Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Hot Air About Global Warming

Wednesday, June 13, 2001

Here's the headline from the NY Times the morning after President Bush left for Europe: "Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global Warming"

Anyone not from Mars - or, for those immersed in pop psychology, Venus - would think that President Bush, who has been in office for slightly under five months, is single-handedly responsible for the United States' opposition to this treaty which is, according to its supporters, designed to lessen the effects of greenhouse gasses on global warming.

Anyone who is not a gigantic fan of George W. Bush would read that headline, and the lead paragraph by reporter David Sanger and believe that President Bush is the ONLY person in the entire country - maybe the entire Western World - who is opposed to the adoption of this treaty:

"President Bush made clear today that he had no intention of reversing his opposition to a global warming accord supported by the European leaders he will meet with this week."

The Kyoto Pact is really a protocol to the United Nations Framework Commission on Climate Change which, in essence, exempts countries like India and China from having to do what the United States would be required to do: reduce greenhouse gas emissions by seven percent below 1990 levels.

As one of the few people reading Mullings this morning who has actually BEEN to India in the past 30 days, let me just tell ya'. If any country needs to reduce, fairly dramatically, the number of vehicles spewing huge clouds of toxic blue smoke, it is India.

And our friends over in China, when they haven't been otherwise occupied cracking down on the pollution caused by individuals expressing a free thought, have begun outlawing bicycles on roadways to make more room for - ta da - cars.

See a picture of a real-live-No-Bikes" sign in China and the other excellent features on the Secret Decoder Ring page.

The "Kyoto Pact on Global Warming" is not currently before the Democratic-controlled Senate. Nor was the Kyoto Pact bobbing up and down on the Senate waters when it was owned by the Republicans earlier in 2001.

The Kyoto Pact was not before the Senate in when it was controlled by the GOP in 2000, or in 1999, or in 1998.

The Kyoto Pact was supposed to have been before the Senate in 1997. But a funny thing happened on the way to approval: A "Sense of the Senate" resolution went to the floor on July 25, 1997.

The resolution stated that the Senate "would not ratify a treaty unless it contained binding commitments for developing countries on the same time scale as developed countries."

Which, as it happens, is the position President Bush is carrying with him to Europe but happens not to be the position of the New York Times.

Was this another of those "extremist" positions held hostage by a Senate controlled by right-wingers eager to have us all choke on the fumes from our SUVs as we drive to the cleaners in our ever-sprawling suburbs?

Was it another one of those party-line votes which needed Al "Get-Me-To-The-Church-On-Time" Gore to be in the Chair to break a potential tie?

Was it a vote which was railed against by Levin and Lieberman, or Wellstone and Wyden?

No.

No, the resolution damning the Kyoto Pact passed the Senate 95-0. Ninety Five to zip, zero, zilch, nil, nada, nought, nothin', bupkis.

The fact that the U.S. Senate unanimously opposed the treaty as unfair to the US four years ago didn't make the New York Times article even though it ran to 35 grafs and nearly 1,700 words.

One feels like Captain Louis Renault, and is shocked.

Speaking of Al Gore and Church and all that. It turns out that Mr. Gore was not the only Democrat with sharp elbows at the funeral for Rep. Joe Moakley last week. An on-site witness reported to Mullings that Secretary Norman Mineta, the only Democrat in the Bush Cabinet, was elbowed aside by House Minority Whip David Bonior who snuggled in between Gore and Bill Clinton.

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