Barbara Boxer

America’s Climate Security Act goes before Boxer’s Environment Committee

Today is the first hearing on the Lieberman-Warner climate bill in the full Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Now that we're out of subcommittee, the expert witnesses aren't all cleverly selected special guests of the bill's authors. So we're hearing, right now, from people like Anne E. Smith, vice president of CRA International, which represents some, shall we say, unsavory anti-environmental companies.

This is not a mark-up hearing, so the bill won't be changing shape today. Events like this are in large part Kabuki theater -- events with the patina of a fact-finding mission, meant to provide members who already plan to vote "yes" or "no" on the legislation with the expert cover they think they need to do so. But there is, I suppose, the off chance that people like Smith and Dr. Margo Thorning of the American Council for Capital Formation will knock an on-the-fence senator away from supporting this or other, stronger bills.

More likely, though, it will just create an opportunity for Boxer to smack Smith around for not disclosing the fact that her company works on behalf of Arco, Haliburton, Exxon Mobil, and on and on, and for Jonathan Pershing of the World Resources Institute to make people like Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) look like idiots.

Boxer vs Inhofe, round 2: The Rumble in Rayburn

If you will recall, the first round of their schoolyard squabble, on the occasion of Inhofe's filibustering of Gore's attempts to answer his questions, ended with a crushing uppercut by Boxer:

Committee chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) finally intervened. "Would you agree to let the Vice President answer your questions?" Inhofe said Gore could respond when he was done talking, but Boxer wouldn't have it: "No, that isn't the rule. You're not making the rules. You used to when you did this. Elections have consequences. So I make the rules." The hearing audience applauded loudly.

Politico has the details of the next round. This time, Boxer taps out and its Senator Mikulski that delivers the TKO, capping an Inhofe rant with:

"It's more than the icecaps that are facing meltdown," begins Mikulski...

Snap. Could it be that Inhofe is worrying about the title fight?

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Legally speaking

California is threatening to sue the U.S. EPA for obstructionism. You’ll recall that the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled decisively that CO2 is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and that implementing restrictions on vehicle CO2 emissions does not abrogate the DOT’s authority to set fuel-efficiency standards. That ruling pretty well destroys the legal […]

Video, yo

Here’s Sen. Barbara Boxer (most appropriately named!), discussing global warming at the National Press Club (for 25 min.). Good stuff: (h/t: Hugg)

Liveblogging is the new black

Gore is just arriving at the Senate. The cameras are clicking! The crowd is buzzing! David is liveblogging! Join me below the fold. Sen. Boxer is looking quite stylish, no? Rules are being introduced. Hopefully it won’t take 15 minutes like in the House. Uh oh. Inhofe’s going already. Whining about getting the testimony late. […]

Beware the stupid, it burns

Sens. Barbara Boxer and James Inhofe, chair and ranking minority member of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, respectively, debate global warming on Larry King’s show. Warning: mild-to-intense discomfort may be experienced upon exposure. (via Hugg)

Ouch

Sen. Barbara Boxer invited the Governator to testify to the EPW committee about his state’s global warming regulations, but he … had urgent matters to attend to. “Meetings he can’t miss,” as it happens. Would you want to get stuck between Boxer and Inhofe if you agreed with the former and shared a party with […]

Looks good

File under "why elections matter." After listening to this, I was struck by two things:

1. It feels great to know that even though I might not agree with everything the Democrats are going to do with respect to the environment, at least now there are people in charge with the public interest in mind.
2. With the Democrats' current momentum, if they can win the presidency in 2008 and increase their Congressional majorities, the next 3-5 years could be truly monumental for environmental progress. This could be an era like the early 1970s that defines a generation.