2010 Redux: Team Obama goes all in on global warming

2010 ALL OVER AGAIN: TEAM OBAMA GOES ALL IN ON GLOBAL WARMING
“Climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” – Secretary of State John Kerry in a speech in Indonesia.
Republicans credit their landslide victory in 2010 to opposition to ObamaCare, yes. But GOP strategists also credit Obama Democrats’ focus on global warming for a considerable slice of their historic midterm gains. Five years ago today, President Obama signed a stimulus package of nearly $1 trillion and then immediately pivoted to other issues even though Americans were still deeply concerned about the economy. At the top of Obama’s to-do list, right behind the pledge of universal insurance coverage, was action on global warming. Obama’s preferred plan was to have the government sell costly carbon-emission permits to industrial corporations that could then re-sell and trade them on a commodities market. The so-called “cap and trade” program had a vogue with moderate Republicans since it sounded free-market-ish, but that support quickly evaporated in the face of the recession that followed the Panic of 2008.
[AP: “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday … mocked those who deny its existence or question its causes, comparing them to people who insist the Earth is flat. … ‘We simply don't have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation,’ he said, referring to what he called ‘big companies’ that ‘don’t want to change and spend a lot of money’ to act to reduce the risks…"We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts,’ Kerry told the audience at a U.S. Embassy-run American Center in a shopping mall. ‘Nor should we allow any room for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits.’]
That was then - Democrats, though, pressed on. In a pivotal moment for the 2010 election cycle, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi whipped anxious Democrats into line behind an even more restrictive and expensive carbon crackdown, one which had already been waved off by the Democrat-controlled Senate. House members took the plunge on July 25, 2009, including many from Rust Belt and coal-producing states. One of Pelosi’s admirers called it “a little bit genius.” It was not. The Senate squelched the bill and Republicans are still flaying Democrats for supporting something so expensive and disruptive to address an issue that Americans are increasingly unconcerned about.
[“Does John Kerry really believe that carbon dioxide is a bigger threat than al Qaeda? Or Iran?  If so, maybe the House Foreign Affairs Committee could inquire as to whether State Department diplomacy now reflects the Secretary’s priorities.” – James P. Pinkerton, former Deputy Assistant to the president for policy planning under George H. W. Bush]