Whitehouse has been banging his green drum for quite some time, and, in all that, he’s never mentioned what he’s done in his own life. He still lives in his big house, still drives fossil fueled vehicles, and still flies, including from Rhode Island to D.C. instead of taking the train. And now
Same Message, Bigger Audience: Sen. Whitehouse Flags Climate Costs
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, has given 287 speeches on the Senate floor raising alarms about climate change, often delivered mainly to the C-SPAN cameras in a nearly empty chamber.
But now Mr. Whitehouse has a much bigger megaphone for his zeal for saving the planet, and one with real power: earlier this year, Mr. Whitehouse became chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, which shapes federal spending and revenue. He is using his new authority to argue that a warming planet poses fiscal dangers, injecting climate change into the partisan fight over federal spending, just as economists warned that the nation is nearing a catastrophic default on its debt.
At his first committee hearing as chairman on Feb. 15, he focused on the risks of climate change to the federal budget and the global economy. He gave each of his colleagues a 615-page binder detailing the fiscal threats posed by droughts, storms, wildfires and rising seas.
The new chairman is also pushing a solution that he believes could draw support from at least a handful of Republicans, even if they aren’t eager to support climate action. It’s essentially a tariff added to imported goods like steel and cement based on the carbon emissions created by their production. Analysts project that a carbon tariff placed on imported steel and aluminum, just two of many products that would be covered, could raise tens of billions of dollars over a decade.
It will be interesting to see the final product. How much will be pure climate cult, and how much will be things that might sorta make sense, like the above? And, how much will Republicans object against the cult stuff? Because we know how they like to wilt. We’ve watched this for a long time.
Many Republicans disagree. At the Budget committee’s February hearing, Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, said the nation’s ballooning deficit and debt are “driven by runaway profligate spending by the federal government, not because of any effects of climate change.” Mr. Lee slammed those “on the left who seek to use climate alarmism to justify a widespread federal government takeover of our economy.”
Unfortunately, there are enough Republicans who’ll go all sorts of squishy.
Mr. Whitehouse’s counterpart in the House of Representatives, Republican Jodey Arrington of Texas, said a carbon tariff is a nonstarter. “Republicans on the Budget Committee are focused on ways to rein in spending and unleash American prosperity and energy independence,” said Mr. Arrington, who chairs the House Budget committee. “A carbon tariff would result in just the opposite — higher energy costs for consumers and more regulatory burden on an economy teetering on recession.”
Why would Sheldon and his Democrat Comrades care? They’re rich. It won’t hurt them.
Read: Climahypocrite Senator Whitehouse Looks To Put Climate Crisis (scam) In Budget »