Throw the bum out.  It is time for Dingell to retire and sleep with carbon-neutral sheep.

Dingell's dismissive comments about kiddie cars, hybrids, batteries, etc. bespeak a mindset of deliberate obtuseness and inflexible certitude. If Congress is going to hold hearings, the more productive topic might be, "Can Americans get their daily fix of godlike power without fossil fuels?"

Ped Shed Blog

FINANCIAL INCENTIVES FOR REDUCING HIGHWAY TRAVEL
AND ENERGY DEMANDS IN WISCONSIN
http://www.danenet.org/bcp2006/vmr.pdf

I think you make a very good point about New Zealand sheep. New Zealand is home to some 43 million burping, farting, pooping sheep that are undoubtedly producing tens of thousands of tons of methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas. Our paltry herd of 6 million burping, farting, pooping sheep, given their numbers, produces much less.

But did you know, Rep. Dingell, that the US has 93 million (mostly factory farmed) bovine gas producers (107 million if you add the Canadian herd) compared to just 5 million New Zealand cows? So, when it comes to barnyard emissions, I think it's safe to say that we in America are still No. 1! Please try to get your facts straight before passing the blame for US inaction on climate change onto the shoulders of the less culpable.

In that light, I welcome the fact that you will be holding hearings on climate change in the House. The US Congress (with a few notable exceptions) may be the least informed body in the world on global warming and its impacts. The sooner you and your colleagues get to work on creating much stricter CAFE standards (did you know that we can't export American cars to China because they don't meet Chinese gas mileage requirements?), putting some real money into renewable energy tax credits and subsidies (taking them from the carbon industries' overflowing coffers), funding public transportation, taxing carbon emissions, and protecting our remaining forests and open spaces,  the more likely we Americans will be able to stand proudly with the rest of the world in the daunting effort to preserve the diversity of life that inhabits this beautiful planet.

Let's see what you're made of.


Tom Kelly

and the health care industry due to reduced illness.

Dennsi Baker

because I think what you are doing is very essential for the survival of the planet, and anybody who is hindering that needs to be pushed aside.

Don't US politicos have a sell-by date?

Whiskerfish

Open consideration of the evidence could go a long way to dispelling the notion that climate change is a debatable issue.

absolutemichigan.com :: all michigan, all the time

Well done Ms Griscom you have once again shown that often the difference between Republicans and Democrats is just the color of their tie.

Andrew Fridley
Registered Independent

Word of caution to conservationists: A "D" after a congressman's name does not necessarily make him green.

Jim DiPeso
Republicans for Environmental Protection

I would hazard a guess that the auto workers working in US located Japanese car factories feel a lot safer from destitution than those working in Ford, GM and Chrysler factories. The American companies, as Jim says above, have done a fine job destituting themselves. Is efficiency really going to do any more harm than they have already done?

I think (as a current michigander) that it's time we started thinking about the health of the automobile industry, not the health of the American automobile industry. Even better, we need to start thinking about the health of our mobility industry as a whole. As Amory Lovins (I think it was him) points out we don't need cars we need the service they provide - mobility. Let's look at the health of the entire US mobility industries, it's environmental impacts and all. If we reinvigorate trains will we create jobs at the same time as we lose Automobile jobs? If we stimulate public buses will we create jobs?

I also think it's  time the automobile industry actively engaged in what Joseph Schumpeter calls "creative destruction". The big three should break themselves down to their essentials so their creativity and innovation can be loosened again.

Next year Toyota may become the biggest automaker in the world.

Maybe, you should have a little heart to heart with the car companies formerly known as the "big three"

Dingle serves his constituency.  Big US auto companies and the union reps they own.

He does not represent the voters who work at union jobs in the auto industry.  Their jobs will be outsourced and he will still be blaming environmentalists for it.  And begging for their votes.

Every democrat everywhere ought to be ashamed of this idiocy uttered by a fellow democrat.  Excommunicate this chump now!!  Put him in the traitor wing with that bush busser Lieberman.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

It doesn't take much effort for one to discover how valuable a friend to the environment Rep. Dingell has been and how important he will be in
the next Congress.

Those who would belittle or dismiss John Dingell do themselves no credit and do the cause of environmental protection harm.

Just look at the Wikipedia:  

"Dingell is generally classed as a liberal Democrat, and throughout his career he has been a leading congressional supporter of organized labor, of social welfare measures and of traditional progressive policies. At the beginning of every Congress, Dingell introduces a bill providing for a national health insurance system, the same bill that his father proposed while he was in Congress. However, he was a strong proponent of Bill Clinton's managed-care proposal early in his administration."

