President Talks Climate Change, ‘Cash for Clunkers,’ with House Democrats

i am very much glad that we have geniuses in science like Henry Waxman deciding what to do about the weather.
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
There is no such thing as global warming. the climate changes according to forces much larger than any on earth.
I would like to ask Henry, has it veer been too hot on this planet for life? if so, how did it get that way?
Good job liberals.

“Creditors to Chrysler describe negotiations with the company and the Obama administration as “a farce,” saying the administration was bent on forcing their hands using hardball tactics and threats.
Conversations with administration officials left them expecting that they would be politically targeted, two participants in the negotiations said.
Although the focus has so been on allegations that the White House threatened Perella Weinberg, sources familiar with the matter say that other firms felt they were threatened as well. None of the sources would agree to speak except on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of political repercussions…..
The sources, who represent creditors to Chrysler, say they were taken aback by the hardball tactics that the Obama administration employed to cajole them into acquiescing to plans to restructure Chrysler. One person described the administration as the most shocking “end justifies the means” group they have ever encountered. Another characterized Obama as “the most dangerous smooth talker on the planet- and I knew Kissinger.” Both were voters for Obama in the last election.”
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Jake, better keep chasing on this story.

“Once in a while when you’re in Congress, you do something that really matters in people’s lives,” the president said in the meeting, participants recounted, referring to the compromise worked out on “Cash for Clunkers.”
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Yes. You give them more money.
Imagine my shock that a group of Democrats can get together and devise a way to give more money away.
In other countries I’ve lived in, they get people to buy new cars by taxing the living daylights out of older cars via registration fees.

Because I am not into hero worship I do not believe or trust anything Obama says.
I did my research on Obama.
It’s not pretty.
His words are dangerous/misleading because they always have an underlying meaning.

I’d rather drive my 53′ Jet till I die than have some pretentious politician give me 3500 for a barrymobile.
Nancy, please stop blinking…

I guess there will be a run on clunkers.
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Ha! Good point. Buy a really cheap old junker & turn it in for more $ than you paid for it. Genius!

If it worked for Germany, it can work for us. Moderates may not bite.

Nine posts here, about 7 of them from the right-wing haters who will criticize Obama no matter what he does. Don’t you people ever get tired of swilling the hate-flavored Limbaugh kool-aid?

Uh, do you really not realize that if you trade in a clunker, it is not re-sold? Can you be that naive?

MayBEee:”As for getting them off the road, I’m all for that. The better way to do it, revenue-wise, is to charge a premium if people buy them (or when they register them). ”
That would be a disaster. Overnight you would cut the value of the largest asset most of the lowest income people own by $3500. It is entirely likely a lot of them would go ‘underwater’ on any car loan they had. There would be no secondary market for the vehicle any more, so if a family needed to sell one of their cars to make the next few months mortgage payments, tough luck – the government just made it worthless. I have little doubt that a money grab of that magnitude (yes, magnitude matters) would qualify as an un-reimbursed seizure of assets and end up in court pretty quick.
You could implement it over a large number of years, but that misses the point of getting a quick, cheap reduction in emissions with the bonus of an economic stimulus for automakers.

If you examine any government program, you will find people who find ways to take financial advantage..well beyond whatever the money is supposed to accomplish. It’s gubmint cheese, it’ll show up everywhere.

Oh, for the good ole days when Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Now people think the are gods and can control everything and it will only cost us an extra $3,000 or so a year in taxes.

sorry.. voucher.. was thinkign of useless tax credits.. we get new stuff everyday..

If you are driving a “clunker”, it probably means you can not *afford* a new car.
This voucher will entice a lot of people to overspend on cars they could not afford otherwise.
Didn’t we learn anything from the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac housing crisis? Where government tried to get everyone into a home regardless of whether they could afford it?
The Democrat motto should be:
The party of unintended (read that, usually BAD) consequences.
Meanwhile, Algore just keeps getting richer.

