Legislative Update XVIII

On a 219-212 vote, the House of Representatives passed a historic climate change and energy bill (an earlier, a EPA funding bill). You can read about its major provisions here. Many have said it doesn't go far enough in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and certainly a lot of lobbyists got their hands on it, but given its very narrow passage here and the fact that it must also get 60 votes in the Senate, it's clear that this is the best bill we could get and at least it's a start. I say we celebrate any triumph over the global warming deniers and for energy reform.

The House also passed a $44 billion spending bill Wednesday that awards the Homeland Security Department a 7 percent budget increase, with money for more border patrol agents and for anti-piracy efforts off the coast of Somalia. The bill requires the department to conduct threat assessments for the terrorist suspects being held in Gitmo. It also requires that the department ensure that detainees are placed on its "no-fly" list and denied an array of immigration benefits, including admission into the United States and refugee status.


After lots of stalling from the GOP, the Senate finally confirmed Harold Koh as the legal adviser of the U.S. Department of State. Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher was confirmed as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. A special election will be held for her house seat. The Senate also confirmed Julius Genachowski as head of the Federal Communications Commission and Robert McDowell for a second FCC term.


The Senate passed a sweeping aid package for Pakistan that must now be reconciled with the House version. The chamber also passed a resolution calling on President Obama to pardon black heavywight champion Jack Johnson who was sent to jail for having a romantic relationship with a white woman. And the Senate accepted the House's articles of impeachment against federal judge Samuel Kent, who has resigned. Six Democrats and six Republicans, led by Sen. Claire McCaskill, will gather evidence for Kent's Senate prosecution, but a trial is not set to begin for several weeks.

Legislative Update XI

The White House and Congressional Democrats have come to a budget deal that includes reconciliation instructions for health-care legislation later this year. This would allow Democrats to pass a reform measure with a simple majority in the Senate, but the changes would have to renewed after 10 years. Republicans have cried afoul over this possibility, despite the fact that they used it to pass the Bush tax cuts, but Rep. Ryan admitted today it is within the Democrats rights to do so having won the election. My concern is that the changes expire and we could have a Republican president and/or Congress again in ten years, but the political calculation is probably that it is better to get it now and, if it's successful, it'll be too hard to let die.

The Senate voted 92-4 to create an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the causes of the financial crisis and the House of Representatives voted 342-78 to send billions of dollars to thousands of communities to help them hire and retain 50,000 police officers, reviving a Clinton-era "cops on the streets" program that withered under the Bush administration.

Senate Republicans blocked a confirmation vote on Kathleen Sebelius as HHS Secretary over her pro-choice views. A cloture vote could happen on Tuesday.

Lastly, former Vice President Al Gore has come out in support of the climate change bill that is being worked on in the House.

Climate Change Estimates Worse Than Thought

A few weeks ago we discussed a report issued by the NOAA that we have already altered the climate in ways that will persist for a thousand years. Researchers are now saying that change is occurring at faster rate than previously believed (h/t Adam):

The pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said Saturday.

"We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations," Christopher Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Field, a member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said emissions from burning fossil fuels since 2000 have largely outpaced the estimates used in the U.N. panel's 2007 reports. The higher emissions are largely the result of the increased burning of coal in developing countries, he said.

Unexpectedly large amounts of carbon dioxide are being released into the atmosphere as the result of "feedback loops" that are speeding up natural processes. Prominent among these, evidence indicates, is a cycle in which higher temperatures are beginning to melt the arctic permafrost, which could release hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, said several scientists on a panel at the meeting.

The permafrost holds 1 trillion tons of carbon, and as much as 10 percent of that could be released this century, Field said. Along with carbon dioxide melting permafrost releases methane, which is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

"It's a vicious cycle of feedback where warming causes the release of carbon from permafrost, which causes more warming, which causes more release from permafrost," Field said.

Evidence is also accumulating that terrestrial and marine ecosystems cannot remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as earlier estimates suggested, Field said.

In the oceans, warmer weather is driving stronger winds that are exposing deeper layers of water, which are already saturated with carbon and not as able to absorb as much from the atmosphere. The carbon is making the oceans more acidic, which also reduces their ability to absorb carbon.

