Monday, April 09, 2007

Gingrich vs. Kerry: The Great Debate?   [Chris Horner]

As many of you have likely seen, Newt has scheduled a “debate” with John Kerry in the Russell Senate Office Building this Tuesday at 10 a.m.

Seasoned Newt watchers aren’t enthused about this prospect any more than they are about his having a book titled A Contract with the Earth, due out in November 2007.

The reasons why are set forth in excerpts from an email exchange with colleagues, below:

COLLEAGUE 1: My guess is that Newt and Kerry will agree that manmade global warming is destroying the biosphere. Where they will disagree is that Kerry will favor mandatory limits on [greenhouse gases] which will save the planet and make us all rich because we're saving so much energy, while Newt will support a long list of techno-geek solutions like nuclear-powered squirrels in wheels that will make us all rich and will also leave us stunned by the man's visionary brilliance. Newt really should team up with Amory Lovins.

Let's hope he runs for president. His defeat will give us something to cheer about.

COLLEAGUE 2: He's a friend of leading Deep Ecology/conservation biology/ philosophical Greens such as E.O Wilson and Paul Ehrlich. He fully believes Ehrlich's silly rivet popping thesis that every single species of plant and animal on the planet must be saved because surely one of them is the one that holds the wings on to Spaceship Earth…

He worked very hard with Greens to kill all attempts at [Endangered Species Act] ESA reform in particular and getting a takings compensation section in the ESA...Gingrich cleverly outflanked [Members touting horror stories of ESA abuses] by appointing the Speakers Task Force on the Environment (or some similar title) and made Sherry Boehlert (the most radical Green R) and Richard Pombo co-chairs. And told them no enviro bill would go to the floor unless they both signed off on it as he wanted a balanced and unified approach to Republican stance on the environment. That killed all reform. Boehlert and Pombo doubtfully ever agreed on anything. Boehlert was the guy who went to the Sierra Club Dirty Dozen fund raiser DURING the Republican Presidential Convention in San Diego in 1996 and helped them raise money to defeat conservative Republicans and was awarded with a defaced American flag — a regular flag with a green fringe sewn around all sides.

Gingrich supposedly was the one who put pressure on to quietly let the brilliant Shadegg ESA bill die — because it would have placed the Greens on the defense for the first time, it would have protected private property, and it might well have passed…
And whenever top Greens like Wilson and Ehrlich were in DC for some event or a hearing, Gingrich would often arrange a fancy dinner soiree somewhere and try to pressure the conservative GOP congressmen to attend — folks like Chenoweth — so they could get religion.

...I sat down with a list of the top dozen or so most significant environmental votes of the previous decade and on every one that we could check Gingrich had not only voted wrong but often terribly wrong. Among them if I remember correctly were that he had not only voted against opening ANWR but had voted to designate it an official Wilderness Area so it could never even be explored, let along developed. No mechanized equipment would ever have been allowed to touch the soil. A helicopter can't touch the ground in a Wilderness Area. Not even mountain bikes If wind storms knock down miles of trees across trails, the USFS cannot send in a team by chopper and equipped with chainsaws and reopen the trail in a few days. They have to send in a team by horse and equipped with tents, food and handsaws and they spend all summer attempting to reopen the trail. That's one reason why many wilderness "management" costs are so high.

On ESA he had voted for a radical amendment to give full protection for all listed plants that occur on private land. I think that was the Gerry Studds amendment. Right now only animals get full protection on private land. If plants ever get that status no one will be able to do anything on private lands.

He also voted to establish the National Environmental Trust — on and on…There's much more — but that's enough. So I fear that Gingrich will not be that good on climate change because of its probable impact on species and ecosystems. He probably believes that anthropogenic climate change is a threat to life on the planet — but may show his "conservative free market principles" by using so-called market or market-like solutions — instead of a totally planned economy. He could be the long-dreaded person who paves the road to serfdom with Green bricks.

04/09 09:34 AMShare