“Nine posts here, about 7 of them from the right-wing haters who will criticize Obama no matter what he does. Don’t you people ever get tired of swilling the hate-flavored Limbaugh kool-aid?”
Really? Do you think Cap(Tax)-and-Trade is a good idea? If so, why?
For your consideration:
- The “science” used to “prove” existence of anthropogenic global warming (AGW)is flimsy at best (which is why Al Gore refuses to debate AGW with scientists who disagree with his position)
- What is the optimal temperature for the Earth? Our current temperature?
- Humans are responsible for <4% of annual CO2 emmisions (natural forces/elements responsible for balance)
- Humans are responsible for <0.3% of "Greenhouse Effect" (water vapor responsible for 95%)
- The Earth's temperature has not increased over the past 10-12 years
- Sea levels are rising at rates significantly BELOW historical average
- Polar bear numbers are higher now than at any point in the 20th century
- The climate models that are used are shaky at best (do you trust weather forecasts beyond 5-7 days? Why would you think these models would be accurate forecasting temperatures YEARS/DECADES in advance?)
Remember it wasn't long ago (during 1970s) there was a "global cooling/impending ice age" scare. Now, some would have us believe in AGW. How things change. Cap-and-trade has been in place for several years in Europe with no net effect in decreasing CO2 output (but more euros in the pockets of government – at the expense of citizens)
Cap-and-trade is YET ANOTHER CREATIVE APPROACH FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO EXTRACT MORE MONEY FROM THE ECONOMY.
Sometimes those of us "right-wing haters who will criticize Obama no matter what he does" have reasoning behind our criticism…

tjp612:”Remember it wasn’t long ago (during 1970s) there was a “global cooling/impending ice age” scare. ”
There was NEVER, EVER, a scientific consensus an impending ice age.
A few stories in popular magazines is NOT equivalent to the consensus of every National Academy of Science (or equivalent body) in the first world.
If you can find a problem with the current climate change science – the actual science, not Al Gore’s retirement slide show – write it up with your supporting evidence and submit it to Exxon. You’ll have a million dollar salary and your own lab building with staff within six months. Likely you’ll get a noble prize within two years, like the guy who shattered conventional thinking on the cause of ulcers and is now a hero in the field (science richly rewards those who successful challenge existing theory).
Of course, thousands of PhD’s for the last twenty years have been trying to find the Big Mistake and failing, so good luck with that.
Your questions were interesting 20 years ago, but by now you should do your own research and find the answers yourself. They are about as interesting as debating whether smoking causes cancer.

Builder Bob:”I don’t know of any 1970′s or earlier cars on the road as a daily driver…
My point was my truck is very old and gets terrible gas mileage. My truck is not the only truck in town either. Lots of us have older trucks. Sure I’d love a new one, but I can’t justify that kind of money and business is very slow.”
My only point was that you’re just not the target of this type of legislation. There *are* a number of clunkers still on the road, perhaps early 80′s Suburbans being driven by empty nesters. That’s the target. This bill is not a panacea, but there is nothing wrong with taken small steps that make sense.

Um, this was never intended to target trucks. It is intended to target heaps from the 1970s that are still on the road
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Where do you get that information? From what I’ve read, this is directed at cars, trucks, and work vehicles that get under 18 mpg. There is no age requirement whatsoever, and the vouchers could be used to buy a new car or truck.

@ jhw
“There was NEVER, EVER, a scientific consensus an impending ice age.”
Contrary to what the media will have you belive, there is no scientific consensus of AGW (unless you count as a “consensus” those scientists hand-picked for the purposes of the AGW cause)
“If you can find a problem with the current climate change science – the actual science, not Al Gore’s retirement slide show – write it up”
Exactly the point – Where’s the science? What “science” do you believe?

MayBee:”From what I’ve read, this is directed at cars, trucks, and work vehicles that get under 18 mpg. There is no age requirement whatsoever, and the vouchers could be used to buy a new car or truck.”
As Builder Bob’s post attests, this is not going to have any impact on vehicles whose net worth is greater than $3,500. But sure, there could be some really beat out trucks getting traded in under this (for a voucher that can only be applied to buying a *car* to replace it).

tjp612:”The Copenhagen Consensus, a panel of eight-world-renowned economists (including 3 Nobel Laureates), met in 2004 to discuss and prioritize proposals that address ten of the world’s greatest challenges and advance global welfare. ”
Oh, well, the consensus of EIGHT economists completely blows away the tens of thousands of pages of hard data collected over the past 20 years. Forgive me for being so ignorant as to believe non-partisan scientific bodies over an anonymous poster on the internet.

I’m not so sure about the name “Cash for Clunkers” since the money must be spent towards buying an new car probably won’t be given in cash, more likely a voucher.
How about Caddie Mae or Fender Mac?
New cars for everyone (until they get repossessed for non-payment).

