I’ve long suspected that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) keeps Brawny paper towels in his kitchen cabinet. Brawny paper towels are the best—they’re the quickest, thickest picker-uppers—and Rep. Waxman lives in one of the richest Congressional districts, so it makes sense that he uses them, right? I think it does. Rep. Waxman’s logical affinity for Brawny paper towels is troubling, because they are manufactured by Georgia Pacific, which is owned by….KOCH INDUSTRIES!!! Possibly, every time Rep. Waxman wipes spilled caviar off his marble countertops, he’s funding the insidious KOCHTOPUS!!! I doubt his far-left base would appreciate this apparent financial link to a company reviled by liberals for supporting conservative causes. Why, it’s as if Rep. Waxman is contributing to the Tea Party!

I know what you are thinking: These are baseless and ridiculous claims. Indeed. Yet they are no more baseless and ridiculous than the stunt Rep. Waxman pulled yesterday at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the Keystone XL Pipeline. I explained in detail the politics of the pipeline in a previous post. Suffice it to say, it would double U.S. imports of Canadian tar sands oil, and it is staunchly opposed by environmentalist special interests. The focus of yesterday’s hearing was a Republican bill that would speed up the pipeline approval process, but Rep. Waxman wanted to take the panel in a different direction. Namely, he wanted to fabricate an association between the Keystone Pipeline and the left’s favorite piñata, Koch Industries, a.k.a, the Kochtopus.

According to a write up in today’s ClimateWire (subscription required),

At yesterday’s hearing, Waxman continued to press for investigation of the Keystone-Koch connection. He said his staff had contacted Koch representatives to learn more about its investments in the oil sands, but that they had not been willing to answer basic questions alongside other oil companies such as ConocoPhillips Co. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC. “The representatives would not discuss whether Koch would export oil from Canada through the new pipeline, whether Koch holds tar sands leases, or whether Koch has plans to produce oil from tar sands,” he said.

While I disagree with everything he does, I nonetheless esteem Rep. Waxman as a master tactician. More than once, I’ve wished that the other party had someone as cunning as the Congressman from Beverly Hills. However, in this instance, he sounded foolish. Koch Industries has denied any link to the pipeline, but even if they stood to gain, what does that have to do with expanding and diversifying our energy supply? If the Keystone XL Pipeline is good for America, and it is, then why does it matter if the Koch’s profit?

In any case, Rep. Waxman didn’t have the goods. He wanted to tar the pipeline with an association to the Kochtopus, but he didn’t have any evidence, and he threw it out there, anyway. In fact, it’s as silly and unfounded an association as the Rep. Waxman/Koch connection I describe in the opening paragraph of this post.

Fortunately, Rep. Waxman’s tom-foolery didn’t go without rebuke. Energy and Power Subcommittee Chair Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) said he could care less about George Soros’s (the right’s version of the Kochtopus) documented investment in Suncor, a company that is actively involved in Canadian tar sands oil production.

The latest alarmist talking point is that “global warming will cause asthma in children.” To wit,  the Massachusetts League of Women Voters is running sleazy advertisements that essentially equate baby-abuse with Senator Scott Brown’s vote for excellent legislation that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. The purported link between baby-abuse and global warming is increased asthma.

It’s not just lobbyists. At a recent House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on global warming policy, Democrats on the panel—in particular, Reps. Henry Waxman and Jay Inslee—made much hay about the supposed increase in asthma suffering in a warmer world.

The media, too, is parroting this talking point. Here’s Brad Johnson at the Wonk Room:

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), after a recent vote to protect coal polluters at the expense of children’s health, is now attacking the League of Women Voters. The 91-year-old good-government organization is running television spots that hold McCaskill and Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) accountable for voting to block enforcement of Clean Air Act rules that limit greenhouse pollution, threatening the hundreds of thousands of children with asthma in their states.

Clearly, this claim that warmer temperatures will increase asthma is reverberating throughout the vast green echo chamber. But is it true? The claim is predicated on the hypothesis that global warming will cause longer growing seasons, which will result in the release of more pollen, an asthma trigger. OK…that makes some intuitive sense, and while there is peer review literature suggesting a link between asthma and pollen, there is also literature contesting such a link (“No association was found between visits for asthma attacks and airborne pollen levels,” Association of severe asthma attacks with weather, pollen, and air pollutants,” 0 V J Rossi, V L Kinnula, J Tienari, E Huhti, Thorax 1993; 48:244-248).

