Bright Idea of the Year - Not!

Did I mention earlier that American Senators and Congresspersons are not  whipped into line by their party as Canadian Members of Parliarment are?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/21/lisa-murkowski-epa-greenhouse-gases

In a speech to Congress, a Republican senator from Alaska announced she would use an obscure and rarely used measure to try to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its powers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as a dangerous pollutant....In an ominous sign for supporters of a climate law, she had the support of three Democratic Senators, further underscoring the unease in Obama's own party in enacting legislation to tackle global warming. In her speech, Murkowski argued that giving the EPA the authority to act on global warming would cost jobs and hurt the economy: "Under the guise of protecting the environment, it's set to unleash a wave of damaging new regulations that will wash over and further submerge our struggling economy."

With all due respect to the Senator, she is wrong . Dead wrong. Nicholas Stern found that doing nothing about climate change will cost the economies of the world twenty (20!!!) per cent of their GDP.   Taking action will cost two (2) per cent of GDP.  A research study carried out at the University of Masschusetts predicted that a federal government investment of 100 billion dollars would create 2 million jobs over two years.  Moreover, this money would "Create nearly four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry and 300,000 more jobs than a similar amount of spending directed toward household consumption and Create roughly triple the number of good jobs—paying at least $16 dollars an hour—as spending the same amount of money within the oil industry."
http://www.americanprogress.org/pressroom/releases/2008/09/peri_report.html

So Senator Murkowski is attempting to  hit our economies very, very hard.  Sounds like a good plan.....