Global warming reversals

In 2009, Sen. Mark Kirk (R--Ill.), then a congressman,
voted for a bill that would have regulated greenhouse gases--a bill that died in the Senate. Kirk later did an about-face
on global warming. In January he explained that "the consensus behind the
climate change bill collapsed and then further deteriorated with the personal
and political collapse of [former] Vice President Gore."

A few days later, Sen. James Inhofe (R--Ok.) defended his
new bill to stonewall the Environmental Protection Agency's research into greenhouse
gases' negative health effects, bemoaning his former position: "I have to
admit--and, you know, confession is good for the soul...I, too, once thought
that catastrophic global warming was caused by anthropogenic gases--because
everyone said it was."

Such mawkish and insubstantial explanations--pious
confession rhetoric, ad hominem attacks on Al Gore--demonstrate a cavalier
attitude toward the environment. Fortunately, while the House voted last week to block the EPA from
enforcing its Supreme Court-backed regulation of greenhouse gases, senators
opposed to EPA regulation couldn't come up with the votes--and attempts
to include such a provision in the budget deal failed.
But they're likely to try again.