Monday, December 29, 2008
Kyoto Bribery?
When he was Candidate Obama, the President-elect promised to be The One to stop the rise of the oceans. Despite the fact that they do not vote in American elections and are not supposed to donate to American prsidential candidates, the rest of the world now want to hold The One to his promise to stop the mythical rise of the oceans. That translates into implementation of the Kyoto Accord. Implementation translates into severe damage to the American economy, especially the auto industry. How will the auto industry, its lobbyists and the legislators who shill for it oppose Kyoto after receiving billions of bailout bucks?
Socialists around the globe are now breathless because of the prospect that they have a friendly president in the White House. No, I am not calling the President-elect a Socialist; I am merely pointing out that he supports the centerpiece of the green-socialist global agenda, the Kyoto Accord. One of the policy positions that cost President Bush popularity worldwide was his steadfast opposition to Kyoto. Euro-pundits refer to the Bush Administration position on Kyoto as “isolationist” and “obstructionist”. Despite the fact that the globe has cooled over the last decade, Euro-pundits blame global warming on President Bush and the “Oilman Lobby”.
President Bush was right to oppose Kyoto. If implemented, the Kyoto Accord would hamper American manufacturing. America would be forced to reduce carbon emissions to pre-1990 standards. To achieve this artificial goal, the auto industry would have to re-tool. It would have to build different types of cars that would help reduce certain types of emissions. It would have to change its manufacturing facilities so that they, too, would reduce their emissions.
Sounds like a good idea, right? Perhaps. It is a good idea for Russia, Brazil and China because Kyoto exempts them from mandatory emissions reductions. That’s right, we would have to reduce emissions where the rest of the world would not. Foreign car makers would not have to reduce emissions. U.S. carmakers would.
(The pie chart above, courtesy of the Heritage Foundation, shows how emissions from “developing nations” would increase under Kyoto.)
If the UAW and the automakers themselves were really on the ball, they would be opposing Kyoto, but they won’t be able to do so because there are strings attached to the bailout money. Those strings are in the hands of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They will control the details of the upgrade of the auto industry that will be required as a condition of the bailout loans. In other words, the federal government will hold all the cards, have all the leverage. The UAW and the auto industry will be powerless in the face of Kyoto.
