I stated in my original statement that I was not going to be political in this blog. Yet here it is, the end of February, and I am already sick of the electioneering. So, if I am able to parse my original language, rather than be political, I’m going to discuss politics. In several of my recent blogs, I have discussed the vagaries of MACT and the support the American Boiler Manufacturers Association (ABMA) gives to the passage of this EPA legislation. Just to clarify one point, the ABMA, as a group, is ideologically right of center. I know this anecdotally having attended conferences over the years and listened to many political conversations. The majority, I am positive, vote Republican.
So why is it that this right-leaning group stands so strongly behind their positions regarding passage of the MACT? It is because their beliefs transcend political ideology to realize that not only are the ideas espoused in MACT are good ones but they are also eminently achievable with technology readily available and at a cost that is worth the price. Yet, this bill has been mired recently in two different attempts to tamp it down: the first was when it was attached to the extension of the payroll tax deduction extension; the second is right now, when it has become part of the transportation bill. I, along with several members of the ABMA individually as well as the organization as an entity, wrote letters to our Senators and Representatives urging them to back this legislation. In my state of Oklahoma, I know this effort is in vain. One of the US Senators, James M. Inhofe, has just published a book called “The Greatest Hoax” that states that global warming is a conspiracy that threatens our future. Now I will not to pretend to be a scientist and my own personal beliefs on this issue don’t matter but I’m hardly going to subscribe to a Senator’s viewpoint who calls global warming (or climate change as some prefer) a hoax despite a great deal of evidence to the contrary.
Wow, did that feel good to say! Our country sits here, eight months from a general election, and there is already a poisoned atmosphere. And this is just on the Republican side of the page. Obama, although clearly mentioned, is not yet the favored target; it’s other Republicans. So when they finally choose their candidate, Romney or Santorum, I assume, we’ll then get ready for the main event. I for one am quite sick of politics and eagerly await the end of this process in November. Perhaps, depending upon the results of the election, they might actually sit down as elected officials and find some middle point to correct the ills of our country.
To finish, here’s a little blurb on politics.
“Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.” ~H.L. Mencken, (1880-1956)
