Congressional Hearings on Global Warming

Sen. James Inhofe, a critic of the Kyoto approach to global warming, has scheduled Senate hearings that should warm things up. From Green Sheets; subscription required:

Global warming skeptic Sen. James M. Inhofe steps into an intensifying climate debate this week with a hearing by his Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the 1997 Kyoto treaty and the status of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Oklahoma Republican will refocus the debate a week after the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee heard prominent scientists link rising global temperatures to gases generated by the burning of fossil fuels.

Senate Energy Chairman Pete V. Domenici, R-N.M., appeared generally in favor of action to slow emissions, although he did not endorse a specific course. ...

But while Domenici sees the danger of global warming as a problem to be solved, Inhofe has called it a hoax based on fear rather than science and charges that "environmental extremists" see man-induced global warming as "an article of religious faith." ...

The Environment Committee is due to hear from a member of the European Parliament about difficulties that European nations are having in meeting their Kyoto targets, and from an economist on the economic implications of the treaty, committee sources said.

They said Democrats planned to call a professor of climate and energy to discuss why emissions caps are a preferable way to deal with climate change and about Kyoto's successes.

The Dem's testimony on Kyoto's successes should be brief, very brief.