On land, rising carbon dioxide levels had been expected to boost plant growth and result in greater sequestration of carbon dioxide. As plants undergo photosynthesis to draw energy from the sun, carbon is drawn out of the atmosphere and trapped in the plant matter. But especially in northern latitudes, this effect may be offset significantly by the fact that vegetation-covered land absorbs much more of the sun's heat than snow-covered terrain, said scientists on the panel.

Earlier snowmelt, the shrinking arctic ice cover and the northward spread of vegetation are causing the Northern Hemisphere to absorb, rather than reflect, more of the sun's energy and reinforce the warming trend.

In other words, the pace of global warming is speeding up faster than we anticipated, and some of the mechanisms for slowing it down are not as effective as previously thought. I do find myself wondering if these findings would alter the results scientists found in the earlier study. For the worse, of course.

UPDATE: Via Kevin Drum, here's a useful chart to show to people who think that an unseasonally cool day is evidence that global warming doesn't exist.

Gore on Global Warming

Al Gore appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, updating his calls for measures to deal with global warming (especially urgent in light of news like this.) And while most of the world of media has come around to the idea and is finally conveying the urgency of the crisis, the pundit elite at major newspapers-Dana Milbank, we're looking at you-still just somehow don't get it.

1,000 Years of Climate Change

A new report from researchers led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates that the climate change wrought by humans thus far will persist for a thousand years, regardless of any cutbacks in carbon dioxide emissions that we may seek to institute:

“It has long been known that some of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years,” Solomon said. “But the new study advances the understanding of how this affects the climate system.”

The study examines the consequences of allowing CO2 to build up to several different peak levels beyond present-day concentrations of 385 parts per million and then completely halting the emissions after the peak. The authors found that the scientific evidence is strong enough to quantify some irreversible climate impacts, including rainfall changes in certain key regions, and global sea level rise.

If CO2 is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, the results would include persistent decreases in dry-season rainfall that are comparable to the 1930s North American Dust Bowl in zones including southern Europe, northern Africa, southwestern North America, southern Africa and western Australia.

The study notes that decreases in rainfall that last not just for a few decades but over centuries are expected to have a range of impacts that differ by region. Such regional impacts include decreasing human water supplies, increased fire frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts. Dry-season wheat and maize agriculture in regions of rain-fed farming, such as Africa, would also be affected.

Climate impacts were less severe at lower peak levels. But at all levels added carbon dioxide and its climate effects linger because of the ocean.

The researchers also forecast a rise in sea levels of 2.3 to 3 feet, without factoring in melting glaciers or the polar ice caps because their models are too uncertain to quantify such changes (though I think we can safely say that more, rather than less, is likely.) As this NY Times article states, most researchers consider emissions in the range of 450 ppm to be "inevitable", and 600 ppm "difficult to avoid" without substantial changes in emissions:

“Policy makers need to understand,” he continued, “that in some ways once we are over the cliff, there’s nothing to stop the fall.”

Dr. Solomon said it would be wrong to view the report as evidence that it was already too late to do much good by reducing carbon emissions. “You have to think of this stuff as being more like nuclear waste than acid rain,” she said.

Acid rain began to abate when pollution contributing to it was limited. But just as nuclear waste remains radioactive for a long time, the effects of carbon dioxide persist.

“So if we slow it down,” she said, “we have more time to find solutions.”

Some critics argue that we can't forecast so far in the future because we can't anticipate the power of future technology to mitigate the effects of global warming. At the same time, neither should we assume that future technology will be able to deal with this problem, not when we can safely predict what the climate will do and can conceive only of outlandish schemes to deal with it.

Power From the Oceans

Human innovation may save us from our own short-sightedness (h/t Adam):

The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.

The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.
As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity.

Cylinders arranged over a cubic metre of the sea or river bed in a flow of three knots can produce 51 watts. This is more efficient than similar-sized turbines or wave generators, and the amount of power produced can increase sharply if the flow is faster or if more cylinders are added.

A "field" of cylinders built on the sea bed over a 1km by 1.5km area, and the height of a two-storey house, with a flow of just three knots, could generate enough power for around 100,000 homes. Just a few of the cylinders, stacked in a short ladder, could power an anchored ship or a lighthouse.

