Zero-Emission Government?

Setting long-term goals is fun for politicians. No other group of people has as much fun and power in planning the lives of others. Nowhere else is this proclivity more often displayed than in the intertwined areas of energy and environmental policy.
Our own Bill Richardson, for example, set ambitious goals in the 2007 legislative session to force utilities to produce 20% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. He’ll be out of office by 2011 at the latest, so it is his successor or even the next governor after that who will have to make the tough decisions if the law is to be implemented.
The same thing is happening now in Congress but to an even more ridiculous extent. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are pushing a bill (HR 2635), the “Carbon-Neutral Government Act of 2007” that is designed to stop the federal government from being such a big polluter. Sadly enough (because it shows that government is way too big), the federal government is the largest single consumer of energy in the United States.
Among other things, the legislation would require that federal agencies reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 2 per cent per year beginning in 2010 and reach ZERO EMISSIONS by 2050. Of course, Waxman and Pelosi will be long gone from Washington by that time.
On second though, while a zero-emissions government may be ridiculous in reality, this may be our best bet to shrink the size of the federal government. Better still, since CO2 is a “pollutant” according to the global warming crowd and no single group produces more CO2 in the form of hot air than Congress, what does this legislation mean for Congress by 2050.
For more on global warming and CO2 emissions, check out this excellent video from our friends at the Heartland Institute.