This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Dr. Roy Cordato, Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar at the John Locke Foundation.
The people of North Carolina deserve a House Speaker who will lead the way in changing the attitude that our legislative leaders have toward law. But if Speaker Joe Hackney’s performance as co-chair of the Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change is any indication, we can expect a future that looks much like the past.
The climate commission was established by the General Assembly in 2005 to examine whether the state of North Carolina should pursue policies to address anticipated global warming. The commission co-chairs are Hackney, a Chapel Hill Democrat, and Winston-Salem attorney and environmental activist John Garrou. The commission’s work is scheduled to conclude in April 2008. In February 2007 it made a series of interim policy recommendations to the legislature. In adopting these recommendations, the commission completely ignored its legislative mandate.
In 2005 when the General Assembly enacted legislation establishing the commission, it was quite explicit in its directives. In particular, the legislation stated unequivocally that the commission “shall conduct an in depth examination” of a list of important issues, both scientific and economic. After a year of meetings, the commission, under Speaker Hackney’s leadership, has made no significant attempt to pursue its mandated mission.
In fact, it has completely ignored what any reasonable observer would have to conclude are the most important questions. These relate to the causes of global warming, the extent to which policies being proposed will have an impact on the climate, and whether or not the benefits of policies proposed by the commission will outweigh the costs.
First, the legislation mandates that the commission conduct “a review of current scientific literature on the possible natural and [human] causes of global climate change.” While there is an extensive literature on the possible natural causes of climate change, including changing sun intensity and natural climate cycles, the commission has not examined any of it. Instead it has considered as a possibility only increases in greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, caused by the productive activities of human beings.
The legislation also mandates an examination of “the extent to which reductions in the emissions of [greenhouse gases] in the State, region, nation, and worldwide could be expected to affect global climate change.” Again, Rep. Hackney’s commission has ignored the law.
It has not only failed to address the question of whether its proposed policies would have an impact on the climate, but the commission also seems to have gone out of its way to ignore this most important question. Assuming that the real intent of the these proposals is to moderate future global warming, it is incumbent upon the commission, both legally and in terms of its moral obligation to the citizens of North Carolina, to demonstrate that this will actually be the result.
Finally, the legislation calls on the commission to conduct extensive economic cost/benefit analysis of the policy changes that it is investigating and proposing. Speaker Hackney and his commission have ignored this mandate. While at least one commission member is a highly qualified energy and environmental economist, Dr. Ed Erickson of N.C. State University, co-chairs Hackney and Garrou have not called on this expertise to head an investigation into any of the mandated issues related to economics.
In fact, none of the policies that they are recommending have been justified with any real economic cost/benefit analysis, and the commission has not drawn on the expertise of any professional economists in assessing these policies. There is no legitimate excuse for this given the economic expertise that is on the commission and that is readily available throughout the UNC system. Failure to conduct these investigations suggests a willful ignorance on the part of key commission members. This willingness to ignore the law is likely born out of fear that legitimate economic cost/benefit analysis would produce results that are inconsistent with the policy proposal that the co-chairs, in alliance with environmental pressure groups, have already decided to recommend.
House Speaker Joe Hackney, like his predecessor Jim Black, clearly believes that his actions are above the law. Along with his collaborator, John Garrou, his approach to chairing the Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change has been to thumb his nose at the explicit intent of the law. If the people of North Carolina expect honest government in the post-Jim Black era, they need to call on their representatives to hold the climate commission’s feet to the fire.
The commission is already proposing new direct and hidden taxes on electricity and will be considering the possibility of new gasoline taxes as high as 50 cents per gallon. In addition, many members are known to support vast new regulations on where we can live, how we can light and heat our homes, and the kinds of automobiles we will be allowed to drive. These are not decisions that should be carried out by a commission that has no intention of investigating thoroughly any actual social consequences of the policies it recommends. To date, Speaker Hackney’s climate commission has played the role of an environmental advocacy group and not the role of a legitimate investigative body.