Betrayal
Today the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce, chaired by Henry Waxman (D-Hollywood, CA), rejected Greg Walden’s (R-Hood River, OR) amendment to the Carbon Cap-and-Trade bill that would have allowed biomass from federal lands to count as a renewable fuel and receive the same incentives from the federal government as wind, solar, and other renewables. The bill as written excludes biomass from “mature” federal forest land, which includes most federal forests in Oregon.
Rep. Walden’s amendment was voted down 26-32, mostly along party lines.
On Tuesday the Society of American Foresters issued a letter [here] to Waxman requesting that biomass from Federal forests be included, stating that “Excluding these lands has no basis in science.”
The SAF request was ignored.
Walden has posted a YouTube video [here] in which he explains what occurred. Sort of. The audio is quite garbled, so I could not actually make out what he said. Perhaps those with a better Internet connection will not have that problem.
The bottom line is this: there is no global warming. The globe has been cooling for the last 10 years. The Greenhouse Gas Theory of “climate change” has been disproved. It is a hoax. Waxman’s Cap-and-Trade bill will have zero effect on global climate, but it will cripple the US economy by taxing energy to the tune of $trillions.
There is a forest fire crisis. Over the last 20 years 105,330,500 acres (164,580 square miles) have burned in wildfires, 70 million acres in just the last 10 years. The fires are due to two things: the build-up of fuels in the absence of forest management, and Federal firefighting policies that amount to Let It Burn.
The SAF has had ample opportunity to affect Federal land management and fire policies. They have not done so, instead opting to embrace the global warming hoax and blame the forest fire crisis on non-existent warming.
The SAF threw their lot in with the GW hoaxers, and now they have been betrayed by the same.
For the last 3+ years SOS Forests has posted time and again about the fire crisis, the root causes, and the GW hoax. We have been consistent on all those issues. We have taken the SAF to task for their ignorance and duplicity, but to no avail.
Now the chickens have come home to roost. The SAF has slept with the enemy, and now they have been stabbed in the back.
Do you get it yet, SAFers?
As professional foresters your allegiance should have been to forests, not politicians. As true professional experts you should have seen through the GW hoax. You should have striven to protect, maintain, and perpetuate forests regardless of political winds.
The opportunity to do so still remains. The SAF could and should condemn Cap-and-Trade forcefully and unequivocally. The SAF should reject the GW hoax, Wildland Fire Use, and every other manifestation of deliberate incineration and conversion of our forests to burnt out wastelands.
I hope this betrayal stings. I hope the SAF is shaken. The message should be burned into your consciousness: the destruction of America’s priceless, heritage forests is not by accident but by design.
Please join me in fighting to save our forests through excellence in science and stewardship.
There is no more time to waste hobnobbing with power-tripping scam artists who have and will betray you at the drop of a hat.
Profess forests. Work to save forests. Shed yourselves of the Neville Chamberlins who have attempted to appease the anti-forest, pro-holocaust crowd.
As professional foresters you owe that to yourselves and to all your fellow Americans.
by Kevin S.
For clarity’s sake, just in case anybody is confused, in the post my use of the acronym “GW” refers to global warming. It just so happens that Congressman Walden’s initials are also “GW” which is an unfortunate and possibly confusing coincidence.
I would never refer to Congressman Walden by his initials — for multiple reasons.
I have also been informed that Congressman Walden’s YouTube video (linked to in the post) comes in perfectly to those with decent Internet hookups, which is great for all concerned, except for me, saddled as I am with a funky two-wire glacially slow rural connection. C’est la guerre.
Additional note to Washington DC insiders:
Please peruse the entirety of the W.I.S.E. subsites. We have a lot to offer you in the way of education about forests. Politics are not our primary focus — forests are.
That being said, keep tuned to this subsite, SOS Forests. We speak for many who might otherwise not have a voice.
Greg Walden tried it again — he offered his amendment again today to include forest biomass in the cap-and-trade bill. Again, Waxman and the Dims shot it down. See [here].
Frankly, IMHO the cap-and-stifle bill is a terrible thing and should not become law no matter what’s in it.
Well, that’s it.
