It’s got a fair amount of duplicate entries in it. I was able to get it down to 16 pages by weeding those out (but mostly by reducing the text size to 10 points.)

” — goes beyond principled opposition to petty politics.”

You’ve got that right. The bit about requiring CCS storage at San Francisco’s Presidio is one example. (I could almost bet I know whose idea that is.)

But the main thing is the dozens of interlocking provisions to protect jobs and businesses — like the “offramps” that would put the whole Act up on blocks if it causes x number of jobs to be lost in any of 20 states (where, depending on the amendment, x varies from 1,000 to 1 million.) In addition to that, every state in the Union would get an “opt out” provision. On top of that are separate measures to protect coal jobs in West Virginia and Indiana.

And there are several amendments that seek to roll back the emissions standards in one way or another. Then there are the “safety valves” to protect various things (like tourism in the Virgin Islands.)

All in all it’s an outrageous collection. But there’s not much point in getting all wound up over individual items, since I guess very few of those amendments have a chance — they’re just delaying tactics.

Your absurdly subjective personal opinion becomes no more credible by your overuse of the term “objective standard” than George Bush & Dick Cheney’s record on cutting Greenhouse gas emissions has been through their use of “clean coal.”

Amendment 183 appears to possibly allowing logging as a carbon offset owing to wording “improved forest management”

And buried in the others is God knows what. But stunning reading.

This strikes me as way worse than the Cheney energy plan. (The bogus alternative bill or the amendments or both.) However, this also strikes me as a form of filibuster to prevent the bill from ever getting voted on. Is there a record for the number of amendments filed for a single bill? It strikes me that most of them could be combined into a handful of amendments.

There’s also the issue of: did the GOP’s industry pals (their lawyers/lobbyists) come up with the idea of creating as many amendments as possible to ridiculous extremes, to also bury some good amendments out there, or which they feared would come? From either party.

The image that came to mind was of all those little Lilliputians throwing a net over Gulliver.

I dare say the GOP would be happy to have Dem votes on the record as being against a “job protection” or some other amendment (see list) which they will call a bill rather than an amendment, but I doubt that’s the primary strategy because I’m not sure that it will work, but I guess it’s not to be counted out. (Given that the GOP is banking either figuratively or literally on the economy and everything else continuing to tank up to the next election cycle.)

Regarding who Cheney consulted for the previous Administrations energy plan, don’t forget to throw in that bastion of energy policy corruption and duplicity – Enron, Cheney talked with them extensively as the heads of Enron (Skilling and Lay) knew and were friends with Bush personally.

Written from Illinois which consulted with Enron extensively on how to “deregulate” our power generation industry/market – while I’m sure its set for Enron to “play” if they were still around, nobody knows what to do with it now.

The Downside: Strong legislative action needs to be taken in the short-term. A bitterly divided house can’t reach the level of consensus necessary to accomplish a massive overhaul of energy policy (imagine trying to enact legislation that would generate 10-12 stabilization wedges in today’s political climate). The GOP is not in any hurry to adopt rationale, scientifically based policy. And rust-belt Dems believe a vote for comprehensive energy reform has the potential to cost them significant voter support.

The Solution: Enormous citizen engagement. The massive street level protests of the 1960’s and 1970’s forced a reluctant Congress to pass the Clean Air and Clear Water Acts as well as establish the EPA. A similar outpouring today would have equally immediate results. But I don’t see such a groundswell occurring for at least the next 10-15 years.

The Democrats *control* the House. What are they mucking about for? Tell the Blue Dog Dems to stop playing into the hands fo the GOP and get on board or face party abandonment in the 2010 election. The Democrats should just push their legislation through the committees, ignore the disloyal opposition, and pass the stuff on to the Senate as quickly as possible. This is what the GOP did for the six years they controlled the House from 2000 to 2006 and it worked for them. What are the Democrats waiting for, the Republicans to finally see the light? Ain’t gonna happen.

The only issue the GOP wants to take personal responsibility for today is other people’s pregnancies.

But we are rapidly reaching the time when the most effective way to stop emissions from rising in the atmosphere may be to stop Republicans from rising in the morning.

I see no difference between these amendments the Republicans are offering and a bad neighbor running a hose from his car’s exhaust into my home.

Calling these carbon collaborators “head in the sand conservatives” minimizes their danger and the threat to our future they are leading. I believe the dire terrorist threat facing our nation and our world comes not from Al-Qaeda or IslamoFascism, but from Republican IgnoramuFascists who are passionately willing to sacrifice the lives of their own families, friends and neighbors along with yours and mine in their blind and eternal alliance to the carbon-based economy.

There is nothing these people will not say or do to achieve their goals of pro-carbon agenda. The sooner we recognize the real risk they represent for all of us, the sooner we’ll take the urgent action their threat calls for.

Or we can just be clueless and caught with our pants down around our ankles like the entire George Bush administration was on Sept. 11, 2001.

Maybe we need a color-coded warning system and daily press briefings from the Department of Homeland Security to wake people up. Maybe we need a deck of playing cards featuring the 52 most dangerous Greenhouse Gassers – Cheney, Rove, Will, Rush, Krauthammer Newt, Congressman Boner, Eric Cantor, the head of the US Chamber of Commerce, Exxon/Mobil’s CEO… Or perhaps we should just subcontract the necessary clean up operations to Halliburton and whatever letters Blackwater is calling themselves these days.