Systems could be sited on river beds or suspended in the ocean. The scientists behind the technology, which has been developed in research funded by the US government, say that generating power in this way would potentially cost only around 3.5p per kilowatt hour, compared to about 4.5p for wind energy and between 10p and 31p for solar power. They say the technology would require up to 50 times less ocean acreage than wave power generation.

"This is a totally new method of extracting energy from water flow," said Mr Bernitsas. "Fish curve their bodies to glide between the vortices shed by the bodies of the fish in front of them. Their muscle power alone could not propel them through the water at the speed they go, so they ride in each other's wake."

"If we could harness 0.1 per cent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people. In the English Channel, for example, there is a very strong current, so you produce a lot of power."

Incredible. Imagine a future world where the oceans are spotted with electricity generating cylinders and fields of wind turbines, generating megawatts of electricity based solely on the movement of water and air.

Lame-Duck Session

Congress returned to business this week, passing an extension of unemployment benefits (thankfully, still-President Bush reversed his opposition) but punting a bailout of the auto industry until the Big 3 can demonstrate how the money would help.

Ever-masochistic, House Republicans elevated strong conservatives to leadership posts. Rep. Henry Waxman successfully toppled Rep. John Dingell as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, likely giving stronger voice to environmentalists just as the Senate prepares to introduce bills after Obama's inauguration to combat global warming.

Republicans block bipartisan bill to address climate change

By a vote of 48-36, legislation calling for a "cap and trade" system that would cut greenhouse gas emissions by around 65 percent in 2050 and reward environmentally friendly companies by forcing polluters to buy credits from greener industries fell short of the 60 votes needed to bring it to a final debate. It should be noted that the bill was supported by a majority - 54 Senators - but 6 were not there to vote.

What To Preserve?

Here's an interesting article in today's NY Times about the dilemma faced by conservationists in the face of global warming. Giving the changes likely to ensue in the world's climate, what should they be trying to preserve?

...everywhere, ecologists and conservation biologists wonder how landscapes already under preservation will change with the climate.

“We have over a 100-year investment nationally in a large suite of protected areas that may no longer protect the target ecosystems for which they were formed,” said Healy Hamilton, director of the California Academy of Sciences, who attended a workshop on the subject in November in Berkeley, Calif. “New species will move in, and the target species will move out.”

As a result, more and more conservationists believe they must do more than identify biologically important landscapes and raise money to protect them. They must peer into an uncertain future, guess which sites will be important 50 or 100 years from now, and then try to balance these guesses against the pressing needs of the present.

The dilemma being that there's no use in going to great lengths to preserve streams that will be to warm for the salmon their being preserved for, or preserving wetlands that may be in underwater in a few decades. It's impossible to know what the future entails, but though I believe firmly that global warming is happening and that we're contributing to it, I also know that predictions for the future are often gloomier than they should be. I would lean towards preservation on the assumption that certain landscapes and ecologies will continue to exist in the future. But then I'm not in the position these conservationists are, in trying to guess the future with what is at best incomplete information.

"Solastalgia"

An interesting new word, via Andrew Sullivan. Of course, Native Americans (and all aborigianal peoples) were familiar with solastalgia for hundreds of years before anybody invented a term for the feeling that accompanies an overwhelming climatological and cultural devastation. Australians (and Americans alike) would do well to read this excellent article by Charles Taylor in the April 2007 New York Review of Books, describing the manner in which some tribes dealt with the desperation that accompanied the undermining of their entire worlds. In this age, perhaps all of us will need a measure of such courage.

Legislative Week in Review VIIII

Returning from break, the Senate quickly approved the Peru Free Trade Agreement which, having already passed the House, will be signed by President Bush. The Senate also passed a bill, 88-5, that provides a one-year fix for the alternative minimum tax but without matching the cost of the tax relief with new tax revenues, after Republicans removed a provision that taxes investors in a swap (which is included in the House version).

The House approved energy legislation, 235-181. The centerpiece of the bill is a requirement to boost automobile fuel economy by 40 percent to an industry average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, the first such increase since 1975, when Congress enacted the federal auto fuel economy requirements. Senate Republicans blocked the bill, however, because ito would provide also $21.5 billion in tax incentives, mostly to promote development of alternative fuels, financed by eliminating or reducing $13 billion in subsidies for major oil and gas companies. And it would require 15 percent of electricity be produced from renewable sources by 2020. The tax and renewables mandate additionally drew a veto threat from the White House. A rewrite is likely.

