"Little Jon"" Tester looks awfully small...

Often, we see issue advocacy leaders maligned for opposing bad legislation. Now, Jon Tester has clearly crossed an ethical line in claiming that a leader in the fight against Wilderness bills actually SUPPORTS his latest Montana Land Grab. Imagine if Conrad Burns had “thanked” Friends of the Earth for supporting his pro-drilling legislation under the “evil” Bush regime!!!

Left-wing Democrats’ failure to ban humans from massive swaths of the Northwest under NREPA (see petition opposing any and all such land grabs at www.WildernessGoneWild.com ) has clearly prompted Tester’s cynical attempt to buy off the desperate timber lobbyists with meaningless baubles. This bill – and Tester’s disgusting tactic – is a perfect example of why pro-multiple use interests (including timber and energy) should NEVER compromise with radical environmentalists on watered down legislation at the expense of the people!

Following, a repost of an email (in blue) sent by Kerry White to members of his Citizens for Balanced Use pro-access organization:

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Members and supporters of CBU need to be aware of the following deception from Senator Tester!

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by Paul Chesser, special correspondent for the Heartland Institute

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the double-minded man on cap-and-tax, is continuing his high-stepping through the the hot coals of global warming policy prescriptions. In a Flathead Beacon article that attempts to assess the prospects of the national Waxman-Markey bill, the chairman of the Western Governors Association and the Democratic Governors Association is said to “clarify” his position on carbon emissions trading schemes, but in reality he only muddies further:

In an interview last week, Schweitzer clarified his position, saying he “categorically” believes gasses produced by humans, like methane and CO2, were causing climate change and the U.S. needs to take action to reduce emissions of these gasses. But then added: “Do I believe that the carbon cap-and-trade system is the best proposal? The answer is no.”

As for Waxman-Markey, Schweitzer said, “I have some concerns with it” and that he hasn’t “been able to find anyone who can understand” the bill.

But Schweitzer would not speculate on the political prospects of Waxman-Markey’s passage, saying only that the bill is sure to be altered by the Senate and eventual conference committees, which could result in a much different bill. Nor did the governor say he backed cap-and-dividend. Instead, he said he would like to see some type of policy mechanism where fees on carbon emissions were used to develop new technologies dedicated to a cleaner, more efficient energy system, encompassing everything from carbon capture, to new transmission grids, to wind and solar power. Such a system would allow the market to motivate companies to develop these technologies, whether a carbon cap is imposed or not.

“I don’t know that you need a hard cap if you send clear market signals that you need to decrease carbon dioxide emissions,” Schweitzer said.

So what does that mean for his state’s continued participation in the Western Climate Initiative’s cap-and-tax scheme, as the governor sees it? Your guess is as good as anyone’s, but he will probably be allowed to evade a straight answer as long as Montanans (and their media) let him.

This is good stuff, but of course old B.S. is only playing to his audience. His radical appointees to various commissions and Earth Justice ties tell the real tale.

Bill Maher received quite a shock on his show last Friday when his guest, Governor Brian Schweitzer (D-MT), said cap-and-trade was “the wrong approach.”

Schweitzer, who heads the Democratic Governors Association, explained that cap-and-trade, “says to the biggest utilities in America we are going to add a trillion dollars to your bottom line we are going to franchise you and only you to be the producers of CO2. I think it’s the wrong approach.”

Maher was clearly shocked that the Governor wouldn’t go along and endorse cap-and-trade. Maher was exasperated, and asked, “But isn’t it the Democrat approach?”

Schweitzer responded by saying “It might be some of the Democrats approach, but I think if you want to get to the root of the problem you establish a price of the cost of that pollution to the rest of society…”

Taxpayers unhappy about WCI scam

Governors (Two) Bark Back

By Paul Chesser — American Spectator

Well, they didn’t take that very well.

The chairman (Democrat Gov. of Montana Brian Schweitzer) and vice chairman (Republican Gov. of Idaho Butch Otter) of the Western Governors Association responded sharply (PDF) to a National Taxpayers Union inquiry about WGA’s management and funding of the Western Climate Initiative, which the rest of the WGA board members — the governors of the other 17 Western states — either unknowingly or are too embarrassed to acknowledge they support.

WCI is a serious hush-hush deal among these state executives.

