"Global Warming: Using the Polar Bear to Impose Costly Measures"

March 03, 2009 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

The Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman has this analysis on the ESA riders and concludes:

The American people do not need a costly backdoor global warming policy implemented through the misuse of preexisting ESA authority never intended for that purpose. But at no time is such a policy more harmful than in the midst of a severe recession. The adverse economic impacts of ill-advised global warming measures are clear and are a big part of the reason why Congress has yet to directly enact any such measures. Doing it indirectly via the ESA and quietly tucking it into the massive omnibus appropriations bill now moving through the Senate would be just as damaging. The Senate should allow and encourage a full debate on this pernicious policy rather than cramming this legislation through with little to no discussion of the economic perils it would bring to the nation's future.