02 Jun 2008 Rush Limbaugh’s Take on NCPPR’s Lieberman-Warner Poll

Rush Limbaugh discussed the National Center for Public Policy Research’s poll on the Lieberman-Warner cap and trade bill Friday. He also discussed a poll on energy production and prices conducted by Gallup.

Debate on Lieberman-Warner in the U.S. Senate is expected to begin today.

From RushLimbaugh.com, an excerpt:

…A couple of interesting polls.  First off, Gallup poll.  It’s an energy poll.  It’s out today on gasoline prices. It has some interesting findings.  Americans want increased domestic production, even if it means opening areas that are now off limits.  The Gallup poll found the majority of 57% to 41% of Americans support drilling in US coastal and wilderness areas, which are now off limits.  By comparison, by the way, in a more specific Gallup poll taken in March three years ago; a majority of Americans, 53%, was opposed to opening ANWR for oil production.  So there has been a big shift.  Despite the onslaught from the Drive-By Media and both presidential candidates, an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose rationing.  A slight majority, 53%, support price controls on gasoline, but an overwhelming majority, 79%, oppose the rationing of gasoline that would result from price controls, and unlike some in Congress, most Americans don’t blame Big Oil.  Despite recent high-profile hearings with oil company executives, the percentage of Americans blaming the oil companies for skyrocketing gas prices fell from 34% to 20%.

That’s the Gallup poll.  Now, here’s another one.  This poll is the National Center for Public Policy Research.  Their poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose Warner-Lieberman, the cap-and-trade bill that attacks the US economy when they learned about the impact on gasoline and electricity prices.  Sixty-five percent of Americans reject spending even a penny more for gasoline in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Does this jibe with what you think?  This kind of surprises me. Sixty-five percent of Americans — this is the National Center for Public Policy Research poll — reject spending even a penny more for gasoline in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?  Seventy-one percent of Americans reject spending more for electricity, with 16% opposing spending any more than 12% extra for electricity.  When gasoline and electricity price increases are taken together, 90% of the American people reject Lieberman-Warner’s plan and its costs, even at the low range of the projecting costs.  Now, I think this poll is a bit different than most other standard Drive-By Media polls, because what the National Center for Public Policy Research did is they went out and said, ‘Okay, here’s what Warner-Lieberman will do, and here’s what it’s going to cost you.’

Then they asked the question, ‘Do you support paying higher gasoline prices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?’ Sixty-five percent of the American people said no.  The Gallup poll, I don’t know how this one was conducted.  I’ve got the full poll.  I just haven’t clicked on the link to get the questions.  But both polls surprise me because the public perception is like Vaclav Klaus said a couple days ago when he was at the National Press Club doing a speech, the Czech Republic president. He said (paraphrased), ‘We’ve lost. The facts don’t matter. The facts do not matter now in the global warming debate.’  Well, maybe they do.  Maybe they do.  I’m under the impression that over half the American people have bought into this.  But I don’t think that’s true.  I think all of the media has bought into it.  We played those sound bites of poor old Juan Williams who had no clue, no clue that environmentalism is an ideological advancement, that it’s liberal.  He had no clue that it was about an expansion of government and a huge attack on individual liberty. He said Vaclav Klaus raised his consciousness on this.  Well, that’s good, you know, any time that happens…

I believe Rush Limbaugh is America’s #1 asset on global warming education. He takes the time to understand the science and the economics, and has the talent to explain it understandably and entertainingly. I shudder to think we’re we’d be without Rush.

For a longer excerpt from Rush’s Friday broadcast, go to RushLimbaugh.com. For more on our poll, go here; for a quick summary of Lieberman-Warner, please go here.