Republicans accuse the U.S. governmentof "inaction and denial" on global warming.

[tinknocker44]

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and fellow Republican Gov. Jodi Rell of Connecticut accused the U.S. government on Monday of "inaction and denial" on global warming.

"It's bad enough that the federal government has yet to take the threat of global warming seriously, but it borders on malfeasance for it to block the efforts of states such as California and Connecticut that are trying to protect the public's health and welfare," the governors wrote in The Washington Post.

These two states and 10 others have approved plans for tougher standards than those imposed by the government to limit vehicle emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change.

But the states can't put the new standards into practice without a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency, which has not yet granted one, 16 months after California first requested it.


The governors also criticized President George W. Bush for an executive order he issued last week giving federal agencies until the end of 2008 -- near the end of Bush's term -- to continue studying what to do about greenhouse gas emissions.

"To us, that again sounds like more of the same inaction and denial, and it is unconscionable," they wrote.

"California, Connecticut and a host of like-minded states are proving that you can protect the environment and the economy simultaneously," Rell and Schwarzenegger wrote. "It's high time the federal government becomes our partner or gets out of the way."

EPA officials have said they are considering options after the Supreme Court ruled in April that greenhouse gases can be regulated as pollutants under the federal Clean Air Act, which supports the states' case. An EPA hearing on the topic is scheduled for Tuesday in suburban Washington.


http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-05-21T151813Z_01_N21316264_RTRUKOC_0_US-CLIMATE-SCHWARZENEGGER-RELL.xml

[Space Racer]

From an article in Business Week, 4-9-2007:

The 90,000+ commercial ocean-going vessels "emit more
sulfur dioxide than all the cars, trucks, and buses on the planet,
and a sixth of all the nitrogen oxide pumped into the atmosphere."

"Some fuel burned in ships, for instance, contains 27,000 parts per
million of sulfur on average. In the U.S., diesel fuel cannot have
more than 15 parts per million."

From another source:
CO2 is produced in vastly huger quantities by natural means, such as
the decay of vegetation, than any by man.

Increases in CO2 production precede industrial development by several
centuries.
In other words, changes in atmospheric CO2 quantities are natural,
and have almost no consequence from human production.

Let's get our facts straight.
And while we are at it, let's fix the big problems.

[glennac]

Give us a break Tink, Cn. and Cailf. are very liberal states and the governors first duty is to get elected. They are using Bush as a straw man to gain votes amoung the democrats. Arnold has saved Cailf. from ruin and he needs to stay in office. If these means making meaniless charges at the gov. so be it.