A conference between the Senate and House intelligence committees voted to outlaw the harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA against suspected high-level terrorists. The provision to the annual intelligence authorization bill would require all American interrogators to abide by the Army Field Manual.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved a bill to combat global warming, 11-8, that would require carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and 70 percent by 2050 and allow trading of emission allowances, known as a "cap-and-trade" system.

Lastly, congressional Democrats demanded today that the Justice Department investigate why the CIA destroyed videotapes of the interrogation of two terrorism suspects.

Legislative Week in Review VI

President Bush at last nominated a VA secretary and is considering a recess appointment for his controversial surgeon general nominee. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Dr. James B. Peake is likely to face tough questions during his confirmation hearings (likely weeks away) about how he would lead a troubled Department of Veterans Affairs. If confirmed, Peake would become the first general and first medical doctor to head the VA. President Bush on Wednesday also nominated Edward Schafer, a former two-term Republican governor from North Dakota, to head the Agriculture Department in an attempt to influence the upcoming farm bill. AG nominee Michael Mukasey's confirmation is less in doubt now that Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein have announced they will vote him out of committee on Tuesday, November 6th.

Bush vetoed the water projects bill but he will be easily overridden next week. The first big budget battle also looms. House and Senate negotiators on Thursday agreed to tack a $65 billion bill funding the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction onto a $151 billion bill for the Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education departments. When the conference report moves to the Senate floor — which could happen as early as next week — Republicans plan to raise a point of order to strike the language on Veterans Affairs and military construction. President Bush is threatening to veto the combined spending package. Democrats in Congress have also refused to provide money for his European missile shield program.

The Senate voted 64-30 in favor of the SCHIP bill again. This time it did not achieve a veto-proof margin as some supporters weren't there and others (such as our own Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison) switched their position. House and Senate negotiators will now try to come up with another version that can win enough support to override a Bush veto.

The House of Representatives unanimously voted to extend the Internet tax moratorium another 7 years (matching the Senate version) and passed, 244-166, a bill that would put new environmental controls on hard-rock mining, set up a cleanup fund for abandoned mines and permanently ban cheap sales of public lands for mining. Additionally, the House passed by a voice vote legislation that orders a government study into the technology needed to overcome the circumstances of miners being trapped far underground without the ability to communicate with would-be rescuers. And, defying a White House veto threat, the House on Wednesday passed a multibillion-dollar expansion of a program to help retrain workers who have lost their jobs because of foreign competition, 264-157.

The Ways and Means Committee voted 22-13 in favor of a bill that would provide temporary relief from the alternative minimum tax and pay for it in part by raising taxes on private equity fund manager. Majority Leader Reid has said the Senate will not wave "pay-go" rules for the AMT fix, but it is not clear that Rangel's proposal will fly there. The House Ways and Means Committee also voted 39-0 for a free trade pact with Peru.

The Senate's Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection approved a climate change bill by a 4-3 vote. The measure would limit greenhouse gas emissions thought to contribute to global warming. It may see a floor vote by year's end.

Meanwhile, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 to send to a floor vote the Reagan-era "Law of the Sea" treaty supported by President Bush. With Senate ratification, the United States would join 155 nations that are party to a convention that sets rules and settles disputes over navigation, fishing and economic development of the open seas and establishes environmental standards. Treaty supporters, after making little headway for years, have gained momentum recently with concerns that the melting of the global ice cap will trigger a rush of claims by Arctic countries, including Russia, to previously iced-in resources.

House and Senate panels voted Tuesday to eliminate a five-year expiration date for registered phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry.

Oh, and it looks increasingly unlikely the "No Child Left Beind Law" will be brought up for re-authorization by the end of the year.

