By the Numbers: Greenwire Identifies 23 U.S. Senators Currently On the Fence on Climate Bill

Geenwire (6/29) reports, (subscription required)

Excerpt: “[President Obama’s senior advisor David] Axelrod acknowledged that Democrats lack the 60 Senate votes they need to overcome a filibuster. But he insisted Obama would not let the House bill wither.

“The vote is not tomorrow,” Axelrod said. “The vote will come sometime in the fall. I think we will fashion an energy package that will move this country forward and carry the day.”

According to an E&E analysis of the Senate, 60 votes is within reach for a cap-and-trade climate bill, but many concessions must be made to get the measure across the goal line. To start, there are 45 senators in the “yes” or “probably yes” camp, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

There are 23 fence sitters. Alaska’s Mark Begich (D) and Lisa Murkowski (R) need to keep their home state’s oil and gas interests in mind, while Ohio’s Sherrod Brown (D) and Michigan Democrats Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow are pressing for provisions that help agriculture and their state’s ailing manufacturing and auto industries.

Scientists Write Open Letter to Congress: ‘You Are Being Deceived About Global Warming’ — ‘Earth has been cooling for ten years’

Below is a reprint of a July 1, 2009 Open Letter to Congress by a team of prominent scientists.

TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: YOU ARE BEING DECEIVED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

You have recently received an Open Letter from the Woods Hole Research Center, exhorting you to act quickly to avoid global disaster. The letter purports to be from independent scientists, but that Center is the former den of the President’s science advisor, John Holdren, and is far from independent. This is the same science advisor who has given us predictions of “almost certain” thermonuclear war or eco-catastrophe by the year 2000, and many other forecasts of doom that somehow never seem to arrive on time.

The facts are:

The sky is not falling; the Earth has been cooling for ten years, without help. The present cooling was NOT predicted by the alarmists’ computer models, and has come as an embarrassment to them.

The finest meteorologists in the world cannot predict the weather two weeks in advance, let alone the climate for the rest of the century. Can Al Gore? Can John Holdren? We are flooded with claims that the evidence is clear, that the debate is closed, that we must act immediately, etc, but in fact

THERE IS NO SUCH EVIDENCE; IT DOESN’T EXIST.

The proposed legislation would cripple the US economy, putting us at a disadvantage compared to our competitors. For such drastic action, it is only prudent to demand genuine proof that it is needed, not just computer projections, and not false claims about the state of the science.

SCIENCE IS GUIDED BY PROOF, NOT CONSENSUS

Finally, climate alarmism pays well. Alarmists are rolling in wealth from the billions of dollars floating around for the taking, and being taken. It is always instructive to follow the money.

Robert H. Austin
Professor of Physics
Princeton University
Fellow APS, AAAS
American Association of Arts and Science Member National Academy of Sciences

William Happer
Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics
Princeton University
Fellow APS, AAAS
Member National Academy of Sciences

S. Fred Singer
Professor of Environmental Sciences Emeritus, University of Virginia
First Director of the National Weather Satellite Service
Fellow APS, AAAS, AGU

Roger W. Cohen
Manager, Strategic Planning and Programs, ExxonMobil Corporation (retired)
Fellow APS

Harold W. Lewis
Professor of Physics Emeritus
University of California at Santa Barbara
Fellow APS, AAAS; Chairman, APS Reactor Safety Study

Laurence