Boehner: Without a Plan or a Clue on Climate Action

President Obama's opponents have been vocal in their opposition to cap-and-trade, but they don't have much to offer when pressed for energy policy alternatives.

This morning, Rep. John Boehner, the GOP's chief arm-twister in the House, suggested only one possibility when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel raised the question on ABC’s “This Week." That alternative: Do nothing and continuing polluting as usual.

Boehner inexplicably referred to carbon dioxide as a carcinogen and called the idea that CO2 emissions were endangering the environment “almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, when they do what they do, you have more carbon dioxide," he said.

When he was asked point-blank – repeatedly – what the GOP’s alternative plan was for addressing climate change, the House minority leader avoided the question with canned talking points about the same energy policies that for the past eight years have supported the fossil fuel industries. 

“We believe that our ‘all of the above’ energy strategy from last year continues to be the right approach,” Boehner said.

(Exxon Mobil today took over the top spot on the Fortune 500 list of richest companies. Numbers 3 and 4 are Chevron and ConocoPhillips.) 

Boehner talked about the importance of "acting responsibility," by doing nothing: Developing countries like India and China aren’t taking big steps to mitigate climate change, so the United States shouldn’t either, he said.

“We don’t want to raise taxes ... and we don’t want to ship millions of American jobs overseas."

So that's what Congress is in for as the House returns this week and begins hearings on the Waxman-Markey climate change proposal. More of what Emanuel describes as the party of "no" and "never".

The Waxman-Markey bill is far from perfect when it comes to meeting the recommendations of science. The bill already offers opponents overly generous trade-offs to encourage the support of coal- and industrial-state lawmakers, from its almost limitless offsets that would let companies buy their way out ending their polluting ways to stripping the EPA of its newly declared responsibility to regulate greenhouse gases. 

Despite concerns from the representatives of states where coal and heavy industry are king, Emanuel expects energy legislation to pass in some form this year. When that will include cap-and-trade, which the president has called for, isn't clear.

"What I think is going to happen is that Congress will deal with this part of the energy policy," Emanuel said. "They'll deal with the resource investments into alternative energy. They'll also deal with the way we bring more efficiency into the system. I do know this. At the end of this first year of Congress, there will be an energy bill on the president's desk."

Boehner, who has kept most of his party members toeing his line this year, seems determined that Congress will do nothing about climate change.

A favorite rallying cry of Boehner's and other opponents of cap-and-trade is the national debt, which the Bush administration pushed to more than $10 trillion, and its impact on future generations. They argue that taking action on climate change now will hurt their children's and grandchildren's ability to live the “American dream.”

What they fail to acknowledge is the significantly higher costs that they are sentencing future generations to pay by their continued inaction now.