Sometimes it's good to be wrong

Sometimes its good to be wrong.

Sometimes it doesn't make a difference.

Or, to borrow a title from one of the skits of the political satirists Fireside Theater: "How Can You Be In Two Places at Once, When You're Really Nowhere At All?"

My March 22nd post entitled "Reality: the first speed bump on the way to Green" spoke of my efforts over the past two years to get the Connecticut Legislature to impose on the Department of Environmental Protection the requirement to perform a study on the impacts of Climate Change.  The DEP has steadfastly resisted taking the initiative to pursue this side of the subject with the same passion it pursued greenhouse gas reduction goals.

I stated my belief that the impacts study should be broken out of the omnibus bill it was originally a part of, or it would die of gridlock on the preventive measures that had more inherent opposition.  I further argued that the bill should not merely mandate a report by bureaucrats, but the scientific resources to assure well founded policy relevant to Connecticut.

In the convoluted tango that is the legislative process, the Impacts provision was broken out of its original home, and tucked into Bill 5136, An Act Concerning Dairy Farming, whose substance was gutted, though the title was retained.  And an utterly irrelevant clause was tacked on to give the Commissioner of DEP the means to sink her claws into contractors over whom she may some day be required to exercise oversight by becoming a member of their boards; a prevision that has no obvious constructive purpose, but plenty of obvious potential conflicts of interest.  But that's one for the Attorney General to ponder. 

In the end, the Impacts study was ripped out of its temporary womb and planted back in the original bill, where it passed thanks to the efforts of Senator Ed Meyer, Reps Pat Widlitz and Mary Mushinski. 

So I was wrong on two counts.  First, the bill did pass.  Second, it passed as a part of a much broader Climate Change bill that I thought would suffocate it for a second time. House Bill 5600 An Act Concerning Connecticut Global Warming Solutions  passed the Senate 35 to 0, and passed the House 131 to 16; an accomplishment of which Connecticut should rightfully  be proud.

But passing regulation is a first step and not a result.  Connecticut is the fifth state after California, Hawaii, New Jersey and Washington to mandate greenhouse gas emission limits, which it cites as one of the major accomplishments of the bill.  But 45 other states, many of which bear a far greater burden than Connecticut, Washington or Hawaii, have yet to step up.  It is generally recognized that many of the industrialized nations with the noblest professions of intent have yet to meet their obligations under Kyoto, even as they confer on yet more aggressive goals to compensate for those now being missed.

Britain is loosening its opposition to new coal plants. The Bushies have retreated from their commitment to fund prototype coal plant carbon sequestration technology, the alleged salvation for coal as a petroleum substitute. China and India are striving to emulate our failing urban strategy with their own growing automobile industry.

The news reports on the passage of HR5600 made no mention of Section 7 requiring the study of impacts, and that is ironic. The longer we fail to achieve reductions, the more imperative will be the study of potential impacts, and the more probable and extensive those impacts are likely to be.

But the satisfaction of Monday's legislative success was quickly put in perspective on Thursday by Environmental Committee Chairman Ed Meyer who expressed his regret that the Legislature did not also increase funding for the Department of Environmental Protection so that it could better enforce the State's regulations.  The statement transcended Climate Change regulation per se, but made clear the obvious: the best intentions expressed in regulation are only as solid as the resources that empower them.

So, whether I was right or wrong turns out to be irrelevant. And on the issue of Climate Change, in substance, we remain nowhere at all.

Onward.