“The IPCC reports summarize the body of science.”
Um, sorry. Just because an organization has an official-sounding UN-type name does not make the organization credible. What report? What endorsement? Again, where is the science? Please enlighten your audience as to why YOU believe AGW is real rather than hiding behing a report published by a great-sounding acronym.
“If you don’t think that is a scientific consensus…”
Again, what makes your list a “consensus”? Sounds like mindless group-think to me…
“…it is an indication of your own ignorance of scientific bodies, nothing more.”
Ignorance of “scientific bodies” or of the science? I’ll admit I’m not up to speed on the latest thinking on this issue from the National Academies of
Science in Cameroon and Uganda.
Where’s the science?

“Oh, well, the consensus of EIGHT economists completely blows away the tens of thousands of pages of hard data collected over the past 20 years. Forgive me for being so ignorant as to believe non-partisan scientific bodies over an anonymous poster on the internet.”
This statement speaks volumes of your approach to critical and objective thinking…”If enough people say it’s so, and if enough paperwork is generated, well, I guess it must be so.”

“This statement speaks volumes of your approach to critical and objective thinking…”If enough people say it’s so, and if enough paperwork is generated, well, I guess it must be so”
Science to a right winger is “if the globe is warming, Jesus wants it that way”

“Science to a right winger is “if the globe is warming, Jesus wants it that way”
And science to you is majority rule.

Foghorn Leghorn:”And science to you is majority rule.”
Science is actual observed data. Concentrations of CO2 in ice core samples dating back hundreds of thousands of years, millions of temperature readings mapping deep ocean gradients, satellite readings, analysis of solar activity on cloud formations, comparisons of predicted annual temperatures to actual, measurements of the effects of Mt Pinatubo particulate matter on actual measure solar reflectance, etc.
That is science. It is not a vote of what answer you want, it is creating an analytical model that best fits all known measured fact. And that is what the current climate change consensus (and vacine technology, and computer technology, and turbine design, and…) is based upon.

There once was a scientific consensous that the world was flat, the sun rotated around the earth and the earth was the center of the galaxy.
I’m sure they had peer reviewed papers about too. Didn’t make them right, did it.

More evidence needed:”There once was a scientific consensous that the world was flat, the sun rotated around the earth and the earth was the center of the galaxy.
I’m sure they had peer reviewed papers about too.”
Could you please cite a single peer reviewed paper on any of those issues? As of the advent of paper, only the ignorant masses believed the earth to be flat. Scientific experimentation by Eratosthenes in the second century BC allowed him to pretty accurately calculate the diameter of the Earth. Yet the math and concepts involved were too complicated for the common folk to understand, so they continued to believe the world was flat – wasn’t it obviously so and how can a few shadows down a well and a rock on a rope at noon prove anything otherwise?
Sound at all familiar?
Do you also reject the similar strength consensous that claims smoking causes cancer?

“There once was a scientific consensous that the world was flat, the sun rotated around the earth and the earth was the center of the galaxy.”
ROFLMAO!
That was religious consensus.

“And science to you is majority rule.”
Not at all.
Neither is it limited to right wing scientific analysis which seems to consist of “It snowed today so I guess there is no global warming”

And I’m still baffled at why anyone with a working truck would suddenly be looking to replace it with a “a new fuel-efficient CAR.”
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No, the point he made is very clear. The voucher isn’t enough to make a new truck affordable.
And why do you keep insisting it would have to be a new car that replaces his truck?
From today’s Detroit Free Press:
“The vouchers would apply to passenger cars, trucks and work vehicles. The old passenger cars and trucks being traded in under the plan would have to get less than 18 miles per gallon in combined driving.
New cars would have to get at least 22 m.p.g. to qualify for a $3,500 voucher; if the new model gets 10 m.p.g. more than the old one, the voucher would increase to $4,500.
New trucks would have to get at least 18 m.p.g., and get at least 2 m.p.g. better than the old model to get the $3,500 voucher and 5 m.p.g. better for the $4,500 voucher.”
Trucks! Currently, you could replace your truck with a truck!