As I understand it, and as is intimated by the conflicting studies noted above, asthma is poorly understood. There does, however, appear to be agreement in the scientific community that asthma has many potential causes, including pollen, dust mites, cigarette smoke, and…cold weather. According to the peer reviewed literature, “A decrease in air temperature is an aggravating factor for asthmatic symptoms, regardless of the geo-climatic areas under study” (c.f., “Effects of Climate Change on Environmental Factors in Respiratory Allergic Diseases,” G. D’Amato and L. Cecchi, Clinical and Experimental Allergy, 38, 1264-1274). Cold weather triggers asthma directly, and also indirectly, by making people sick with cold and flu, which is another major asthma trigger (“Upper respiratory infections play a key role in exacerbation of asthma, contributing to the typical increase of hospitalizations and medical calls in cold months and during spring,” ibid).

Using a public health/medicine database search (EBESCO’s MEDLINE), I found peer reviewed research suggesting a link between global warming and asthma exacerbation due to increased pollen exposure caused by longer growing seasons, but I couldn’t find any study that also addressed the fact that global warming logically would mitigate asthma suffering caused by the cold. After all, if asthma hospitalizations peak during cold months, then doesn’t it stand to reason that global warming, which disproportionately affects winters, would decrease the number of these asthma attacks? If I’m wrong, and a study has considered the potential benefits of global warming for asthmatics, please send it my way: wyeatman@cei.org. Until I see otherwise, it seems to me that the green echo chamber’s alarmist asthma claims are based on only half the picture.

In any case, Americans shouldn’t be concerned. According to a recent peer reviewed article in the pre-eminent scholarly journal Science, global warming isn’t happening in the U.S.

The House of Representatives took the first step on Thursday toward reclaiming its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  The Energy and Power (yes, that really is its name) Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee marked up and passed H. R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which is sponsored by Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.).  H. R. 910 would pre-empt EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act unless and until explicitly authorized to do so by Congress.

Actually, there was no marking up.  The Democrats opposed to the bill offered no amendments, and the bill was passed on a voice vote.  The full Committee has scheduled a mark-up of the bill next Monday and Tuesday. That means H. R. 910 could come to the House floor by early April.  There is no doubt that it will pass the House by a wide margin.  The only question is how many Democrats will end up voting for it.  My guess is that quite a few Democrats are worried about getting re-elected and will therefore vote for it.

The subcommittee meeting was one long whine by minority Democrats.  Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), the ranking Democrat on the full committee and chief sponsor of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill that failed in the last Congress, said that H. R. 910 would codify science denial.  Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) chimed in that he was worried the Republicans would try to repeal the law of gravity.  Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) instead thought that Republicans were trying to repeal the first law of thermodynamics and cause children all over the world to get asthma.

Preventing asthma is now the principal reason brought forward by the global warming alarmists in Congress to cripple the U. S. economy with energy-rationing regulations.  Here is what I learned from a ninety-second internet search: “The majority of people with asthma notice that cold, dry air causes more symptoms than mild-temperature or hot, humid air.” Of course, some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists have recently found that global warming is causing a lot of cold weather.

Inslee always plays the obnoxious buffoon, but he was outdone at the subcommittee meeting by Rep. Michael Doyle (D-Penna.).  Doyle claimed that EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions would not send any jobs overseas because existing manufacturing plants would not have to apply for permits under the rules already proposed.  Only new or expanded plants have to apply for permits.  Thus only new jobs are being destroyed by EPA regulations, and no one in an existing job has anything to worry about.  I know this sounds unbelievably stupid, but this is an accurate summary of the point Doyle was making.  As the committee counsel tried to explain to Doyle, even that point is true only until EPA finishes implementing emissions rules for existing facilities.

Yesterday morning, the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee met to mark up H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, but the results was a foregone conclusion. As they say in poker, Republicans had the “nuts.” The legislation, which would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, was co-written by Committee Chair Fred Upton (MI), and it enjoyed the support of all the Rs on the panel. Subcommittee Chair Ed Whitfield (KY) didn’t even bother with a roll call, and the Democrats on the panel didn’t object, so the bill passed by a voice vote alone.