Read the rest here:

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/20/governors-two-bark-back

- Paul Chesser

Greens Take another Hostage

Commandeered by Climate Alarmists

By Paul Chesser of Climate Strategies Watch and Special Correspondent for Heartland Institute

Did the chief executives of a few Western states hijack the staff and resources of their regional coalition, against the will of most of their fellow governors, all to promote their vision for a regional cap-and-trade agreement?

It sure looks that way. Based upon documents I obtained from Patrick Cummins, program director for climate change and air quality at the Western Governors Association, it appears that a few governors and WGA staff violated rules (which require unanimous consent by its member governors) in devoting resources and staff time to the Western Climate Initiative. WCI seeks to create a regional agreement among its member states to cap greenhouse gas emissions, in order to avert what they believe to be a pending global warming catastrophe.

I shared the documents I obtained with the National Taxpayers Union, which sent a letter of concern to (now outgoing) WGA chairman Jon Huntsman Jr. , governor of Utah:

No doubt you agree that, as an organization that receives tax dollars from both state and federal sources, WGA has a responsibility to operate with full transparency and public disclosure in terms of its fiscal activities, where it receives its funding and how and where it spends those funds. We also know that WGA functions on the basis of consensus among its member states, so that moneys provided to WGA by one or several states do not subsidize operations or programs that their governors oppose.

Seven states agreed to work as WGA partners, leaving the majority of WGA states not formally supporting the involvement of WGA in the WCI process. According to information we have received, no resolution was adopted by WGA endorsing WCI or authorizing WGA to provide any support to the WCI process. Given the opposition by many Governors to having any of their taxpayer-backed contributions to be used to subsidize the operations of the WCI, this is understandable.</em>

That is why we were surprised to review documents recently released by WGA that indicate deep and wide-ranging involvement by WGA staff in the WCI.

Those documents are posted at Climate Strategies Watch, and upon review you realize that WGA has total management control of WCI. As NTU stated in its letter, “It is difficult to see how tax dollars from non-WCI states did not subsidize this process.”

In a conversation I had with Cummins, he explained that some funds came from private resources for WCI. But that doesn’t explain whether or not they fully covered WCI, nor does it account for how much of his (and other WGA staff) time was diverted to WCI efforts. It also doesn’t explain why WGA secretly undertook the project — even signing contracts with consultants for the WCI project — without obtaining approval from its member governors.

Several documents posted at the WGA and WCI websites show that five governors — Democrat Janet Napolitano in Arizona (now Homeland Security Secretary); Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in California; Democrat Bill Richardson in New Mexico; Democrat Ted Kulongoski in Oregon; and Democrat Chris Gregoire in Washington — formed WCI (.pdf) (Montana and Utah joined later) in February 2007 with no mention of WGA involvement or approval. The five signed an agreement committing their states to the WCI effort, but they make no more than a passing reference to how WGA resolved that “action is needed” on climate change.

Further evidence that everything was not on the up-and-up: WGA’s annual reports in 2007 and  2008 (both.pdfs) do not mention its extensive involvement with WCI, save a very passive reference in 2008. The same reports identify Cummins, who manages WCI (and was my contact for the records I requested), as project manager of its Western Regional Air Partnership project and its air quality initiative.

What were they trying to hide?

While the five global warming alarmist governors hijacked WGA for their own agenda, at least 10 other member governors were kept in the dark. As NTU wrote:

These facts raise serious questions about the use of taxpayer funds in this effort from states that did not agree to partner in the WCI project – including Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho, Nevada and Alaska. In fact, it is difficult to see how this was not the case, given the extent to which WGA time, staff and resources were spent to support the WCI.

At least one unidentified WGA governor, interviewed by the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund before this week’s annual meeting, expressed dismay :

One governor I spoke with points out that the WGA is supposed to operate on a consensus basis. He says the WGA’s involvement in planning climate change proposals is serious overreach. “The dues states give WGA come from tax money and I was surprised to learn just how much the WGA seems to be getting ahead of many of the states on carbon regulation,” he told me.

The secrecy with which the five WCI governors and the WGA officials like Cummins operated highlights how they have defied the will of the majority of the member governors, and likely improperly used the taxpayer funds of the states they represent. Let’s hope NTU gets a full accounting, and that governors regain control of an organization that appears to have been overtaken by environmental activists and a few WGA members who have done their dirty work.