MacIver News Service –
[Madison, Wisconsin] Senator Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) co-Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Clean Energy made a stunning comment about the threat of Global Warming, just as his meeting concluded, Thursday.Plale informed his fellow Senators that the final bill, SB 450-dubbed by supporters as “The Clean Energy Jobs Act,” will undergo revisions as the legislative process continues. Plale told his colleagues and others in attendance “Now is the time to take the information we’ve gathered, start to put something together that is work that’s workable.”
Plale then stunned the audience with this admission about his position on the global warming debate: “I don’t know if the science is real or not.”
Yet, he argued, something needed to be done.
How sweeping that ‘something’ will be, is yet to be determined.
Right now, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau, SB 450 relates to:
“goals for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, for construction of zero net energy buildings and for energy conservation; information, analyses, reports, education, and training concerning greenhouse gas emissions and climate change; energy efficiency and renewable resource programs; renewable energy requirements of electric utilities and retail cooperatives; requiring electric utilities to purchase renewable energy from certain renewable facilities in their service territories; authority of the Public Service Commission over nuclear power plants; motor vehicle emission limitations; a low carbon standard for transportation fuels; the brownfield site assessment grant program, the main street program, the brownfields grant program, the forward innovation fund, grants to local governments for planning activities, the transportation facilities economic assistance and development program, a model parking ordinance; surface transportation planning by the Department of Transportation and metropolitan planning organizations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; environmental evaluations for transportation projects; idling limits for certain vehicles; energy conservation codes for public buildings, places of employment, one- and two-family dwellings, and agricultural facilities; design standards for state buildings; energy efficiency standards for certain consumer audio and video devices, boiler inspection requirements; greenhouse gas emissions and energy use by certain state agencies and state assistance to school districts in achieving energy efficiencies; creating an exception to local levy limits for amounts spent on energy efficiency measures; creating an energy crop reserve program; identification of private forest land, promoting sequestration of carbon in forests, qualifying practices and cost-share requirements under the forest grant program established by the Department of Natural Resources; air pollution permits for certain stationary sources reducing greenhouse gas emissions; allocating a portion of existing tax-exempt industrial development revenue bonding to clean energy manufacturing facilities and renewable power generating facilities; requiring a report on certain programs to limit greenhouse gas emissions; granting rule-making authority; requiring the exercise of rule-making authority; and providing a penalty.”