JLF’s John Hood writes in today’s Carolina Journal:
It’s time for the environmental extremists to get serious. Do they really want to see large reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions without handicapping the economy and whacking consumers in the pocketbook or leaving them shivering in the dark? Nuclear has to be a major part of any reasonable response to those policy demands. For the irrational energy policies of the past, we need to see The Beginning of the End.
Meanwhile, John “I’m still in the race” Edwards calls for a ban on coal-fired power plants:
Edwards on Monday said a proposed coal-fired power plant shouldn’t be built in northeastern South Carolina, continuing his call for a ban on those facilities.
“My view is that needs to stop,” Edwards said of the $1 billion, 600-megawatt plant set to be built along the Pee Dee River in this early voting state. Santee Cooper officials are awaiting a final permit from state environmental regulators.
The utility’s officials say they need the plant to meet energy demands, and can’t wait for newer or cleaner energy to be developed, but have said the plant will be environmentally responsible. They hope to have it running about 2012.
Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, told about 150 people at a campus of Coastal Carolina University that coal-fired plants are “taking a bad situation and making it worse.”
He also said he was opposed to new nuclear power plants and that the U.S. has no credibility in global warming discussions. “We are the worst polluter on the planet,” Edwards said.
No coal, no nuclear, so what’s left? Please don’t say ‘renewable.’
Bonus observation Cone links to Paul Krugman’s column stating that Edwards has been driving his party’s policy agenda:
He’s done it again on economic stimulus: last month, before the economic consensus turned as negative as it now has, he proposed a stimulus package including aid to unemployed workers, aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, public investment in alternative energy, and other measures.
Last week Hillary Clinton offered a broadly similar but somewhat larger proposal. (It also includes aid to families having trouble paying heating bills, which seems like a clever way to put cash in the hands of people likely to spend it.) The Edwards and Clinton proposals both contain provisions for bigger stimulus if the economy worsens.
I don’t about you, but it all sounds like old-fashioned welfare to me. Sorry, aid plans to put money in the hands of cash-strapped states who use COPs to buy park land rings hollow with me. And I love that last part about Clinton’s aid for families having trouble paying their heating bills being “a clever way to put cash in the hands of people likely to spend it.” On what? Their heating bills, I hope.
I’ve reading Krugman for years, and I’m still trying to figure out which planet he calls home.
