Story in the NYT:
Congressional Republicans opened a formal assault on Wednesday on the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases, raising doubts about the legal, scientific and economic basis of rules proposed by the agency.
The forum was a hearing convened by the energy and power subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to review the economic impact of pending limits on carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. But much of the discussion focused instead on whether climate science supports the agency’s finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health and the environment; that finding is what makes the gases subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act.
Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, was subjected to more than two hours of questioning, some of it hostile and disrespectful, about proposed limits on emissions from factories, refineries, power plants and vehicles.
The Economist wasn't impressed with the event:
Committee hearings are always like this. After smarmy exchanges about how delighted they are to be speaking to one another, congressmen ask grotesquely biased “Gotcha!” questions that the witnesses, usually harried officials, do their best not to respond to in a meaningful fashion. There are a lot of requests, almost always ignored, for yes or no answers. Mrs Jackson, for example, expended considerable time and effort not saying that greenhouse-gas regulation would raise energy prices and thus harm the economy.
Sometimes, the pretence of give-and-take is abandoned altogether. This morning, Joe “Sorry BP” Barton, a Republican from Texas, asked a laughably leading question, requested a yes or no answer, and then—before receiving one—told Mrs Jackson, “The answer is no.” When she asked, with faux naivety, whether Mr Barton wanted her to answer the question herself or comment on his remarks, he replied with admirable honesty that he didn’t.
What was surprising, given how long Congress has debated this subject, is how incompetent the grandstanding was. I’m reconciled to the fact that America’s congressmen are not all silver-tongued Ciceros. Indeed, most of them seem to have trouble following a train of thought, finishing a sentence or getting noun and verb to agree.
