Does Obama’s UN carbon pledge threaten much more US economic pain?

The Obama Administration’s pledge of 26 to 28 percent cuts in U.S. carbon emissions by 2025 is coming  under heavy fire from business and scientific experts, who charge the radical goals were not backed up by any concrete planning, likely to cause energy-intensive industries to flee the country at a heavy cost in jobs, and unlikely to make any difference at all to global carbon emissions—or to climate.

 

The skepticism was aired at a session Wednesday of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, where the Republican majority clearly shared those views, and intended to underline them in the early stages of a major pushback against Administration climate policies. As one sign of that strategy, committee chairman Lamar Smith timed the hearing on the costly climate pledges to coincide with “tax day”—the deadline for normal tax filings with the IRS.

 

But while taxes are allegedly one of  life’s rare certainties, skeptical witnesses warned that the same could not be said of the fine print on the Administration’s climate pledges, which they termed sketchy at best, and void of any real signs of concrete planning.

 

The emissions promise made by the Administration last month as the U.S. contribution to a new global climate treaty intended to be unveiled at a Paris summit in September “raises more questions than it answers,” according to Karen Harbert, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 21st Century Energy Institute, in written testimony to the committee.

 

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