Today the Energy and Commerce Committee approved the 946-page cap-and-stifle bill 33-25 after repeatedly rejecting more than 80 amendments, 56 of them from Republicans, during four days of debate.
Hopefully it will die a cruel and unusual death in the Senate.
You figured it out, Mike. Walden is not a player. Waxman, the ego maniacal Beverly Hills representative was put in that committee chair by Pelosi, as Dingle, of Michigan has the Democrat seniority for the seat. It is a socialist plot, by the homeliest short man in Congress, Waxman, who is intent on taxing the living shit out of all us to pay for his retirement, I guess. I can find no reason how he maintains his seat except maybe along ethnic lines in entertainment and business rich Beverly Hills. His politics are to take the wealth of Beverly Hills and give it to illegal aliens in some sort of self flagellation act of atonement for what, I do not know.
All I know is that each and every time the LA hills burn, the fuel load from the Los Angeles and Cleveland Natl Forests that has no home ought to be underlined, pointed out, enlarged, and shoved up Waxman and Pelosi’s collective rear ends. Letters to the LA Times (for years printed on paper from Oregon City and Newberg Publisher Paper mills owned by the LA TIMES), should follow every fire. The fires should be called “Waxman Fires.” Or “Pelosi Fires.” Now that Ahhhhnald da Gov is cutting 1500 wildland fire fighters in his budget, Calll-eeeee—forrr-neeea is going to have more fire. But never fear, the good Mr. Wilkes, a noted NRCS bean counter is now in charge of the USFS for Prez Obammer. His job will be to cut their budget, you just watch….There is nothing about community service in forests. There is nothing about union jobs in forests. Forests are a money pit for the Feds, and the Obammer Admin is going to spend the money on union jobs and universal medical care….So watch the fires this year….Ho, Boy!!! This is one of those deals that has to get a lot worse before it gets better…and then, with little left, who cares? The “people” are getting just what they voted for. The minority is just that. However, we still have the obligation to be the back benchers, the legislative bomb throwers, the name callers, that the system is all about. I heard for 8 years what a dolt every Republican and Bush were, not all of it deserved. So now it is my time to degrade the Democraps. The loyal opposition is growing by leaps and bounds, and the pressure is now on. The switch has been thrown. The buttons pushed.
You hit the head on the nail, bear.
Not only is Waxman quite possibly the ugliest humanoid since Bat Boy (see here), his District suffers from raging holocausts that kill, maim, and destroy.
A petulant man, a spoiled brat, a raving a**hole, a creep, and a perfect match for Nancy SkullFace (see here).
This Nation is painfully ill-served by such maladroits.
by bear bait
Do ya suppose Waxman’s mother… [snip]… I saw a pix of him yesterday, walking with other Democrap leaders, and he was at least a head and maybe two, shorter than the shortest female in the crowd. He is a squatty body to boot. I now have to wonder if he has a booster seat as chair of Energy….
The [snip] is telling the world that public land biomass growth is non-sustainable. That is a lie. He is a part of the cabal to take away guns, along with the rest of his ilk from California, including Boxer and Feinstein and Pelosi. The Marxist legislators from California have their state in the tank, begging for alms from Uncle Sammy. Sink, California. Sink into your own cesspool of party politics and public welfare insanity. Ask your illegal aliens to send remittance money when they go home to wherever… [snip]… Sink, Oh Golden State!!! Slide off into that abyss you have so carefully crafted. Adios!!!
I am sorry that I had to snip some of your comments, bear. They were a little too derogatory.
We have had our fun with Ugly Henry, but enough is enough.
In his own twisted way, Waxman may have done us all a favor. He refused any reasonable amendments, thereby satisfying the most extreme on his side, and at the same time rendering the carbon-tax-cap-and-stifle bill very unlikely to pass.
Public sentiment has soured on global warming. A multi-$trillion energy tax in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression is dead in the water, and Henry helped sink the carcass into the depths.
Once this AGW smoke-and-mirrors game has played out, reasonable Congresspersons should pursue reasonable stewardship options on Federal land sans the ridiculous gloss of AGW hysteria.
One of those options would be to fund Bingaman’s Forest Landscape Restoration Act, now the law but waiting for implementation. Another option would be amend the existing Energy Act to allow biomass utilization from Fed forests. Both those would be steps forward.
