At The Huffington Post, Jeffrey Rubin writes: “Only a Recession Can Deliver Obama’s Energy Targets.”

Unfortunately, we have heard this song many times before. In 1973, President Richard Nixon unveiled “Project Independence” in response to the OPEC oil embargo that was triggered by the Arab-Israeli war. President Jimmy Carter called the need to lessen U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil the moral equivalent of war in response to the supply disruptions that followed the Iranian Revolution. President George Bush Jr. referred to America’s dependence on foreign oil as nothing short of an addiction.

Over the past four decades, U.S. presidents have waxed eloquent about the need to reduce the country’s dependence on imported oil. Yet the U.S. economy still relies on imports for more than 50% of the 19 million barrels of oil burned every day. As a result, the U.S. remains as vulnerable to soaring oil prices as it was during the OPEC shocks in the 1970s.

Rubin notes that we’ve been down this road before. Eloquent speeches aside, governments haven’t historically had the ability to make significant changes to the types of energy that are economically viable. But don’t get your head down, repeated failure has never stopped our government.

Concluding, he writes:

So far, recessions have been the only surefire way America has cut back on its fuel consumption and the need for oil imports. But, of course, that is not an option any U.S. president can pursue.

Maybe not, but maybe? (from E&E News, $ub. required):

Yesterday, all eyes were on the United States as country after country asked [U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan] Pershing to explain specifically how America will meet the promise that Obama made the world at the 2009 Copenhagen, Denmark, climate change summit. He noted in a series of slides that U.S. emissions have declined about 8.7 percent since 2005 — and while he acknowledged that a portion of that is due to the economic downturn, Pershing insisted that the more important metric is whether America is meeting its target.

Health of the economy be damned, our emissions declined!

The American Lung Association is right up there with the Union of Concerned Scientists as a leftist activist organization pretending to be a professional association with high-minded objectives.  In fact, the American Lung Association is a bunch of political thugs.  Their latest hit job is putting up billboards in Rep. Fred Upton’s district in Michigan that urge him to “protect our kids’ health. Don’t weaken the Clean Air Act (PDF).” The billboard has a photo of an adolescent girl with a respirator.

The American Lung Association is opposing a bill, the Energy Tax Prevention Act (H. R. 910), that is sponsored by Rep. Upton, the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  Upton’s bill, which is expected to be debated on the House floor in early April, does nothing to weaken the Clean Air Act.  It simply prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Congress never intended the Clean Air Act to be used to enforce global warming policies on the American people.  As my CEI colleague Marlo Lewis recently noted, attempts to add provisions to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 that would allow the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions were defeated in the Senate.  A similar attempt in the House went nowhere.

So what Rep. Upton is trying to do is to restore the Clean Air Act to the purpose originally intended by Congress—that is, to reducing air pollution.  The American Lung Association should welcome his effort because it removes a huge distraction and financial drain from the EPA.  Clarifying that the Clean Air Act cannot be used to solve global warming will allow the EPA to concentrate on protecting people’s health.

Instead, the American Lung Association implies that Rep. Upton is supporting a bill that will increase childhood asthma rates.  The charge is ludicrous.  If the American Lung Association cared about children, they would consider the effects on families of being forced to pay higher energy prices as a result of EPA’s global warming regulations.  There is a large amount of medical literature that shows the adverse health effects of poverty.  The effects are especially pronounced on infants and young children.

As JunkScience.com reports, the most scandalous aspect of the American Lung Association’s lobbying against the Energy Tax Prevention Act is that one of its major funders is the Environmental Protection Agency.  The EPA has given the American Lung Association over twenty million dollars in the last ten years.  So the EPA pays the American Lung Association, which in turn lobbies against a bill that would rein in EPA.  The impropriety is obvious, but then the American Lung Association is shameless.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bGgJZfc0-M 285 234]

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1cOLI2n2Ec 285 234]