Incoming Energy Chair Rep. Fred Upton: ‘I Don’t Think We Have To Regulate Carbon’

[kpete]

Incoming Energy Chair Rep. Fred Upton: ‘I Don’t Think We Have To Regulate Carbon’

ThinkProgress recently noted that Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), who will take control of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week, has dramatically changed his views on regulating carbon emissions over the past several months, evolving from a position that “limate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solutions” in April 2009 to writing in the Wall Street Journal this week that he opposes any regulation of carbon emissions, and that if the EPA did so, it would be an “unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs.”

Noting Upton’s affiliation with a group “financed in part by oil companies,” Fox News host Chris Wallace challenged Upton to explain why he has flipped on his views regarding carbon emissions:




WALLACE: In the article that you co-wrote with the head of Americans for Prosperity, which is a group that is financed in part by oil companies, you say this — “This presumes that carbon is a problem in need of regulation. We are not convinced.” But we checked, Congressman, on your congressional web site, and you say on the web site, “I strongly believe that everything must be on the table as we seek to reduce carbon emissions. Climate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solutions.” So question, is carbon a problem or isn’t it? And if it is, if you’re going to kill the EPA regulation, what is your solution?

UPTON: We want to do this in a reasonable way. Before the end of the next decade, our country is going to need 30 to 40 more percent more electricity that we use today. So we need an all-of-the-above strategy. We need clean coal. We need natural gas. We need nuclear — something that has not happened. We need a whole host of things.

WALLACE: Do we need to regulate carbon?

UPTON: I don’t think that we have to regulate carbon to the degree we have a carbon tax or you have a cap-and-trade system. And the House spoke pretty loudly — you know, you take that same cap-and- trade bill that passed the House last year. Today it would lose by 50 votes and it could never come up in the Senate. This is not — this regulation process is not the way to proceed.

more:
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/03/upton-wallace-carbon/

[Horse with no Name]

1. Republicans are uneducated troglodytes

who have no interest in saving or preserving anything except the pockets of their benefactors.

[WhiteTara]

2. Sadly so. n/t

[ladjf]

3. The Republicans live in a reversed Universe. They come down

on the wrong side of the truth over and over, yet their political popularity remains strong. Amazing!

[Hawkeye-X]

4. Here. Breathe on this CO2. Really. It's good for your body!

Go on!

Suck on it!