Let’s address the real problems (the destruction of our forests) and dismiss the fake problems (the global warming hoax).
by Al
Has Senator Feinstein forgotten that she co-authored the QLG bill?
Maybe when the energy bill hits the Senate she will have something to say?
I’m not holding my breath…
She will flip-flop on many issues, just to get votes. She may have “authored” the bill but, she also disowned it for a few months, only to re-own it and slap her name on it. I expect her to disown it, yet again, because it has been a failure in almost all respects. It’s amazing that anything got done at all in those many years but, there ARE many examples of good QLG projects that were completed. SPI is going to wait until the legal system and the Congress does something to guarantee access to dependable timber volumes off of public lands. It seems that “conventional progressive wisdom” has now become precedent in the courts. I propose that under existing NEPA documentation that, under the no-action alternative, they brutally analyze the risks and dangers. They should develop a “New Age” NEPA template that will showcase the dangers and problems of all the non-preferred alternatives. That would probably help judges understand the science much better.
The dominoes are falling in northeast California and the region is ripe for more mass incineration. The markets will be further overloaded with salvage logs and no one will be bidding on small diameter green sales loaded down with “eco-pork”.
Feinstein, Boxer, Pelosi — California elects the most offensive and braindead women in history to Congress. I don’t know why that is. There are millions of intelligent women in Calif. Why select the culls from the bottom of the barrel?
Just recently Senator John Barrasso R-Wyo challenged Lisa Thompson head of the EPA with a secret memo classified as Deliberative Attorney Client Privilege regarding the fraud the EPA is doing. The memo clearly outlines that the EPA is using politics and not science to make broad changes to Air Quality standards in order to classify CO2 as a pollutant, even though we exhale it and it is in many of the products we consume, drink, and use. The report identifies the fact that CO2 is not a pollutant but is being used politically for the sole purpose of creating a multi billion dollar tax stream.
It is purely a liberal game of more new taxes and it will have the following effect: what you are paying now for electricity (between 5.5 and 7 cents per kwh depending on where you live and whether or not you are tied to a rural electric coop) will increase to at least 12.5 cents a kwh because of the new tax being implemented on CO2.
Thank Albert the goon Gore. It is all about money, not environment. THEY DON’T WANT COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY ON PUBLIC LAND… PERIOD. So don’t go there. Fight the fight and expose the tax mongers for what they are. There is nothing you can do or say in terms of environmental prose (pros and cons) that will satisfy any of them, because it is not about the environment even for the Enviro’s. Stump to the dump whole tree use is by far the cheapest and most effective way to use Biomass for co-generation of cheap electricity and hot water products, increased forest health, fuels reductions with no NOx or SO and is net carbon. It is the way, pilgrims, but until we expose the fraud, it ain’t gonna happen!
Further more President Obama has thrown himself under the bus with what he has done in the first 100 days of office, clearly claiming that what he has done in terms of all the new debt cannot be sustained. Will the government continue to tax us for the air we breathe to pay for the $12.8 Trillion debt he has created? Or will the Treasury declare a Force Majeure and repudiate all debt as outlined in the 6900 series protocols for “Economic Collapse in America” (by Al Martin). You can google that.
But here are some important links for the immediate discussion that affects Biomass utilization, forest health, oil and gas, coal, etc. none of which can be done without federal subsidies, especially Obama’s “greening” of America:
http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/05/12/omb-memo-raises-doubts-about-epa-findings/
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/05/12/video-epa-memo-says-greenhouse-effect-not-proven/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124217566996913283.html
As professionals there is a fine line between expert and advocate. But we must keep on fighting the fight and educating the public. We must learn to use new language like the Enviro’s are now being taught to do (online.wsj.com) and hit the congressional delegations with fact. Create a public forum invite them to speak and ask them directly what are you going to do about this? They are there for you and have staffers all over the state. Make that appointment and get them in front of the constituent voters! Hold their feet to the fire, and as for Pelosi, she is crashing and burning on her own along with Harry Reid Meister and the V.P. She will lose her speaker position and the house of cards is going to crumble in a big hurry. They continue to put their feet in their mouths and now without them they don’t have a leg to stand on.
Get my meaning? Catch my drift?