Green Dreams Die Ugly On Capitol Hill - Walter Russell Mead's Blog - The American Interest

People see through these stupid tricks — especially when the Republicans and the anti-greens can raise tens of millions of dollars to drive the message home between now and November. You can call it the “Happy Clappy Coal Promotion Act” if you want to, but if your goal is to change people’s behavior by artificially raising the price they pay for energy, they are going to figure you out — and they are going to fight you. If you pass it anyway, they are going to smack you down hard at the next election and put some people in the Congress who know what the folks want back home.
... But playing silly name games could and did accomplish something: it could demonstrate just how stupid the greens think voters are and how easily fooled greens think the ignorant peasants clinging to their guns and their God out there can be. This cheap and stupid maneuver will deepen the impression among some Americans that many green leaders are disingenuous shills who will say and do anything to serve their ideological agenda.
...
The perception among some voters that green leaders are hysterical weasels is inexpressibly damaging to the environmentalist cause.
...
The strategic incompetence exhibited by the climate movement and its congressional allies is something that students everywhere need to study — and especially those who hope someday to help build a better world or fight for social change. This is how you fail, kids: Advance half baked policy ideas by hyping the science to create a global panic; when that fails, fall back on shady little dodges that don’t fool anybody — all the while telling anybody and everybody that you are the smartest, most virtuous person in the room.

Taxpayers Sue Gov. Gregoire To Invalidate Climate Change Executive Order :: Evergreen Freedom Foundation

OLYMPIA—Today a group of six taxpayers filed a lawsuit to invalidate an executive order issued by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

“We believe Gov. Gregoire’s climate change executive order is an unconstitutional order,” said Michael Reitz, director of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s Constitutional Law Center, who represents the taxpayers in this case. “Gov. Gregoire violated the doctrine of separation of powers by snatching a failed bill out of the legislative process and issuing it in the form of an executive order. If the governor wants to pass laws, she’s in the wrong branch of government.”