In corruption news, an oil services contractor testified Monday that he was blackmailed by an employee over renovations at Sen. Ted Stevens' home. Sen. David Vitter has agreed to pay a $25,000 fine for violating federal election laws during his campaign for the Senate in 2004. And Rep. Henry Waxman, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on Wednesday demanded that the White House turn over hundreds of pages of material about Jack Abramoff.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are weighing the possibility of adding a “millionaire’s amendment” to presidential campaign finance reform measures. As it applies to Senate races, the amendment states that if a candidate exceeds the statutory threshold by 10 times, then the cap on the amount of money other candidates can accept from a single donor can be raised. Unfortunately, the Senate appears deadlocked over legislation that would require members to file their campaign finance forms electronically. Oh well.

[Redacted]

Via Andrew Sullivan, we see that Kevin Grandia at Demosblog has posted the entire testimony of Dr. Julie Geberding, the CDC official whose prepared testimony was edited in advance of her appearance before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last week. Kevin has conveniently highlighted in red all the portions of the testimony that were removed. The White House's incredibly lame excuse was that the science in the report did not match the view of the International Panel on Climate Change. In reading the testimony, you'll see that unless the IPCC believes that scientific evidence doesn't support global warming, then it's clear the White House is full of shit.

The Republican War on Science Continues

Sigh:

The White House severely edited congressional testimony given Tuesday by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the impact of climate change on health, removing specific scientific references to potential health risks, according to two sources familiar with the documents.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Atlanta-based CDC, the government's premier disease monitoring agency, told a Senate hearing that climate change "is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans."

But her prepared testimony was devoted almost entirely to the CDC's preparation, with few details on what effects climate change could have on the spread of disease. Only during questioning did she describe some specific diseases that likely would be affected, again without elaboration.

Her testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had much less information on health risks than a much longer draft version Gerberding submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review in advance of her appearance.

"It was eviscerated," said a CDC official, familiar with both versions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process.

The official said that while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly "heavy-handed," with the document cut from its original 14 pages to four. It was six pages as presented to the Senate committee.

This is just the latest in a string of situations in which the Bush administration has edited scientific reports or put pressure on scientists about global warming. Of course, this kind of censorship just leans more credence to the idea behind global warming and the vast effects of climate change are much more certain than the administration wants people to believe.

Legislative Week in Review III

According to The Politico, House Democrats have set a record for the number of roll call votes they've held.

Senate Republicans' demand an Ethics Committee inquiry into Larry Craig has backfired. The GOP had hoped it would force Craig to resign, but he called their bluff by reversing his decision to resign Sept. 30 unless a court let him drop his guilty plea. "Now Republicans are powerless to stop a process almost certain to do more political damage to the party in general than to a retiring senator," according to the AP.

Key members of Congress vowed Friday to defend the independence of the CIA's inspector general and put an end to the agency's probe of its own internal investigator. And four congressional committee chairmen also accused the State Department of suppressing information about corruption inside Iraq's government. A non-binding measure on the issue will be debated on Tuesday.

The House of Representatives voted 389-30 on Tuesday to make it easier to convict private contractors of defrauding the U.S. government during wartime by creating a new federal criminal statute banning contracting abuse associated with military operations and reconstruction efforts. It also would ensure federal courts have jurisdiction in all cases. A similar measure was approved in April by the Senate Judiciary Committee but Republican objections have prevented it from getting a quick floor vote. Other House bills passed this week include one to ensure durable infant products will be sold with a postage-paid registration card so consumers would be informed quickly of recalls, a call for an end to worldwide genital mutilation which passed 378-0, and legislation that would end the use of private tax collectors by the IRS, 232-173 (it faces a veto threat and a Republican filibuster in the Senate, however).

As Xanthippas has followed, the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27 to 21 to recognize the WWI massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide, and can now be sent on to the full House for a possible vote. President Bush opposed the measure because an enraged present-day Turkey says it will harm diplomatic relations with the U.S., but Bush himself labeled it genocide in the 2000 presidential campaign.

As I've followed, the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees both approved the FISA bill. President Bush is threatening a veto because it lacks immunity for telecom companies and sunsets after 2 years. Most Republicans have fallen in line, of course.

On their plate in the coming weeks, the House will consider a reporter shield law, an extension on an Internet tax moratorium, informal negotiations with the Senate on energy legislation, paid parental leave for federal employees, more subprime loan proposals, NFL pensions, and a veto override attempt for SCHIP this coming Thursday. Senate confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey begin on October 17th, Sens. Lieberman and Warner will introduce a bill to create a carbon auction system with mandatory emissions caps ("cap and trade") to help combat global warming, the Ag committee may or may not take up the farm bill soon after intense battles over it, and some Senators are considering making wealthy private colleges spend more of their endowments to lower the cost of tuition.

