Curmudgeon's Corner

Incongruities...

Posted by Al Campbell on Dec. 12, 2008

Economy, Political, Quality of Life, U.S.

I was struck as I read the morning Wall Street Journal with two items appearing on page A2:

California adopted the nation's toughest, most far-reaching greenhouse gas emissions policy yesterday.  It likely will further exacerbate the economic plight in that state by placing new burdens costing untold dollars on the state's businesses while also creating the vaunted cap-and-trade program that is to become effective by 2012.  That will create the market for businesses to sell their capacities for creation of greenhouse gases to others who need more capacity to do the same.  Greenhouse gases are thought to trap heat rising up from the earth, thus adding to the "global warming" that is so far an unproved theory.

At the same time, Louisiana saw an 8" snowfall in Amite and had an inch of snow on the ground in New Orleans, adding to the apparent invalidity of the movement.

All this became even more frightening to me as I noted that Carol Browner has been designated to be the new "energy czar" for President-Elect Obama's cabinet.  She established herself as head of the EPA in President Clinton's cabinet and left havoc in her wake.

We are in for a real thrilling ride of environmentalism over the next four or eight years.  The excesses will be mind boggling.

I don't think I'm going to like the idea of a "czar" running a range of agencies that she believes have enough legal standing already to be able to mandate anything she decides ought be implemented.  The "change" could be devastating to an already frail economy.