Obama Made ‘Big Mistake’ on Climate Bill, Turner Says

[scandal 951]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-05/obama-made-big-mistake-on-climate-bill-turner-says-update1-.html

Obama Made ‘Big Mistake’ on Climate Bill, Turner Says

By Kim Chipman - Dec 5, 2010 1:56 PM CT

U.S. President Barack Obama made a “big mistake” in pushing health-care legislation before climate change, billionaire Ted Turner said today.

“We would have an energy climate change bill in the United States if President Obama had made that his top priority and brought that to the American people and Congress first rather than the health-care bill,” Turner, founder of Time Warner Inc.’s CNN, said today at a conference in Cancun, Mexico. “But he didn’t, and I think it was a big mistake.”

Obama, who campaigned on a promise to fight climate change, made the economy, health care, energy and education his top priorities after taking office. Health-care legislation was signed into law earlier this year after contentious debate while a “cap-and-trade” bill to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions stalled in the Senate. Obama now says he doubts such a measure can win passage until 2013 at the earliest.

“The climate bill is much more important than health care because the climate situation is about life and death whereas the health-care bill was much more limited,” Turner, 72, said.

A bill creating a cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions and establish a market in pollution allowances passed the House of Representatives last year. The Senate dropped the measure earlier this year amid claims that an emissions-trading system would boost energy prices and hurt the economy.

U.S. skepticism about whether humans are causing climate change has increased, polls show. Congressional elections in November will bring into office in January almost four dozen new lawmakers who question global warming, according to ThinkProgress, an arm of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a Washington research group allied with Democrats.

Turner, who also spoke in Cancun yesterday, said more needs to be done to raise public awareness of the threat.

“We have to convince the majority of people in the world that we are right and get them motivated,” he said. “That’s a big job, but hopefully we can do it.”

Turned noted humans only began burning the fossil fuels linked to climate change about 200 years ago. “Now we are being asked to completely change our energy system in a quick period of time,” he said. “It’s hard for us. It’s something we really have to do if we want to survive.”

Turner spoke this weekend at the World Climate Summit, a conference focused on how businesses can help combat climate change. The gathering is timed to coincide with United Nations- led climate change treaty talks in Cancun.

Negotiators from about 190 countries are debating the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and terms for a new accord that includes all major polluters. The U.S., the second-biggest greenhouse-gas emitter after China, is the only industrialized nation not bound by the Kyoto treaty.

Japan, Russia and Canada have refused to sign up for a second round of emissions reductions once the current ones written into Kyoto expire in 2012.

Emerging economies, such as China, India and Brazil, are pushing for the developed countries to agree on a new commitment period. Discord over Kyoto threatens to take attention away from talks for a new global climate agreement that includes the U.S., UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said yesterday.

The Obama administration is limited in what it can commit to in the talks because the U.S. doesn’t have a national law capping emissions by a certain percentage. Obama’s lead climate negotiator, Todd Stern, says the U.S. will stick to its pledge of cutting greenhouse gases about 17 percent by 2020.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to start regulating carbon from power plants and oil refiners starting in January.

[^_^ 5,021]

Regulating the non group health insurance policy market was also a matter of life and death,Ted.

[Pooky 3,807]

Regulating the non group health insurance policy market was also a matter of life and death,Ted.

Not to Ted Turner it wasn't

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

The new Republican congress would just have de-funded it. So now they will de-fund health care instead. Obama's mistake, and congress', was trying to use liberal approaches to fix things.

[Danno 1,228]

Yo Ted, have you down sized your houses yet or is this another liberal "for the masses" concept?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The new Republican congress would just have de-funded it. So now they will de-fund health care instead. Obama's mistake, and congress', was trying to use liberal approaches to fix things.

Congress will not de-fund health care. In case you haven't noticed, the deficit commission actually builds on and expands rather than discusses any repeal or de-funding of the health care reform law. If anything, it didn't do enough to curb cost which is largely as result of the ridiculous deal-cutting that defined the outcome of this legislation. So what the deficit commission is saying is that this reform is what needs to be build on. Nobody there is talking of repeal, replace or de-fund. They recognize quite clearly that it points in the right direction.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Congress will not de-fund health care. In case you haven't noticed, the deficit commission actually builds on and expands rather than discusses any repeal or de-funding of the health care reform law. If anything, it didn't do enough to curb cost which is largely as result of the ridiculous deal-cutting that defined the outcome of this legislation. So what the deficit commission is saying is that this reform is what needs to be build on. Nobody there is talking of repeal, replace or de-fund. They recognize quite clearly that it points in the right direction.

You are damn ignorant if you think anything in this health care bill points in the right direction. It did everything to go in the wrong direction by placing blame in the wrong areas and then helping to increase the stronghold that American pharmaceutical companies have at the same time. This was a bought and paid for shambles of a bill to destroy one industry while proping up another. All in the name of greed and setting things up for an ultimate government takeover of health care that would be inevitable from their actions.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

You are damn ignorant if you think anything in this health care bill points in the right direction.

Aside from myself, the commission tasked to address the federal deficit disagrees with you. I take their expertise over yours any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Aside from myself, the commission tasked to address the federal deficit disagrees with you. I take their expertise over yours any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Of course you would. God forbid anyone actually try and understand the health care industry on their own.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Of course you would. God forbid anyone actually try and understand the health care industry on their own.

Oh please, is this another area of expertise that you want to claim? God forbid you'd have to admit that there are folks out there that understand a thing or two better than you.

[The_Dude 1,142]

Oh please, is this another area of expertise that you want to claim? God forbid you'd have to admit that there are folks out there that understand a thing or two better than you.

Paul knows all, you dare not question his credentials. He is a 'self styled' legal scholar, expert on universities, politics, the constitution and last week he declared that he was a self professed people-watcher, so I imagine this declaration imbues him with a psychology and sociology knowledgebase as well.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Oh please, is this another area of expertise that you want to claim? God forbid you'd have to admit that there are folks out there that understand a thing or two better than you.

What? I thought all opinions are equal in the eyes of the internet gods? Expert opinion is just another fancy way of implying that someone actually knows more than the average, opinionated blogger.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Oh please, is this another area of expertise that you want to claim? God forbid you'd have to admit that there are folks out there that understand a thing or two better than you.

I admit when I'm wrong plenty enough. I actually do my own research and don't rely on some political blowhard or media outlet to tell me how to think unlike 90% of the population.

Go ahead, tell me where I'm wrong in what I said. I bet you can't. Where am I wrong? In the pharmaceutical companies getting what they want? Oh wait, they did. In the insurance companies being demonized and actual health care costs being ignored? Oh wait, right again there too. I mean it ignored medical malpractice insurance, frivolous lawsuits, over testing patients, etc. It didn't touch on the fact that costs are attributed also to technology and the need to interchange ever so often. It didn't touch on the fact that doctors get the shaft on medicaid and medicare payments, so more and more doctors have to stop accepting those forms of payment. Oh, but we don't blame the doctors there do we? We don't blame the government there, do we? We don't stop and look at who's paying the doctors, how they are actually making ends meet and making their salary in some areas. Nope, cannot look at that.

Again, tell me where I'm wrong and tell me where I'm not educated on the subject. Go ahead.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

[Obama 2012 1,714]

and your need to senselessly bait/troll in response proves my point entirely.

Thanks.