[VIDEO] Climate Scientists Question Significance of Obama’s New Carbon Rule

Days after the Obama administration finalized plans to reduce carbon emissions, some climate scientists have criticized the administration for failing to detail how the regulations will lower global temperatures.

These critics suggest the administration used the plan more to inspire global climate action, rather than using it as a concrete step to make the earth cooler.

On Monday, the Obama administration finalized the Clean Power Plan, which would overhaul America’s energy system by striving to reduce carbon emissions from power plants 32 percent by 2030.

Chip Knappenberger, assistant director at the Cato Institute, argues that if the administration’s plan was implemented to perfection, the amount of climate change averted would amount to insignificant levels.

“The Clean Power Plan is only going to avert close to .02 of a degree of future warming over the course of this century,” Knappenberger told The Daily Signal. “What the EPA doesn’t like to advertise is what the mitigation will be.”

Chip Knappenberger‏@PCKnappenberger

Our analysis shows the temperature "savings" directly attributable to the #CleanPowerPlan is 0.009°C. http://www.cato.org/blog/spin-cycle-epas-clean-power-plan … @CatoCSS

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12:24 PM - 5 Aug 2015

In June, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, asked Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy to justify the costs of regulations in comparison to the proposed benefit in global temperature reduction.

“Do you consider one one-hundredth of a degree to be enormously beneficial?” Rep. Smith asked.

“The value of the rule is not measured in that way. It is measured in showing strong domestic action which can trigger global action,” McCarthy responded

McCarthy’s response indicated the administration’s intention to use the plan as an opportunity to position itself as a global leader in tackling climate change.

Judith Curry, an American climatologist, argued in a blog post that the Obama administration sold the Clean Power Plan as an economic and public health issue, purposely leaving out specific temperature reduction targets

Via: Daily Signal

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Republican Weekly Address: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) Delivers GOP Address on the Every Child Achieves Act, Saturday July 11, 2015

Via: You Tube

Republican Senator: Ted Kennedy ‘Set a Wonderful Example for Us’

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D.-Mass.) and Rep. John Boehner (R.-Ohio) stand behind President Bush as he signs the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. (White House photo)

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Lamar Alexander (R.-Tenn.) said on the Senate floor on Wednesday that the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D.-Mass) set a wonderful example for other senators.

“He set a wonderful example for us, and it is nice to be reminded of him,” said Sen. Alexander.

Alexander’s remarks came while the Senate was discussing his proposal to rewrite the No Child Left Behind Act that imposes federal regulations and sends federal money to local public schools. The initial No Child Left Behind Act was co-sponsored by Kennedy and Rep. John Boehner (R.-Ohio) and signed into law in 2002 by President George W. Bush.

During Wednesday’s debate on the No Child Left Behind Act--while discussing whether the law should be amended to require local public schools to do a criminal background check on applicants for teaching jobs--Sen. Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.) recalled that Sen. Kennedy had once been placed on the terrorist No-Fly List:

“It wasn’t that many years ago, our colleagues may remember, that our colleague Senator Ted Kennedy ended up on a no-fly list. He kept saying: Why am I on a no-fly list? It was a mistake. It was a government mistake that identified him as a danger to the country. Mistakes can be made. There needs to be a due process requirement in here so those accused of something that they are not guilty of have a chance to have their day to tell their story as best they can.”

Following on this, Sen. Alexander recalled what “a wonderful example” Sen. Kennedy had been:

“I thank the Senator from Illinois for his remarks. I was thinking, as he was talking about Senator Kennedy, whom we all loved, I think the mistake was that he was on a Republican no-fly list. That was the mistake. But he loved telling that story and enjoyed it very much. It is nice to be reminded of him today because he was chairman of this committee that is producing the fix for No Child Left Behind.

"He would make, in my view, the most outrageous liberal speeches from the back of the Senate, and then he would come to the front of the Senate and would work out a good bipartisan agreement and get a good piece of legislation. He set a wonderful example for us, and it is nice to be reminded of him.

Via: CNS News

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GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander: Nuclear Option ‘Should Be Called Obamacare II’

The Senate triggered the long-awaited “nuclear option” on Thursday, and as far as know, no actual bombs went off. But plenty of Republicans seem ready to explode, especially considering past thoughts by President Obama about such a move. Senator Lamar Alexander took to the floor after the vote to make a comparison between the Senate majority’s power grab and… Obamacare.

Alexander went off on how this is the “most dangerous restructuring” of Senate rules and procedure in its history, warning that this will have long-standing effects, despite the rules only being changed concerning non-Supreme Court nominees.

“This action today creates a perpetual opportunity for a tyranny of the majority because it permits a majority in this body to do whatever it wants to do any time it wants to do it. This should be called Obamacare II, because it is another example of the raw, partisan, political power for the majority to do whatever it wants to do any time it wants to do it.”

Alexander elaborated that the reason the GOP’s picking a fight with Obama’s court nominees is to stop them from being pawns to “implement the president’s radical regulatory agenda” through the courts.

Watch the video below, via C-SPAN 2:

Via: Mediaite.co

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Growing the Debt: Stopgap funding bill sprinkled with $$ for local projects

The stopgap bill to fund the government was only supposed to end the partial shutdown for a few months, no strings attached -- right? 

Nope. 

Despite the bill being tiny by Washington standards -- just 35 pages -- lawmakers still managed to tuck in billions of dollars in additional spending. 

Already, one item has earned some degree of notoriety. Appropriators included a line increasing the budget for an Ohio River dam project from $775 million to $2.9 billion. 

Costs for the project, approved in 1998, have soared above the original price tag. Supporters of the Olmsted Locks and Dam funding argue the additional money is necessary to reduce bottlenecking at the crossing of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who along with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., supported the item, told Fox News that all barge traffic would be suspended if the dam wasn't funded. 

She said the funding was included in the budget bill because it is the only spending bill moving. The House had earlier approved funding for the dam, though at a lower level. 

Via: Fox News

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