GOP Antics Helping Dems Push Climate Bill

With the House of Representatives barreling toward a Friday vote on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, Democratic leaders working to swing more "Yea" votes are getting some unintended help from Republicans.

Republican attempts to obstruct business in the House with a barrage of procedural votes are actually helping the Democratic leadership galvanize undecided and opposition Democrats, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Wednesday afternoon.

"We're meeting with everyone," Markey said. "We have a lot of members on our list, and all of these roll calls that have been called are helping us to have the members come out so that we can move one-to-one and have conversations, hear their concerns, and try and reconcile their concerns to the goal of gaining their vote on Friday."

The normal get-out-the-vote process often involves majority leadership staff reaching out to other members' staff, which is more time-consuming and less effective than face-to-face meetings between the representatives on the House floor.

"In the GOP's attempt to stop the agenda they're shooting themselves in the foot," said a Democratic leadership aide. "More votes mean more time for us to whip."

Markey declined to thank Republican leadership for the assistance, but acknowledged that they've helped him bait the hook. "It does help us to be able to have a well-organized fishing hole for us," he said.

The GOP's unintentional assist doesn't even seem to be supported by most of their party. By Wednesday afternoon, Republican motions to adjourn barely garnered 20 votes each, with even Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) voting against them.

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Comments

[atrivera15]

Bottom line is we vote in this country. The republican war machine controlled everything for years and what did they do. Call democrats cowards and traitors and demonize everyone with a different opinion. The people like me have voted in a new crop of politicians because of this disgraceful behavior and we want these policies to be enacted. With the republican party down to an all white constituency their hopes of taking power in the coming years is very slim. They had their chance now it is ours, I would suggest they reconsider their methods that are only digging them in a deeper hole.

[ronnald]

down with the new world order,thats what this scam is all about.

[ronnald]

new world order,just the start of eugenics

[ronnald]

be careful,this is a complete scam.

[ronnald]

this is part of the new world order.

[Travis bdboy]

No GOOPER wants to look like they're going to say NO.....re-election time?

God bless their souls....thanks Obama....keep flushing them down the toilet

[ronnald]

what?

[plooger]

Always good to publicize your strategy and tactical advantages.

[DrDemon]

NoooOOO! Not really !

[marbiol]

Anyone catch this:
“One of the most remarkable changes occurred on April 13, when leading global warming hysteric Paul Sheehan—who writes for the main Sydney newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, which has done as much to hype the threat of global warming as any Australian newspaper—reviewed Plimer's book and admitted he was taken aback. He describes Plimer, correctly, as "one of Australia's foremost Earth scientists," and praised the book as "brilliantly argued" and "the product of 40 years' research and breadth of scholarship."
What does Plimer's book say? Here is Sheehan's summary:
Much of what we have read about climate change, [Plimer] argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modeling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive."…
The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate. Calculations on supercomputers are primitive compared with the complex dynamism of the Earth's climate and ignore the crucial relationship between climate and solar energy.
To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable—h­uman-induc­ed CO2—is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly.”
(Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/24/could_australia_blow_apart_the_great_global_warming_scare_97148.html)

[linaya]

"To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly."

No one is doing that, and certainly not scientists. The EPA recently recognized six different greenhouse gases, which scientists have acknowledged for years. Of course the sun is one driver, as solar radiation and the other is the "greenhouse effect". People really should stay away from right-wing sites that have politicized science and global heating and stick with the science. The NAS, the National Academy of Sciences and the Union of Concerned Scientists are good places to start.

I suspect that Pilmer himself is "rubbish" since he's not paying attention to what the climate scientists are actually saying.

[ronnald]

its all a scam

[tralfas]

Cap and trade should help out outsourcing of jobs

[Ravenback47]

Where have you been -- on a desert isle? Jobs are already being outsourced. Get real.

[tralfas]

There goes Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on 95% of Americans

[weatherwaxx]

Ah, the Limbaugh Parrot Brigade is still on duty.

[BannedNBoston]

In NH we have had 3 cool summers in row.
What we need is A COAL TAX collected by the states.

[Icantbelieveher]

I love how republicans are always screaming about the debt left to their grandchildren, but they could care less what kind of planet they leave them!

Not just in America, but if the world population continues to deplete the natural resources at the rate we are now, and if the population continues to grow at this rate, there won't be enough food to feed the population. Big corporations that don't like our strict laws are moving to other countries, and polluting their air, water and land, yet it hasn't raised the poverty status of those countries, only the government's. The corporations don't care if they deplete everything and poison all of our water and land.

Google "fracking" and you'll see that these oil companies shoot chemicals into the ground to break up the rocks and soil so oil will flow easier for drilling. Cheney had it exempted from any regulation. There are people in Colorado who are actually getting sick from this "Halliburton loophole."

http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=111&sid=1689787

[marbiol]

YES!! How quickly we forget the prediuctions of that world renown entomologist, Paul Ehrlich who, in his 1968 book The Population Bomb, predicted that millions of people will starbve no matter what we do if we do not limit our population (I guess he took a page from the founders of Planned Parethood!).

