The State Department sent out a press briefing from Dana Perino confirming the rumor that George Bush will be making an announcement about climate change policy this afternoon. Don't go getting too excited though. From the press briefing:
- The President will make an announcement regarding his representatives at the Major Economies Meeting identifying long term and realistic intermediate goals for greenhouse gas emissions as part of our continuing leadership in the MEM process, which ensures that all major economies like France, Germany, China and India play a role in any international agreement so as to avoid a future Kyoto-like mistake. The next MEM is being hosted by President Sarkozy in Paris this Thursday and Friday.
- This process is important in preventing companies in other countries from gaining a competitive advantage over U.S. companies.
This, you may note, is exactly the same thing Bush has been saying all along. Well, since he finally got around to acknowledging that climate change is real, that is. But it gets better:
He will also note, however, that a combination of antiquated laws (i.e, Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act) never intended to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and recent court decisions (i.e, Mass v EPA) hold the very real prospect that the federal government will regulate greenhouse gas emissions with or without a new law being passed, and having unelected bureaucrats regulating greenhouse gases at the direction of unelected judges is not the proper way to address this issue.
That's right. Rather than have these decisions made by the EPA (which is composed, theoretically, of people who are actually knowledgeable about science and environmental issues), they should be made by politicians alone. And all those other older laws (created by politicians, no less) are completely outdated.
The forecast for this afternoon: more hot air.
--Kate Sheppard
