Gov. Mark Sanford

Mark Sanford, one of the most conservative governors in America, has apparently jumped on the global warming alarmist bandwagon. Just the other week, he accepted and now appears to be embracing some of his Climate, Energy and Commerce Advisory Committee’s (CECAC) initiatives that could cost this state $1.6 billion by the year 2020.

Sanford has said, “[W]hile it’s been my longtime belief as a conservative that I should exercise as many rights and freedoms as possible, those rights and freedoms end when they begin to infringe upon the rights of others.” No doubt, Governor, but is the arena of global warming… something that has been attributed by numerous groups to regular climate cycles… a priority issue for South Carolina?

If you want to deal with issues of global warming, address the issue in places like Beijing, where you said, “The last time I was in Beijing on a trade trip, we happened to be there on a bad smog day. When I went outside I could see no more than a quarter of a mile and my eyes watered.”

I’m in no way stating that the environment is not important. I don’t know anyone who is not for clean air and water and natural resources, but let’s not cause the eyes of South Carolinians to water any more because of tears of economic distress brought on by government overregulation.

In an already turbulent financial time when the national economic scene is in an uproar and state economic forecast is anything but blue skies, Gov. Sanford and his Climate, Energy & Commerce Advisory Committee is pushing for cuts in greenhouse emissions in our small state at the cost of industry and jobs.

We received this comment today to our anonymous tip email scconservative@sc.rr.com.

All is not well in the land of environmental extremism in South Carolina.  The scam, uh, committee, Gov. Sanford formed to provide radical, uh, thoughtful, recommendations has landed like a turd in a swimming pool.

While the committee chairman tried to give the impression that its package of environmental recommendations was virtually unanimous, it was not.  Buried in the back of the report where nobody reads are letters critical of the committee and its findings from some of its members.

The committee, among other things, says the state should reduce its carbon emissions by five percent, but here’s the problem: There is no wall around South Carolina shielding us from the rest of the world.  A five percent emissions reduction in this state without 49 other states doing the same will make NO difference.  None.  Zero.  Zip.  Nada.

But unilateral action in South Carolina could destroy whatever economy we have, and there’s not much of that left.

Climate Strategies Watch, a very credible climate watchdog group, weighed in with their own analysis in this press release today.

SOUTH CAROLINA CECAC RECOMMENDATIONS COSTLY,
DO NOTHING FOR CLIMATE

RALEIGH, N.C.-Proposals intended to avert a feared climate “catastrophe,” delivered to Gov. Mark Sanford this week by the South Carolina Climate, Energy and Commerce Advisory Committee (CECAC), promote initiatives that would raise costs and regulation in government, increase gasoline and energy prices, and restrict individual freedoms.

The recommendations produced by CECAC, meanwhile, would do nothing to accomplish the goal of affecting global climate, according to Paul Chesser, director of Climate Strategies Watch.

“South Carolinians ought to be wary of this basket of goodies baked largely by a group of environmental extremists who want increased government meddling in peoples’ lives,” Chesser said. “The usually conservative state legislature ought to see them for what they are and consider them dead on arrival.”

CECAC was managed by the Center for Climate Strategies, a Pennsylvania-based environmental advocacy group that purports to help states determine for themselves how to develop climate change policies. In reality CCS tightly controls these commissions, who consider proposals mostly from a menu of options presented by CCS themselves. Nearly all the choices represent new taxes or higher prices on energy, increased costs of government, new regulations for businesses, and reduced energy options for utilities, and therefore consumers. That CECAC’s initiatives promote socialist policies and bigger government is not surprising, since the committee and CCS were completely funded by an eye-opening cabal of left-wing foundations: the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, the Energy Foundation, the Merck Family Fund, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Turner Foundation.

“It’s beyond me why Governor Sanford, who the American Conservative Union has called America’s most conservative governor, would kowtow to global warming alarmists,” Chesser said.

According to analysis of publicly-available data and peer-reviewed studies of weather-related trends in South Carolina, the Science and Public Policy Institute (scienceandpublicpolicy.org) found that no observed phenomena – including seasonal temperatures, hurricanes, drought, crop loss, and sea level rise – has fallen outside of normal variation. Further, after applying findings by former Al Gore adviser Thomas Wigley — even if South Carolina could completely eliminate its CO2 emissions — SPPI determined that the effect would be no more than two-thousands of one degree Celsius by the year 2100, a nearly undetectable change.

“Governor Sanford, when he created CECAC, called for the committee to determine potential benefits of any carbon mitigation measures for South Carolina,” Chesser said. “Al Gore’s own adviser would admit that no climate change would result if these costly policies were implemented, and therefore zero benefit.”

“At a time in which we see shaky U.S. economic indicators and all-time high gasoline prices, CECAC’s proposed ‘solutions’ to climate change should be a non-starter,” Chesser said. “To impose policies that only produce higher energy costs and unnecessary regulations on South Carolinians, just so some global warming alarmists can feel better about themselves, should not be taken seriously.

Meanwhile, Citizens for Sound Conservation are adding their two cents to the discussion as well saying…

While the committee should be applauded for reaching consensus on a number of market-based recommendations, the report as a whole is fatally flawed because the committee did not analyze how its recommendations would impact jobs or economic development in South Carolina.