"In the 1970s and 1980s . . . hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.

ets go back 30 odd years when NOAA's Dr. James Hansen postulated that we were on the verge of a major period of global cooling ( Washington Post, 1971, "U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming" )--interestingly this cooling would driven by the burning of fossil fuels. In fact, this did occur on a regional scale after Saddam Hussain lit up Kuwaits oil fields--(SHAW, W. S., 1992, Smoke, Sunshine, Visibility, and Temperature at the Bahrain International Airport During the Kuwait Oil Field Fires (Bahrain: Bahrain Meteorological Service),

Unfortunately, because of Dr. Hansen's warnings we were able to PRECLUDE catastrophic global cooling--but we seemed to have pushed the pendulum too far the other way. However, we could try to replicate Saddam Hussain's "ecoterrorism"--but on a larger scale, since we have EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that this could reduce temperatures (as opposed to the models that never seem to included confidence limits on their predictions!!).

[rssrai]

Florida is having the hottest summer on record. Global warming is here, and with the ice melting in the antarctic, the US coast will not have any beaches left in ten years.

[marbiol]

so then, why are we paying BILLIONS to "restore" low lying areas in Florida & the Gulf [see my post beelow for some REAL BUDGETTED numbers!!].

Couldnt this $$ be better used elsewhere?

[tomasedison]

...like healthcare ?

[linaya]

Let Florida sink. Eventually it will anyway, as the sea level rises.

[noneIn2008]

Pelosi needs help, she has years of getting nothing accomplished. Good thing Obama is here to get things done. Look at what Obama has accomplished in months, that Reid and Pelosi just talked about for years. Finally some competence for action in the Dem party.

[ComradMarx]

You are so right. Obama is the greatest thing ever to happen to this country. In just a couple of months he has nationalized the largest car company and several banks. He is about to nationalize health care. He has an energy bill that will bring American capitalism to its knees. I feel the peoples glorious revolution is finally at hand. Those who seek profits at the expense of social justice will soon be destroyed.

[Idiocracy]

ComradMarx, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Go back under your rock.

[Icantbelieveher]

You must remember to thank Bushy next time you see him for making this all possible! Including trashing the economy so badly that it was actually possible for Americans to vote in a Black president named Barack Hussein Obama!

Make sure you thank him for the first TARP that gave all that money to the banks! And thank him for the down payment on GM and Chrysler!

[weatherwaxx]

Bear in mind that 50 million Americans have no healthcare coverage at all.

Consider that unregulated capitalism foundered under corporate poster boy George W Bush.

Tell me again how Obama created this mess? Sunshine, it too the Bush-Cheney gang eight YEARS to get America into this much trouble.

[plooger]

Right on, brother.

[weatherwaxx]

Tell me, what precisely were the Democrats supposed to do with Veto George in the White House and a less than 2/3 majority for override?

Reid and Pelosi couldn't do much of anything until we had a President who would sign legislation.

[ronnald]

ya socialism,cool.

[tnkeating]

Global warming is the biggist hoax to be pulled off in our history. Cap and Tax is just part of that hoax. Why has there been only a very few heat records set in the last ten years ? Why has there been multitudes of cold records set since 1998 ? We humans breath oxygen and give off carbon dioxcide, plants breath in carbon dioxcide and exhale oxygen. Carbon dioxcide is the so called enemy, it amounts to something less than one percent of our atmosphere, humans are responsible for five percent of the less than one percent total. Climate change occures constantly through out history and will continue to do so regardless of what man does to alter it. If you noticed they changed the name global warming to climate change, this makes what ever happens explainable and marketable, marketable being the key word here. Please study this on your own and come to own conclusion, find out and look for who stands to profit from all this and ask your self, why does General Electric have more lobbyist than any other industry. Plant a tree and exhale.

[Idiocracy]

ID10T

[rblackbird]

tnkeating is right. The response Ideocracy wrote, and misspelled, below mirrors

the tactics of those who peddle AGW : "Admit nothing. When

confronted with contrary evidence, keep repeating our claims. If that doesn't work insult

the other side. Maybe that'll shut them up." Hence:

"The debate is over [I've made up my mind];"

"The science is clear [ Stop annoying me with new scientific findings];"

"All scientists agree that "climate change" is real and dangerous [ Well, maybe not ALL scientists

since 650 of them objected at the Copenhagen meeting];"

"Well! This article is NOT PEER-REVIEWED [All those scientists who reviewed the article are

incompetent; otherwise they wouldn't support it. They probably own stock in oil and

coal companies, anyway]';

"Even though CO2 arises naturally and is indispensable to all life on earth, it is a POLLUTANT [ I

never thought we'd get the Supreme Court and the EPA to fall for that!];"

"ALL informed people support cap & trade [ Keep saying this because you never want them to see

you sweat, especially now that Jim Hansen from NASA has denounced cap & trade and supports

a simple carbon tax];"

"The Arctic is MELTING [Just forget about NASA satellites reporting the opposite];"

"The Antarctic is MELTING [ Ditto, even though NASA satellites show Antarctica's

ice coverage was 1 million square kilometers above average in 2008 and the second greatest

since this winter satellite measurements started in 1979]."

[ronnald]

kool aid victim

[weatherwaxx]

Ignorance is bliss, eh?

[ronnald]

big time