SOUNDING OFF:Harman’s enviro thinking is backwards

On June 27, California State Senator Tom Harman of Huntington Beach threw a barbecue in Sacramento for a little-known, pernicious group of California activists who call themselves “Republicans for Environmental Protection,” or “REP” for short.

REP fashions itself as the “green” wing of the Republican Party, citing Teddy Roosevelt (also a eugenics proponent who at one point quit the party), Barry Goldwater (a “conservationist” not a “preservationist”) and Richard Nixon (not exactly a paragon of domestic conservatism) in an attempt at historically qualifying Republican support for the latest fad of environmental extremism being propagated by Al Gore and the American Left.

I say “environmental extremism” because we all -- myself included -- hope for a prosperous, clean, healthy environment, but most of us don’t seek to achieve it by turning back time, exporting jobs, seizing private land, and worse. Unfortunately, that is precisely what REP — and their favorite State Senator, Tom Harman — advocate.

Given that they are private citizens, under most circumstances this wouldn’t be a problem. However, because they exploit the political party I have been quite active in and they weaken its resolve in defense of ethical economic progress, I must protest.

As expected, while surfing REP’s website, I found some of the group’s latest press releases praised the widely discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recent “report” on alleged anthropogenic global warming and Gov. Schwarzenegger’s signature last fall of Assembly Bill 32, a measure that made California one of the most business- and consumer-hostile places on Earth.

In response to the former, REP furthers the erroneous assertion that, “the human role in global warming is 90 percent certain,” and, “must prompt strong action by Congress and the administration.” This, despite leading climate scientists, like University of Copenhagen’s Bjarne Andresen, calmly explaining, “It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth.”

Buddy Burke, president of the California Chapter of REP, praised AB 32 by alarmingly declaring the group was, “fully confident that California can lead the battle against global warming,” in spite of the fact that while California is the world’s sixth to seventh largest economy it is only responsible for about 1% of the so-called “greenhouse gases” emitted into the atmosphere.

Dan Walters, a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, wrote at the time of AB 32’s consideration that, “Let’s assume that global warming is a fact … the lack of a true global commitment is what makes AB 32 an essentially symbolic act. Even if the state’s carbon emissions were reduced to 1990 levels as decreed, it would mean nothing if other major economies didn’t join the effort.”

AB 32’s scheduled reduction of emissions is so stringent, it will essentially require action equivalent to the removal of every car, bus, and diesel truck off of the state’s roads on top of a sharp reduction in commercial airplane and diesel train transportation. This is the backward thinking of REP et al.

Of course, all of this is par for the course for Harman. No doubt many people are aware, after Harman’s recent campaign for the seat, that he has history in the enviro movement as a stalwart supporter of Amigos de Bolsa Chica and author of a now-infamous diaper tax for recycling.

But even while he ran for the State Senate, Harman was hosted at a campaign fundraiser as “the Environmental Candidate for State Senate” by a wealthy group of Laguna Beach Democrats, opposed the Foothill-South toll-road completion, and received plaudits from the hopelessly left-wing California State Parks Foundation. In the Assembly, Harman was one of only four Republicans who voted in favor of AB 32.

I suppose this gets me to a final analysis. Most Republicans look optimistically toward the future, and assume Harman’s close election was enough to scare an ounce of rightward, pro-business thought out of him. That’s just wrong. Harman is still stir-frying organic veggies and soy, plotting the arrest of California’s economic development with organizations like “Republicans for Environmental Protection.”