In a letter to the president (PDF), 52 members of Congress expressed their disapproval of the U.S. stance in Bali:
The clear implication is that the United States will refuse to agree to any language putting the United States on an established path toward scientifically-based emission limits … We write to express our strong disagreement with these positions and to urge you to direct the U.S. negotiating team to work together with other countries to complete a roadmap with a clear objective sufficient to combat global warming. The United States must adopt negotiating positions at the Bali Conference of the Parties that are designed to propel further progress — not fuel additional delay.
A few Republicans signed the letter, among them Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter.
Specter is best known for being ostentatiously moderate in his rhetoric while voting for Bush radicalism every time the chips are down.
And speak of the devil: yesterday Specter voted against an energy bill that would have repealed some tax breaks on oil companies in order to fund renewable energy. If he’d voted Yea, the bill would have passed.
Maybe next time we should just ask him to write a pretty letter about special interests and their crippling hold on energy policy.
(See Hill Heat on the letter and today’s vote.)
