At Tuesday’s House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing on Climate Science and EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulation, Dr. Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science, presented a scary assessment of global warming’s impact on U.S. grain yields. Field’s written testimony states, in pertinent part:
In the United States, the observed temperature sensitivity of three major crops is even more striking. Based on a careful county-by county analysis of patterns of climate and yields of corn, soybeans, and cotton, Schlenker and Roberts (Schlenker and Roberts 2009) concluded that observed yields from all farms and farmers are relatively insensitive to temperature up to a threshold but fall rapidly as temperatures rise above the threshold. For farms in the United States, the temperature threshold is 84˚F for corn, 86˚F for soybeans, and 90˚F for cotton. For corn, a single day at 104˚F instead of 84˚F reduces observed yields by about 7%. These temperature sensitivities are based on observed responses, including data from all of the US counties that grow cotton and all of the Eastern counties that grow corn or soybeans. These are not simulated responses. They are observed in the aggregate yields of thousands of farms in thousands of locations. [click to continue…]
Earlier this week, the House Energy & Commerce Committee held its third hearing on the Energy Tax Prevention Act, a bill to stop EPA from determining national policy on climate change through the Clean Air Act, a statute enacted in 1970, years before global warming was even a gleam in Al Gore’s eye. The hearing, requested by ranking member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), was entitled Climate Science and EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulations.
Although Democrats are now the minority party in the House, they got more witnesses (4) than did the majority (3). I don’t know how Rep. Waxman pulled that off. Did he ever let Republicans have more witnesses when he was in the chair? No. Would he return the favor if Dems regain control of the House? Doubtful.
The most effective minority witness, IMO, was Dr. Richard Somerville, whose testimony updates the continual — and predictable — refrain that ‘climate change is even worse than we previously predicted.’ Much of Somerville’s testimony is drawn from a report he co-authored called the Copenhagen Diagnosis.
It’s not my purpose here to provide an alternative assessment of climate science, though if you’re looking for one, check out Drs. Shirwood and Craig Idso’s Carbon Dioxide and Earth’s Future: Pursuing the Prudent Path.
My beef, rather, is with Somerville’s claim that he’s simply a spokesman for science, not for an agenda. It’s amazing he can say this with a straight face and in the same testimony spout partisan cant about the Climategate scandal. He writes: [click to continue…]
Yesterday (Feb. 16), House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) engaged in a colloquy with Interior and Agriculture Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-ID) on Sec. 1746 of H.R. 1, the One-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011.
Sec. 1746 of H.R. 1 states:
None of the funds made available to the Environmental Protection Agency by this division or any other Act may be expended for purposes of enforcing or promulgating any regulation (other than with respect to section 202 of the Clean Air Act) or order, taking action relating to, or denying approval of state implementation plans or permits because of the emissions of greenhouse gases due to concerns regarding possible climate change.
Sec. 1746 would block EPA regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which ends on September 30. “The funding limitation will allow Congress to carefully and thoroughly debate a permanent clarification to the Clean Air Act to ensure it remains a strong tool for protecting public health by regulating and mitigating air pollutants, and that it is not transformed into a vehicle to impose a national energy tax,” explains Chairman Whitfield’s press release. Whitfield is a co-sponsor of the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which would overturn the legal force and effect of EPA’s Endangerment Rule, Tailoring Rule, and other rules imposing greenhouse gas permitting requirements on state governments and stationary sources.
In the colloquy, Chairman Simpson states: “EPA’s GHG regulations need to be stopped in their tracks, and that’s what section 1746 does – it provides a timeout for the balance of the fiscal year, during which time EPA will be prohibited from acting on them or enforcing them.” In Whitfield’s words: “This CR [Continuing Resolution] provision is Congress hitting the pause button during the very brief period of the CR, allowing time to go through regular order and pass the Upton-Inhofe bill.”
[click to continue…]
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