By Susan Ferrechio, Washington Times

In exchange for votes to pass a controversial global warming package, Democratic leaders are offering some lawmakers generous emission “allowances” to protect their districts from the economic pain of pollution restrictions. Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, represents a district with several oil refineries, a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions. He also serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which must approve the global warming plan backed by President Barack Obama.

Green says Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who heads the panel, is trying to entice him into voting for the bill by giving some refineries favorable treatment in the administration’s “cap and trade” system, which is expected to generate hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years. Under the plan, companies would pay for the right to emit carbon dioxide, but Green and other lawmakers are angling to get a free pass for refineries in their districts.

“We’ve been talking,” Green said, referring to a meeting he had with Waxman on Tuesday night. “To put together a bill that passes, they have to get our votes, and I’m not going to vote for a bill without refinery allowances.”

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the top Republican on the energy panel, said Waxman and others are also dangling allowances for steel and coal-fired power plants to give political cover to Democrats whose districts rely on these companies. Democrats so far have been unable to get enough support from their own members to pass the bill out of a small global warming subcommittee because most Republicans and many Democrats say the plan will raise energy rates, destroy jobs and increase prices on manufactured goods. Republicans said Waxman and subcommittee chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass., are calling Democrats into their offices and offering allowances, also called credits, in exchange for votes. Waxman told The Examiner he was not trading votes for allowances.

“That is what the Republicans are saying, but that is not accurate,” he said. The bill left out specifics on allowances “in order to be able to have discussions on how best to ease the transition for various geographical regions and ratepayers.”

“I will politely disagree,” said energy committee member John Shimkus, R-Ill., who insisted Waxman “is calling members into his office to try to get their vote, and that will be based on the credits they are offering.” While Shimkus acknowledged that closed-door negotiating was “just a way of doing business” in Congress, he said offering emission allowances for votes may take the process beyond ethical boundaries. “We are talking real dollars here, real shareholder wealth,” Shimkus said, “and we are not being given the time to analyze these credits.”

Environmentalists and free-market advocates say the credits will favor struggling, out-of-date operations. “We are going to have electricity that is dirtier because the allowances are going to be misallocated,” said Robert Michaels, an economics professor at California State University and senior fellow for the Institute for Energy Research. See story here.

By Marc Morano, ClimateDepot.com

UK’s Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.

“The House Democrats don’t want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,” Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “They are cowards.”

According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had “chickened out” and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment’s fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.

According to Monckton, House Democrats told the Republican committee staff earlier this week that they would be putting forward an unnamed ‘celebrity’ as their star witness Friday at a multi-panel climate hearing examining the House global warming bill. The ‘celebrity’ witness turned out to be Gore. Monckton said the GOP replied they would respond to the Democrats ‘celebrity’ with an unnamed ‘celebrity’ of their own. But Monckton claims that when the Democrats were told who the GOP witness would be, they refused to allow him to testify alongside Gore.

“The Democrats have a lot to learn about the right of free speech under the US Constitution. Congress Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) refusal to expose Al Gore’s sci-fi comedy-horror testimony to proper, independent scrutiny by the House minority reeks of naked fear,” Monckton said from the airport Thursday evening.

“Waxman knows there has been no ‘global warming’ for at least a decade. Waxman knows there has been seven and a half years’ global cooling. Waxman knows that, in the words of the UK High Court judge who condemned Gore’s mawkish movie as materially, seriously, serially inaccurate, ‘the Armageddon scenario that he depicts is not based on any scientific view,’” Monckton explained. Monckton has previously testified before the House Committee in March. (See: Monckton: Have the courage to do nothing. US Congress told climate change is not real ) Monckton has also publicly challenged Gore to a debate. (See: Al Gore Challenged to International TV Debate on Global Warming By Lord Monckton - March 19, 2007 ). A call to the Democratic office of the House Energy and Commerce Committee seeking comment was not immediately returned Thursday night.

Read post here. See Monckton’s letter to the Committe posted recently here.

CTV.ca News Staff with a report by CTV medical specialist Avis Favaro and producer Elizabeth St. Philip

More people are coming forward saying they’re experiencing sleep problems, headaches, and heart palpitations caused by living near windmills. Ontario physician Dr. Robert McMurtry told a news conference in Toronto Wednesday that while wind energy may offer a cleaner, more efficient way to generate electricity, those who live near the giant turbines are suffering through serious health problems.

McMurtry, a retired orthopedic surgeon who used to be an assistant deputy minister of the Population and Public Health Branch of Health Canada, decided to look into the health effects of windmills with the help of Carmen Krogh, a retired Alberta pharmacist. Krogh and a group of volunteers distributed questionnaires in areas near wind farms, asking residents to describe whether they have experienced any effects from the turbines.

Of 76 people who responded to their informal survey, 53 reported at least one health complaint. They complained of:
headaches
heart palpitations
hearing problems
stress, anxiety and depression

He reports that one resident had to be admitted to hospital with an acute hypertensive episode. Another experienced atrial fibrillation (abnormal heart rhythm). “There is no question that they are genuinely suffering, and more people are at risk if the rules are not changes substantially,” McMurtry told the committee. Krogh’s survey revealed that most of those who complained of health problems lived within a kilometre of a wind farm, while those further away were less likely to experience health problems.

The turbines don’t appear to affect everyone equally and it is not clear what causes the health problems in some people. Some suspect that the constant, low frequency noise and vibration from the rotating blades may be what cause the problems. But research into the problem is lacking. That’s why McMurtry is calling on governments to conduct a lot more studies into the turbines’ effects on the health of nearby residents.

“There is no epidemiological study that has been conducted that establishes either the safety or harmfulness of industrial wind turbines. In short, there is an absence of evidence,” McMurtry told an Ontario government committee Wednesday. The committee is debating The Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009, a bill that would enact standards for renewable energy projects, such as standardized setback requirements for wind farms.

McMurtry told the committee that until there are rigorous epidemiological studies of the health effects of wind turbines, Ontario should not go ahead with any further construction of wind turbines. Wind power advocates contend that studies have been conducted in North America and other parts of the world and they show that residents who live near wind farms have few complaints about them. Sean Whittaker, vice president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, said these studies “have really come to the same conclusion and that is there is no evidence that wind turbines have an impact on human health.” Whittaker told CTV News that research he has reviewed shows that the percentage of people who approve of wind power increases the closer you get to a wind farm.

Barbara Ashbee is not one of those people. Ashbee lives in the shadow of 11 of the 45 giant wind turbines at the Melanchthon wind farm near Shelburne, Ont., about 100 kilometres northwest of Toronto. At first, she liked the idea of living near a green-energy facility. “I thought it was a great idea for the environment,” she told CTV News. But the day the turbines started running, she and her husband, Denis Lormand, stopped sleeping. “They are so loud we didn’t get any sleep. You can hear them in the bedroom. There is also a hum and vibration that permeates the house,” she says alll that deprivation started to lead to cognitive abilities, she contends.

“My memory now is horrible,” she says. “It’s terrible to go night after night without sleep. We go to bed 7 p.m. because we don’t know what the night will bring.” Her husband also suffers from tinnitus, which causes a constant whining sound in his ears. With more construction at the Melanchthon wind power centre expected to bring the number of turbines at the facility to 133, the couple says they would love to sell their house but can’t. “Between the noise and the vibration, we couldn’t put a For Sale sign here. There’s no way,” says Ashbee. Ashbee says she has no problem with the concept of wind farms, but she says they simply shouldn’t be built near residences. “I thought they were wonderful, but they’re not. There are big problems and they have to get sorted out,” she says. See story here.