Gore Wins Nobel Prize

Incredible:

Former vice president Al Gore and a United Nations panel that monitors climate change were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for their work educating the world about global warming and advocating for political action to control it.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee characterized Gore as "the single individual who has done most" to convince world governments and leaders that climate change is real, is caused by human activity, and poses a grave threat. Gore has focused on the issue through books, promotional events and his Academy Award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

He's earned it.

UPDATE: Then there are useless responses like this, wherein the author apparently has spent so much time drafting his rant about Al Gore that he forgot to notice that global warming IS a threat to peace and stability, especially in places like...oh, Darfur.

Water scarce in the west

This article in the Washington Post is about how global warming will exacerbate water shortages the world over. But frankly, I think you need to read this article and see how bad it already is in the western states. It's mostly not even because of global warming; Las Vegas and Los Angeles are both water hogs that have been taking away water from farmers for decades. But now water is becoming so difficult to obtain that it's beginning to impact agriculture in the west.

A few miles south of Fresno, Steve Arthur is looking the other way for water. His company is working around the clock drilling wells to irrigate fields in California's 400-mile-long Central Valley, one of the most productive food-growing areas in the world.

"People are really starting to panic for water," said Arthur, whose father started drilling wells in 1959. They must drill ever deeper to tap the sinking water table. "Eventually, the water will be so deep the farmers won't be able to afford to pump it," he said. "There's only so much water to go around."

There's no point in me rehashing the dire predictions made in this article that this water shortage is causing. The article is sufficient and should be sufficiently scary to prompt both an immediate response to global warming and change our water consumption habits. Do yourself a favor and read it.

Other Goings-On in Congress Today

The Senate voted, 60-28, late today to give President Bush authority to eavesdrop on foreign terror suspects (which had been barred by a FISA court because the messages were being routed through U.S. communications carriers) without court warrants for six months until they come up with a new plan. President Bush had promised to veto a Democratic alternative that would have required a court review within 15 days and said he'd keep Congress in session until they sent him a bill. The Democratic version of the bill had failed earlier in the House under rules that required a two-thirds majority for passage. They will likely vote on on the Senate version tomorrow before they recess for the month.

Meanwhile, the Post reports that the House has unanimously agreed to create a special select committee, with subpoena powers, to investigate Republican allegations that Democratic leaders had "stolen a victory from the House GOP on a parliamentary vote late Thursday night." Such committees are rare and in the past have been used for the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals. Does anyone think the Republicans would set up something like this if they were still the majority and accused of wrongdoing?

The House also voted, by a unanimous vote, to authorize additional funds for emergency repairs and reconstruction of the Interstate I-35 bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed.

In other Congress-related news, the Huffington Post praises the Green Jobs Act of 2007 whilst the Senate unveils global warming legislation and the House goes after private-equity firms and hedge funds.

UPDATE: The Senate also voted to direct $250 million to rebuild the collapsed Minnesota bridge; the House had to re-approve because the Senate version was slightly different.

Other Goings-On in Congress

The House voted 273-149 today on legislation to halve interest rates on student loans and increase the maximum Pell grant from $4,310 per year to $5,200 per year by 2011. Pell grants go to poor students and don't have to be repaid. To pay for the proposal, lawmakers would cut roughly $19 billion in federal subsidies to banks that issue government-backed student loans. The interest rate on federally subsidized loans for low-income and middle-class students will go from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over five years. The House previously voted to approve that cut, but the Senate never considered it. But a similar bill to this one is pending in the Senate that puts more money into Pell grants. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy the chairman of the Senate education committee, has said he wants to move that legislation this month. A bill previously passed by the House seeks to end improper relations between colleges and their employees and student lenders. Similar legislation is pending in the Senate too.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman introduced a bill that would establish a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, refineries and industrial plants but allow companies to trade emission credits and avoid making emissions cuts if the costs become too high. The bill would establish carbon emission limits throughout industry to assure that the releases do not grow significantly over the next two decades. Carbon emissions would have to be at 2006 levels in 2030, instead of growing at the rate of more than 1 percent a year as is projected without emissions caps. Many environmentalist argue that more stringent restrictions are needed to combat global warming. Bingaman said his bill has a goal of cutting carbon dioxide releases by 60 percent from 2006 levels by mid-century, but he acknowledged that would require a future president to increase emission controls, something that is allowed in the bill. It may not go far enough, but it'll be a good step in the right direction if it passes.

