The Philadelphia Inquirer today publishes a column by Jay Timmons, executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, and David N. Taylor, executive director of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, “Millions of jobs would vanish with energy bill“:

This Labor Day, America is in its 20th month of recession, making this the longest and deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression. More than six million jobs have been lost across the country, and manufacturing has suffered disproportionately, accounting for 1.8 million of those lost jobs.

So it’s difficult to understand how our federal lawmakers could seriously consider legislation that would depress economic growth and job creation for the next 20 years. But that’s what we can expect from the far-reaching climate-change legislation headed for a vote in the Senate when Congress returns from its summer recess.

Germany’s government has its own climate advisor, which in U.S. terms would make Hans Joachim Schellnhuber a climate czar, although there the title would probably be the catchier Klima Kaiser. In a Der Spiegel interview he lays out an explicit scheme of wealth redistribution, leveling economic productivity to a Third World niveau. After all, he argues, “Why should a German be allowed to emit more CO2 into the atmosphere than someone from Bangladesh? No, we must divide the quota equally and fairly among all nations.”

An expensive scheme…

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So industrialized nations would have to pay massive sums of money?

Schellnhuber: Yes. Up to €100 billion ($142 billion) annually. If the richest sixth of the world’s population were to pay this amount, each person would have to pay €100 per year. The West would give back part of the wealth it has taken from the South in the past centuries and be indebted to countries that are now amongst the poorest in the world. It would, however, have to be ensured that the poorer nations use the money for the proposes it is intended — namely to help them to develop a greener economy. This would help them to adapt to the more eco-conscious world of the future and would also save the industrialized nations from running into even bigger problems.

So the road to Copenhagen runs through Dhaka.  Wunderbar.

Bloomberg, “Senate Democrats Push Back Climate Measure Schedule“:

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — The chief Senate sponsors of a bill aimed at curbing global warming have pushed back its introduction from next week until later in September.

Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer of California and John Kerry of Massachusetts, in an e-mailed statement today, cited Kerry’s hip surgery this month, the death of Senator Edward Kennedy and the debate over health-care legislation as reasons for the delay.

More from The Hill here.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Monday, asked about climate change legislation responded by talking about something else.

Q Robert, if you put health care aside for a minute, are there bright spots on the legislative calendar that the White House is looking toward? How is the climate change bill going from the White House’s perspective right now? And anything else that you –

MR. GIBBS: I don’t — in all honesty, I haven’t heard an update yet on where energy legislation is in the Senate. Obviously, Christina, I think a very important date coming up in mid-September marking in many ways I think the date that most Americans in their mind begin to see the real impacts and effects of the deteriorating financial crisis with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. I think a major push from this administration and I think from members on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill will be efforts to reform the regulatory mechanisms by which our financial institutions have to operate. I think that will be a very important part of the legislative agenda moving forward in the fall in strong hopes that by the end of the year we have new rules of the road going forward so that something like this doesn’t happen under the same circumstances again.

“Refusal to Fix Act Hardly Inspires Trust”

Congress’s refusal to fix the Consumer Product Safety and Improvement Act (“Consumer Product Destruction,” Review & Outlook, Aug. 12) is, if possible, even more irresponsible than the original legislation. Intended to protect children from lead paint in Chinese toys, the law has resulted in both huge losses and new regulatory costs on industries ranging from motorcycle and ATV manufacturers to toy makers and retailers. Many of these products pose little or no risk of lead-poisoning to children—or anyone else. Yet faced with a real problem—one it created and which it alone has the power to undo—Congress does nothing.

This should serve as a warning to the rest of us as lawmakers seek to ram through massive climate and health-care legislation. The CPSC shows that the unintended consequences of crisis-driven lawmaking are often worse than the original problem—if it was a problem. Don’t count on Congress to correct its mistakes.

Eric Havill
Branchport, N.Y.

NAM President John Engler made a similar argument in the latest edition of “Industry Today”:

The Obama Administration and Congress have big plans for U.S. manufacturing and the economy this year, offering proposals to restructure health care, promote “green jobs,” and establish a powerful new regulatory regime to control greenhouse gas emissions.

Before any of these proposals as enacted into law, members of Congress should stop, take a deep institutional breath, and ask themselves: “Are we repeating the mistakes of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act?”

Portland’s mayor-elect, Sam Adams, is clearly an inventive politician. With the record snowfall in western Oregon combining with too few snowplows and ideological opposition to road salt to produce ice-blocked side streets, many in the public are starting to complain. Reasonably enough, Adams says such snow events are so infrequent that buying more snowplows might not make economic sense. But if “global change” occurs, well, maybe they’ll do things differently:

From City of Portand, Office of Transportation, news release:

Adams said he understands the public’s frustration with current road conditions due to heavy snowfall and ice formation. “Crews have been doing an excellent job under extremely challenging conditions.” Portland has widely varying terrain and can have widely varying weather conditions throughout the city. It is not uncommon to have a significant amount of snow accumulation in one part of the city while only a few miles away there is no snow at all or just ice. Hills on both the east and the west sides of the city increase motorists’ difficulties and require special attention from Transportation crews.

Portland does not get a “predictable” annual snowfall. Adams said, “We cannot afford to purchase equipment that would simply sit idle in the yard most of the year perhaps for years.” He also acknowledged that if global climate change contributes to a trend of more severe winter weather events in Portland, the City will have to develop a new Snow and Ice Plan and find a way to invest in additional equipment to respond. “We have to keep commerce active and transportation moving; it’s what we do.”

In a radio interview, Adams used the term “global change” to describe what sorts of developments might require more snowplow purchases. If global change occurs….

Well, that’s a safe bet, isn’t it? The possibility of global climate change is now being used as the all-purpose rationale for any public policy decision. Having the taxpayers buy more snowplows sounds like it might be a good decision. But who’s to say that another inventive politician won’t use the same arguments to ration energy consumption or shut down productive sectors of the economy?