Good for Pete Domenici

We have recently been critical of Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), for co-sponsoring (with Ted Kennedy, no less) a bill that would force Americans who buy health insurance policies (including through their employer) to pay for mental health coverage equal to their other health care coverage, unless they purchase no mental health care coverage at all.

I expect we’ll be critical of him on that issue again any minute now.

Because we’ve been critical where we believe criticism is due, in the spirit of fairness, I wanted to commend the Senator in a case where credit is due.

As Environment and Energy Daily reported March 27 (in an article excerpted by the minority staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works), Senator Domenici has “vowed… to block global warming legislation if emerging industrial nations do not make similar commitments.”

The article says, in part:

A key Senate Republican vowed yesterday to block global warming legislation if emerging industrial nations do not make similar commitments.

“My concerns are long enough that I would kill a bill if we haven’t taken some giant stride in the direction of getting China and/or India to join with this,” Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) said in an interview yesterday.

China’s emissions are on track to surpass the United States as early as this year, according to recent media reports, driving the Senate Energy Committee’s ranking member to express concern that a new U.S. program would do little to address climate change while simultaneously harming the domestic economy.

“It’s just grown on me in the past month, where I just can’t believe and will not support major legislation imposed upon the American economic system and jobs and everything else,” Domenici said. “I won’t support doing that… unless and until we have brought the Chinese on board, or the Indians, or there is absolute assurance they are coming on.”

Good for him.

More on Senator Domenici’s perspective on this can be found in a press release issued by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Domenici serves as ranking member.

I don’t agree with everything Senator Domenici has ever said on climate change, but he’s right on this.

____

Labels: , ,



The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.