I hardly know where to begin in describing how ignorant and vacuous Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is on this issue. I know that sounds harsh, and it’s intended to be for so many, many reasons.
On March 30, Senator Boxer went on a tirade about how despicable the Republicans were for attaching an amendment to the Small Business Innovation Research Bill (SBIR). The amendment, sponsored by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-TN), would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating emissions of greenhouse gases to address climate change. The principal gas in question that the EPA wants to regulate (er, tax) is carbon dioxide.
Carbon DIOXIDE! Not carbon.
The first thing Senator Boxer said on the floor, immediately exposing her profound understanding of scientific knowledge:
There has been an amendment that was attached to this bill on the very first day that would stop the Environmental Protection Agency forever from enforcing the Clean Air Act as it relates to carbon pollution. … It is essentially a repeal of the Clean Air Act as it involves a particular pollutant, carbon, which has been found to be an endangerment to our people.
She is so very wrong, already. First, the amendment is not a repeal of the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act is supposed to regulate pollution — this amendment is intended to stop the EPA from regulating a harmless and beneficial trace gas, carbon dioxide. Without carbon dioxide in the air, all life on Earth would die. It is essential for all plant life. Likely the senator does not know she was exhaling copious amounts of it during her rant.
Carbon dioxide is not dangerous to human health. In the very hall she was speaking in, it is possible and likely that carbon dioxide levels were three to five times higher than the air outside. Servicemen on submarines breathe air with up to 8,000 parts per million of carbon dioxide with no harmful effects — the Earth’s atmosphere currently contains only 390 parts per million.
Her further remarks are so full of errors, it’s hard to know which ones are worth discussing: virtually everything she said was not so.
She referred to a letter from the American Lung Association (which deserves just as much scorn here. The letter is a disgrace — the ALA should know better than to say that by not regulating carbon dioxide the health of Americans will be compromised. Apparently they are not worried about their professional credibility, as the letter actually supports the absurd notion that carbon dioxide is air pollution). Said Boxer:
And what is the science telling us? That it is dangerous to breathe in air pollution with lots of carbon in it.
Once again, not what she was supposed to be there to talk about.
She then entered into the record a despicable letter signed by a long list of environmental groups — groups that are anti-business, anti-civilization, anti-human — that read, among other things:
Medical professionals and public health organizations agree that carbon dioxide pollution is a serious public health issue.
No, they do not. There is absolutely no scientific evidence to support this claim. It is 100% false. She continued:
Compromising the work of the EPA means that more Americans will suffer from the impacts of severe asthma attacks.
What? How did she get there?
More children will end up in hospitals attached to respirators …
Are you kidding me? From CO2?
More seniors lives will be put at risk from heat waves and severe weather.
Ah, now we see where her head is at and where this letter is really coming from. That statement let the truth sneak out: the argument about carbon dioxide being dangerous to health and equivalent to carbon pollution is a cover, an excuse, and a fabrication to legitimize the environmentalists’ attack on carbon dioxide and the companies, utilities, and manufacturing industries that produce it.
The entire letter is a tactical lie.
The spectacularly fact-challenged senator continued:
Let me give you one economic fact: If you can’t breathe you can’t work.
Wow.
This statement is so absurd I would find this enjoyable if it weren’t so serious an issue. Perhaps the only thing more absurd is that enough people in California voted for her, and that she is in a position to affect policy. The good senator actually believes that a trace gas essential for life on Earth that constitutes only .038% of the atmosphere has the potential to inhibit someone from breathing. Unbelievable.
It gets unfathomably worse. The senator then held up a picture of a little girl on a breathing tube.
Yes, really:
Do you want their future to look like this, breathing through a device? Come on, this is clear.
It certainly is clear: this woman has absolutely no idea what she is talking about. Terribly, profoundly clear.
Some of the business and industries that would be struck hard by the EPA should they be allowed to move forward with regulating CO2 recently took out a full-page ad in several newspapers. Senator Boxer gave some color commentary about the ad’s design:
It looks almost environmental, green. This is not green — it is dirty, dirty air. That is what this ad stands for — dirty air.
The remainder of her rant (which you can read here) makes for an amazing read — it is so thoroughly lacking in any understanding, of absolutely anything factual. She was completely clueless as to what carbon dioxide is — she kept referring to it as carbon — and has no idea that the hearing was completely unrelated to carbon air pollution.
And you wonder why people are outraged at what our leaders have given us: a bankrupt, once-great nation now led by uninformed dolts like Barbara Boxer, the EPA, and unscrupulous environmental groups that want to make sure we have no hope of recovering our former greatness.
Her term can’t end soon enough.
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