiar's golden dome, Dr. James Hansen (left), the star witness for Vermont in the big "Tale of the Tailpipe Trial" at federal court in Burlington, was on the stand. Hansen, 66, a physicist, is director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The major auto companies are suing Vermont to prevent our little Green Mountain State from enforcing California's auto emissions standards. They say they can't do it, it'll cost too much.

In December of 2005, Hansen forecast we have 10 years to turn this global warming thing around. Ten years to halt the the out-of-control increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Press: Are we going to make it?

HANSEN: Well, that depends. I hope the decision is such that it does force vehicle makers to go down a path of improved efficiency and in that case I think we still have a chance, but time is getting short.

PRESS: What will it take to impress on people just how short? That’s a tough thing to do.

HANSEN: Yeah. And this problem is different than the air pollution problem where you see the effects immediately both of the pollution and when you reduce it. But here the system has inertia and we’ve only obtained about half of the eventual response for the gases we’ve already put in the atmosphere. There’s more in the pipeline. It’s going to occur even if we stabilize atmospheric composition. So this problem is more difficult for people to understand. They don’t see much so far.

PRESS: What’s It going to take?

HANSEN: Ah, well,

PRESS: What’s it going to take? Something horrible, right?

HANSEN: Well, it’s going to take politicians who are willing to address long term problems not only the four-year problems.

Yes, indeed. Politicians with backbone.

And a lot of them.

Real soon.

Comments

[Matt Cota]

Peter,

The men and women who were at the Statehouse on Thursday don't just deliver heating fuel. They provide thermal energy efficiency services to Vermonters. They don't want tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to subsidize a permanent utility that will compete with them. Why should we spend money on an inefficient bureaucracy when the marketplace is getting the job done. Heating fuel use has gone down. A typical home burns half the amount of fuel it did thirty years ago. This is not about a fuel tax. This is about the efficient use of taxpayer money.

Matt Cota
VFDA

[RH factor]

Jim Hansen already is, but will soon be recognizee as the single most importaant person in world who called the fire department on global warming.

Yet here we are with gibberish debating on our local airwaves. It's a complete travesty.

Why he is not nominated for nobel peace prize I do not know - well actually, I do. Its becuase baskward retarded lazy scientifically challenged people who make statments on the spot masquerading as scientists in the know and they mostly come from an economics background.

Their mission - to horn swoggle and sew seeds of doubt. Mission accomplished!

[vermonter]

RH factor, are you a scientist?

[40mpg by 2010]

It sound as though Congress has surrendered to Detroit on fuel economy!

Now that gasoline is nearing $4/gallon, the CONSUMER can expect to pay $1,500 to $2,500 annually for fuel WE WOULD NOT HAVE TO BUY (assuming NO price increase beyond $4/gallon) ... IF WE had 50 mpg cars! THEY ARE AVAILABLE NOW!
Here is a list of high mpg vehicles in Europe
http://www.40mpg.org/pdfs/021407_fuel_efficient_vehicle_gap.xls

Congress could/should waive ALL IMPORT RESTRICTIONS and TARIFFS on all vehicles achieving greater than 53 mpg(Imperial) combined average( according to http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/ )
plus meet Euro Step IV and safety standards for 24 to 36 months (or 200,000 units of each model meeting compliance). That would be just for vehicles getting greater than 44 mpg(US) combined average!

That would provide an option to the typical "domestic" vehicles' 240 to 480 g/km CO2 emissions ... to BELOW 144 g/km!

This would allow those that DO NOT want hybrids a choice, directly reduce strain on consumer cost of living, demonstrate what the CONSUMER WILL DO GIVEN A REAL CHOICE! AND, IMMEDIATELY REDUCE DEMAND FOR IMPORTED OIL!

And it can be done in months, NOT years!

IF this situation disturbs or angers YOU, please contact YOUR Senators and Representatives ... tell them that YOU "want the waiver for import of 44mpg combined average before 2010”!

Here are some other people to call if you wish:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's DC office at 202-225-4965

Speaker of the Senate Harry Reid's DC office at 202-224-3542

Rep. Ed Markey's DC office at 202-225-2836 or email him at http://action.40mpg.org/campaign/MARKEY_MORE_MPG

Sen. Dan Inouye’s DC office at 202-224- 3934

Senate Commerce Committee at 202-224-0411 and 202-224-1251

Rep. Bart Gordon’s DC office at 202-225-4231 and (202) 225-6375

Rep. John Dingell's DC office at 202-225-4071

Pass it on!