Red:”For example, total co2 in our atmosphere is only 3.618%. Of that, 3.502% occurs naturally. Man is responsible for a mere .116%. Shocking I know.
Maybe I should repeat that, just incase anyone missed it.
Man’s total co2 in our atmosphere is .116%”
Please cite your source since you are incorrectly paraphrasing it. Currently, CO2 levels are at about 390 ppm. Direct measurements (bubbles recovered from ice cores) show that is over 20% higher than in the last half million years. At the start of the Industrial Revolution they were 270 ppm.

“There once was a scientific consensous that the world was flat, the sun rotated around the earth and the earth was the center of the galaxy.”
ROFLMAO!
That was religious consensus.
”
No doubt, right-wing religious consensus.

ROFLMAO!
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I hope you don’t get hurt rolling on the floor so may times a day.

I wonder if you would hesitate to chug down a glass of water that has only .116% hydrogen cyanide in it.
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CO2=hydrocyanic acid?
chemistry is hard…

In a recent study named “Study of the Effects on Employment of Public Aid to Renewable Energy Sources”, the authors examined Spain’s efforts to create “green jobs” through subsidies for renewable energy. They found that these subsidies have harmed Spain’s economy, destroying 2.2 jobs for every 1 job created. This study demonstrated how “green jobs” policy clearly hinders Spain’s way out of the current economic crisis, even while U.S. politicians insist that rushing into such a scheme will ease their own emergence from the turmoil. The paper marks the very first time a critical analysis of the actual performance and impact of “green job” policies have been made.
The following represent some of the study’s key findings:
- The U.S. can expect 2.2 jobs to be destroyed for every 1 renewable job financed by the government.
- Only 1 in 10 of the jobs actually created through green investment is permanent.
- Since 2000, Spain has spent €571,138 ($753,778) to create each “green job,” including subsidies of more than €1 million ($1,319,783) per wind industry job.
- Those programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 113,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy.
- Each “green” megawatt installed destroyed 5.39 jobs in non-energy sectors of the Spanish economy.
- The total over-cost—the amount paid over the cost that would result from buying the electricity generated by the renewable power plants at market prices—between 2000 and 2008 amounts to 7,918.54 million Euros ($10 billion).
- The total subsidy spent and committed to these three renewable sources amounts to €28,671 million ($36 billion).
- Consumer energy costs in Spain would have to be increased 31 percent to repay the debt generated by the green jobs subsidies.
Adding insult to injury, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Spain’s annual emissions of carbon dioxide have increased by nearly 50 percent since the nation began its aggressive push to subsidize and support “green jobs.”

Cash for clunkers was dreamed up by Bruton Smith as a way to get his Sonic Automotive group to make money. The program is as ridiculous and wasteful as it sounds. Check out the details.

“Study of the Effects on Employment of Public Aid to Renewable Energy Sources”
Two weeks ago, José María Roig Aldasoro, Regional Minister of Innovation, Enterprise and Employment Government of Navarre rebutted Calzada’s claims in a letter arguing that that green investment “has created wealth, employment and technological development” in Spain. Navarre is a small region of Spain that is well-known throughout the world for its development in renewable energies. After 20 years of development, 65% of the electrical energy consumed in Navarre originates from renewable energies.
Aldasoro breaks down the actual history of green job creation in Navarre:
– 1994: Unemployment at 12.8%, first wind farm erected.
– 1998: Unemployment at 10%, 100 installed megawatts of wind power.
– 2001: Unemployment at 6.8%, two R&D and worker-training centers are opened.
– 2007: Unemployment of 4.76%, total of 100 new renewable-energy companies created, representing 5% of total GDP.”

“Spain’s unemployment rate rose to 17.4 percent in the first quarter, more than double the European Union average. And it’s continuing to surge upward. Green jobs didn’t save their economy. Sorry.”
Yes forget that study I posted was debunked, let’s move the goalposts!

Yes I agree. During a recession, when jobs are being shipped overseas and unemployment rates are up. Now would be a FANTASTIC time to increase the average household utility expenditure $2000-3000 a year.
Oh Mr. President you are frickin Genenius. Why didn’t I think of that.
Oh and that man made global warming thing is completely undebatable (or it will be if Al Gore gets his way)
Naive little me, I really thought that maybe the earth has cycles, kinda like a previous ice age and tropical fossils in dry areas and vice versa. Oh and I was under the impression that sun spots are affecting the temperatures of the other planets in our solar system. They seem to be increasing a little all their own without man. But what do I know?

i dont have a car because i cant afford one, can i have $4500 to buy one of the clunkers?