Inhofe Warns Of Global Warming Laws

GOP Sen. James Inhofe, ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, faulted Democratic Chairwoman Barbara Boxer's leadership of the committee this morning in the most recent of a series of attacks on her handling of global warming legislation.

At a hearing on human health effects of global warming, Inhofe implied that she was distracting members with studies of what might happen from global warming rather than focusing on "what will happen if we legislate global warming." Inhofe believes that any mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions will bear too great a cost for the economy for too little benefit.

The Oklahoma senator noted, "As of October 23, we have not had a single legislative hearing on any of the major bills." At a much anticipated subcommittee hearing tomorrow, Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Warner will unveil their bipartisan cap-and-trade program, but Inhofe complained that the hearings process is giving analysis of the bill short shrift. A markup of the bill is likely to occur next week.

"There has been no time to analyze the text of this bill, or for members of the committee to obtain input from stakeholders concerned about how the bill will impact them," said Inhofe, "or for economists to model its impacts on the competitiveness of the American economy."

By Bret Schulte