An open letter to Dick Durbin from a constituent

Mike M. points us to a well-written letter posted by 'Serkit'.

Dear Senator Durbin:

You were kind enough to send me your views on global warming, climate change, and cap-and-trade.

After the very close vote in the House yesterday on cap-and-trade, several documents were revealed that need to be considered prior to any action on your part in the Senate. It seems that when any of these things are discussed, the argument deteriorates to name-calling, especially the term "flat earther". Well, call me what you will, but the scientific facts simply do not support the Al Gore/Leonardo DiCaprio populist theories based on non-scientific "consensus". The legislation passed in the House does not even address nuclear power, a clean resource that needs to be part of our energy independence.

Three documents came out VERY late in the game on this debate:

1) A 300+ page "manager's amendment" that was added to the bill at 3:09am the day of the House vote. Not only was this a voluminous add-on, it is a scary document. If you support it, and I hope you do not, please let me know how local governments will be able to afford the extra staff to enforce the new and very confusing laws. The bill also radically modifies international trade rules.

2) A suppressed and censored report from our own EPA exposes many problems with the theories and "consensus" of the populist (and now debunked) theory of global warming, and the true (and minimal) affect of human activity on the climate. The suppressed EPA report is linked here:

http://cei.org/news-release/2009/06/25/cei-releases-global-warming-study-censored-epa

3) A report from the Chicago-based Heartland Institute summarized the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) that attempts to use scientific and rational arguments to identify exactly what is going on in the climate and the true impact of human activity. The recently released NIPCC report is found here:

http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf

The previous letter you sent me contains seemingly factual statements that now appear to be patently false regarding wild temperature increases in the next ten years.

Although these "facts" are wrong, the underlying research found in the suppressed EPA report, and the NIPCC report will help you politically. Why? Because the laws you are about to impose on us, if passed, will do NOTHING to improve the climate or greenhouse gases and will not change the global average temperatures, but, you WILL be able to show "progress" because the falsely increasing temperatures will NOT happen anyway - allowing you to take the credit for keeping the planet cool. It is a perfectly contrived crisis so that radical redistribution of wealth can occur on a global scale.

Now, I realize as a leader in the Senate, you will probably not be able to back off for even one second to look at the facts, and I understand that. But I felt I owed it to myself, my children, and my future grandchildren, that I did not sit idly by while, during the great recession of 2009, with the highest unemployment in my lifetime, I sat silent while this legislation was passed.

This law, and the concept of cap-and-trade, is not going to work, is not needed, and will do more harm to our already crippled economy.

All I ask is that you take an honest look at the three documents above, keep an open mind to the facts, and consider what you are doing to this and future generations.

We need a change in energy policy, but this is not one of them.

Sincerely and respectfully,

[Name redacted]