NY Environmental Commissioner Pete Grannis Distorts Palin's Record in Copenhagen

- By Lisa Graas
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You know about the distortions of Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger regarding Governor Sarah Palin's record and her position on climate change. Now comes New York Environmental Commissioner Pete Grannis with false accusations about Governor Palin in remarks made at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

From The Times Union:

"Last week, Sarah Palin -- you all remember her -- put a new posting on her Facebook page challenging the severity of climate change and telling President Obama to boycott Copenhagen," Grannis told his audience Monday. He pointed out that in the last 50 years, temperatures in Alaska have increased 6 degrees, and some coastal villages are at risk of falling into the ocean because of melting permafrost.

"Maybe instead of giving President Obama advice, (Palin) should be looking for a house further inland," Grannis said.

Actually, Governor Palin didn't "challenge the severity of climate change". She challenged the credibility of the data in light of ClimateGate, the release of emails showing climatologists have been fudging the numbers. She also challenged the claim that climate change is primarily caused by man's activities.

Governor Palin wrote:

Our representatives in Copenhagen should remember that good environmental policymaking is about weighing real-world costs and benefits -- not pursuing a political agenda. That’s not to say I deny the reality of some changes in climate -- far from it. I saw the impact of changing weather patterns firsthand while serving as governor of our only Arctic state. I was one of the first governors to create a subcabinet to deal specifically with the issue and to recommend common-sense policies to respond to the coastal erosion, thawing permafrost and retreating sea ice that affect Alaska’s communities and infrastructure.

But while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can’t say with assurance that man’s activities cause weather changes. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs. And those costs are real. Unlike the proposals China and India offered prior to Copenhagen -- which actually allow them to increase their emissions -- President Obama’s proposal calls for serious cuts in our own long-term carbon emissions. Meeting such targets would require Congress to pass its cap-and-tax plans, which will result in job losses and higher energy costs (as Obama admitted during the campaign). That’s not exactly what most Americans are hoping for these days. And as public opposition continues to stall Congress’s cap-and-tax legislation, Environmental Protection Agency bureaucrats plan to regulate carbon emissions themselves, doing an end run around the American people.

As New York's Environmental Commissioner, Grannis has been an active participant in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a program in which New York's state government participates and has already raked in $25.4 million by selling carbon credits. Is he on the socialist bandwagon? It would seem so to me.

How effective is RGGI at reducing emissions? Not very. Not only that, states aren't using the funds for the purposes promised. Basically, RGGI allows states to impose what is rightly called an "energy tax" on businesses so that they can cover budget shortfalls not related to reducing emissions. See here for a report.

I'm reminded of something I read in Governor Palin's book Going Rogue:

“Politicians can either eat well, or sleep well. I wanted to sleep well."

~ Lisa