Indeed, the only mystery to yesterday’s vote was whether any of the Subcommittee Democrats would side with the majority party. Already, senior House Democrats Colin Peterson (MN) and Nick Rahall (WV) have sponsored H.R. 910. The most likely Democratic defection, heading into yesterday’s markup, was Utah Rep. Tim Matheson, but he stayed in lock step with his party.

The fact that they had no hope of stopping the legislation didn’t stop Subcommittee Democrats from trying to gum up the proceedings. They adopted a neat division of labor.

• Rep. Henry Waxman (Beverly Hills): He argued that H.R. 910 would overturn the White House brokered “deal” with auto companies to raise fuel efficiency standards. This was an effort to frighten Committee Chair Fred Upton, who represents Michigan, and who is therefore very concerned with the auto industry. It was at Upton’s behest that the text of the legislation exempts this “deal.” The Committee General Counsel testified that Waxman’s interpretation is wrong.
• Rep. Gene Green (TX): Although he voiced support for stopping the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, Rep. Green claimed that H.R. 910 is bad legislation because it faced a certain veto in the White House.  [N.B. I’m not so sure this is true. Heading into the 2012 elections, the economy likely will be the paramount issue, and it might not make political sense for the President to proceed with expensive energy climate regulations]. He said he is working on a bill that would delay the EPA.
• Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (CA): Rep. Eshoo cited federalism as a reason to vote against the bill. She said H.R. 910 would strip California of its authority to set fuel efficiency standards. In fact, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act 1975 empowers only the Congress to set fuel efficiency standards.
• Rep. John Dingell (MI): Heading into yesterday’s mark up, I was most interested in what Dingell would do. He helped write the Clean Air Act, and he’s warned before that the Obama Administration is inviting a “glorious mess” by regulating greenhouse gases. Rep. Dingell took a facetious tone, and lightly admonished Committee Chair Upton for calling the bill the Energy “Tax” Prevention Act. Quite rightly, he said that the bill did not address a tax, and if it did, a different Committee (Ways and Means) would have had jurisdiction. He pleaded for “a little truth in labeling.”
• Eliot L. Engel (NY): Rep. Engel followed a clever line of reasoning that, quite frankly, I didn’t fully understand. He seemed to have made a very particular legal argument that H.R. 910 would conflict with prior federal efforts to fight climate change.

As for my take on the bill, I’ll quote my colleague Marlo Lewis, because I can’t say it any better:

“The debate on EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations boils down to a very simple issue. Who shall determine the content and direction of national policy—elected representatives accountable to the people at the ballot box, or non-elected bureaucrats, trial lawyers, and activist judges appointed for life? The Constitution permits only one answer to that question.”

From what I understand, the full Committee will take up H.R. 910 on Wednesday.

There wasn’t much to report from yesterday’s climate change science hearing before the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Generally speaking, Republican lawmakers used the entirety of their allotted time to question the scientists they had invited, and Democratic lawmakers did likewise. Click here for opening statements, and also for an archived podcast of the hearing.

Truth be told, the hearing’s pedigree is more interesting than the hearing was. Last week, the same subcommittee held a hearing on pending EPA regulations for greenhouse gases, in order to inform the debate on H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, legislation that would check the EPA’s authority to enact climate policy under the Clean Air Act. During these hearings, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), who is a master parliamentarian, leveraged an obscure procedural rule to demand a hearing of the minority party’s choosing. Subcommittee Chair Rep. Ed Whitfield, in an act of Congressional comity, granted the request. Ergo, yesterday’s “dueling science” hearing.

There was one notable element to yesterday’s action: The extent to which the center is moving away from the Democratic leadership on energy and environment policy. Rather feebly, Rep. Waxman concluded by asking that the majority party agree to postpone tomorrow’s scheduled mark up of H.R. 910…until Tuesday. It was a weak negotiating tactic.

Waxman’s weakness harkened to Rep. Gene Green’s reported pitch last week for a 5 year delay on greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act. That was significant because, until then, Congressional Democrats had been willing to countenance only a 2 year delay.

Of course, hardliners like Waxman were undercut by the bi-partisan appeal of H.R. 910. As I noted yesterday, opposition to expensive energy policies has been bipartisan in recent Congresses. This is especially true now, as gasoline surges past $3.50 and starts to dominate the politics of energy. Already, the legislation has won the support of senior House Democrats Rep. Colin Peterson and Rep. Nick Rahall.