President Bush ordered former Counsel Harriet Miers to defy a congressional subpoena and refuse to testify about the firings of federal prosecutors, even as former White House political director Sara Taylor did so today (and answered few questions). House Democrats threatened to cite Miers if she refused to appear as subpoenaed for a Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday. The White House said she was immune from the subpoena and Bush had directed her not to appear, according to Miers' lawyer.

"Doom and Gloom" on Global Warming

Speaking of being disappointed in the writings of others, Emily Yoffe (of Slate.com fame) has an op-ed in today's Washington Post in which she dismisses the "frightening" news about global warming. Here's an example of one of her protestations:

I, however, refuse to see the apocalypse in every balmy day. And I think it's wrong to let our children believe they'll be swept away before they get a chance to fret about college admissions. An article in The Post this spring described children anxious, sleepless and tearful about the end; one 9-year-old said she worried about global warming "because I don't want to die."

Think of the children! Now you, like me, might be less concerned about our children being afraid of global warming as opposed to actually having to live in a world radically transformed for the much worse as a result of global warming, but that just shows we've surrendered to the fear-mongering.

Anyway, as I am want to do from time to time, I wrote Ms. Yoffe an email. Realizing it also makes for a decent blog post, I reprint it here for you in full:

I read your columns for Slate.com often, and have always found you to be an eminently sensible writer. As a result, I am profoundly disappointed to read your column in the Washington Post wherein you decry the concern over global warming. Why? To be brief:

Sometimes news is scary because the blunt facts that are reported are frightening. If the news reports that a murderer is on the loose around your house, you don't condemn the reporters and then go shopping at 10 at night. I exaggerate to make my point, but the point remains nonetheless. I'm sure you've seen the movie or you wouldn't be writing about this topic, but the truth is Gore's movie present the issue of global warming in very even and measured tones. There's no hysteria. Only a recitation of facts as he sees them, and as most climate scientists accept them. While it bothers me to hear that any child is afraid she's going to die, adults are not entitled to moderate their opinions on topics so as not to frighten children. Such would be the height of irresponsibility, to leave a damaged world to our children because we were afraid doing something about it would scare them.

Nit-picking at disagreements among climate scientists over relatively minor expressions of global warming does not refute the fact of global warming. No responsible climate scientists-nor Gore-states that they can predict how global warming will affect rainfall, or hurricanes, or the actual temperatures in specific regions. They only report the long-term trend of global warming, and the eventual effects it will have it if proceeds unimpeded. Your tactic is the same that creationists employ to "dispute" the theory of evolution, and it is similarly ineffective and uninformed...except to people who don't know any better, to whom you do a disservice with your writing.

Although you try very hard to sound otherwise, your column can be summed up to read "Don't worry about global warming! I'm telling you it'll be okay, and I don't care what those 'experts' say!" You do not, to my knowledge, have any particulare expertise in the field of climate science, so you'll excuse me if I continue to be moderately concerned about the future and spend my time telling my family and friends that we need to do something about it so my child-who I teach not to be fearful, but prudent-is not raised in a world that is more unpleasant to live in than the one I was raised in.

Normally I don't write long emails about every piece of uninformed writing that I read in a day (I'd never have time to do anything else.) But because I've found you to be sensible and enjoyable to read in the past, I feel that there's some chance that you may read what I read and be persuaded of the correctness of my opinion. Perhaps you can reconsider your stance on this issue, and accept that those who wish to do something about it are only being reasonable and responsible.

I find it's always nice to being with just a smidgen of flattery before you bluntly point out someone's wrongness to them. Regardless, I suppose the short-and-sweet summary of my response would be, wanting to not be afraid of the consequences of global warming will not make global warming go away. It's pretty much that simple.