Of course Dingell isn't monochromatic on all issues:  

"On some issues, though, he reflects the conservative values of his largely Catholic and working-class district. He was a supporter of the Vietnam War until 1971. Although he supported the Johnson Administration's civil rights bills, he opposed campaigns to expand school desegregation to the Detroit suburbs via mandatory busing. He takes a moderately conservative position on abortion. He has voted against clean air bills if these appear to threaten Detroit's automobile industry.

"An avid sportsman and hunter, he strongly opposes gun control, and is a former board member of the National Rifle Association. For many years, Dingell has received an A+ rating from the NRA."

I don't agree with everything Dingell believes, especially about General Motors and guns. Should that be the litmus test?

The political analyst Michael Barone wrote of Dingell in 2002:

    "There is something grand about the range of Dingell's experience and about his adherence to his philosophy over a very long career. He is an old-fashioned social Democrat who knows that most voters don't agree with his goals of a single-payer national health insurance plan but presses forward toward that goal as far as he can."

 "It's hard to believe that there was once no Social Security or Medicare", Dingell says. "The Dingell family helped change that. My father worked on Social Security and for national health insurance, and I sat in the chair and presided over the House as Medicare passed (in 1965). I went with Lyndon Johnson for the signing of Medicare at the Harry S. Truman Library, and I have successfully fought efforts to privatize Social Security and Medicare". Whether you agree or disagree, the social democratic tradition is one of the great traditions in our history, and John Dingell has fought for it for a very long time."

Now look at what matters most about the environment: not some abstract, unreacheable goal of environmental utopia, but down to reality issues regarding pollution in this country and the imminent hazards to public health not being addressed by this Administration.  

That is Dingell's agenda. When a man with his experience, knowledge and influence speaks, we ought to listen carefully before leaping in with emotional reactions uninformed by any information.

Who is responsible for most of the threat from pollution we face? Who is responsible for cleaning it up or protecting us from it?  How are they doing?

Without John Dingell do you seriously expect any attention let alone action to occur regarding the protection of public health and the environment in this country over the next two years?

Environmental protection is an extremely complex, technical subject. The subject of Clean Air Act compliance and this Administration revolves around what toxic pollutants? Do folks know it is mercury and now lead?

What upsets me most is to see not only commenters with their ready, shoot, aim knee-jerk, top of the head, uniformed emotional outbursts, but rather it is the vacuous, uninformed and poorly researched approach of the reporter on this piece.

She doesn't know or care, apparently, the extent of the pollution caused by the US Dept of Defense or what Mr. Dingell appears ready to do about it.

She doesn't know, apparently, how this Administration has used the Dept of Defense as its stalking horse, using its vast political clout, to suppress all other Federal agencies, roll over the US EPA and the State regulators, and do serious damage to the infrastructure of our environmental laws.

She takes for granted that all we have to do is fix global warming and save the pandas and whales and all will be well -- or at least it sounds to me like that sort of teenaged volunteer sort of thing. The Jessica Simpson approach to  environmental protection -- "I totally don't know what that means, but I want it."

Not one jot of evidence she knows what she is about in my opinion.

Very disappointing.

For example, why not ask Mr. Dingell why he is concerned about the Pentagon's cleanups? Why does he share Sen. Boxer's concerns about Ammonium Perchlorate and TCE?  

Why does the Administration want a top Pentagon official to be the US EPA Inspector General despite the fact the man, Alex Beehler, has no accounting or investigation experience?

What does Mr. Dingell think the Pentagon is up to when it appoints high level people to work on what they call "emerging contaminants?"  What are those? Or are we assuming chlorinated hydrocarbons in industrial solvents are ok for us to have in our drinking water in any old concentration the Pentagon likes - so long as they don't have to pay to clean it up?

Is the Pentagon planning to clean up those chemicals in our drinking water for which it is responsible? Or is the Pentagon planning to find a way to destroy the Federal and state regulatory role as scientific arbiter of how much environmental public health risk is too much -- in other words, take away the fundamental cornerstone of environmental law, the ability of independent regulators to set a standard above which you got to clean up.

Just a little homework would have found all that ...

Pls, try to do better next time -- better still, go back and get it right.

The Democratic Agenda regarding Energy is Energy Independence.  Maybe when they update it this next year from 6 for 2006 to 7 for 2007 they might consider adding Global Warming.

Here's a sample:

So why are the Democrats allowing Dingell, who's so obviously beholden to a special interest, the power to decide such an important issue? It's because under their current rules and leadership, they don't have much of a choice. Democrats continue to give out committee assignments on the basis of seniority, not competence or even how well a particular chairman represents the sentiments of the majority of the Democratic caucus.

It's that system that has elevated other Unfrozen Cavemen like Jack Murtha to important posts, despite undistinguished and ethically questionable records...

There is another way, though it's the Republicans who pioneered it. When they came into office in 1994, the Republicans did away with the seniority system, requiring committee chairmen to run for office, and instituting term limits...