June 3, 2025
A very hot topic in the news lately is the Republican’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBB) that passed the House by a razor-thin margin and is now before the Senate. As with many bills of this kind, there are good things, and not-so-good things, in it. And, predictably, the Democrats are 100% against the bill, and even some Republicans have issues with it.
There will be much activity in the Senate for members to get things taken out they don’t like, or to moderate things to make them more acceptable.
And like so many others, this one breaks a common-sense idea about legislation. The OBBB is 1,100 pages long and proposes tax cuts and spending cuts, as well as several other subjects that are not related to each other. The bill contains many things that Republicans and President Donald Trump like and want, hence its title.
However, as a practical matter, bills before Congress should address 1 item, or maybe a couple that are very closely related, and not be as long as, or longer than, a best-selling novel.
Bills are often used to sneak in a controversial topic that a small number of the members support. It might get passed because the primary topic or topics are very popular, and voting against the bill because of the sneaked-in aspect would not sit well with constituents. Also, having a number of different topics in a bill makes it longer and harder to get through, as well as more difficult to understand and to develop a level of support or opposition.
Ideas about changes to the OBBB are being suggested. The Club for Growth, for example, has a list of 21 “potential improvements,” including:
* Full and immediate repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act
* Cut marginal tax rates for individuals
* Reduction to Corporate Income Tax rate
* Enhance the qualified business income deduction from 23% to 40%
* Reduction of capital gains and dividends taxation/investment income
* Index Capital Gains to Inflation
* Allow all Americans to save for their futures tax-free through Universal Savings Accounts
* Prohibit funding for sanctuary cities
* Eliminate the SALT deduction
* Extend Work Requirements to all anti-poverty welfare benefit programs
* Sell federal land
There are also a few articles dealing with the environment that are not widely available. Some of them challenge the popular narrative, while others discuss topics less common than those to which we are accustomed.
Dr. Roy Spencer is a former NASA scientist, climatologist, author, and former Visiting Fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment. He offered this information in a Heritage Foundation article.
“Warming of the global climate system over the past half-century has averaged 43 percent less than that produced by computerized climate models used to promote changes in energy policy. In the United States during summer, the observed warming is much weaker than that produced by all 36 climate models surveyed here.
“While the cause of this relatively benign warming could theoretically be entirely due to humanity’s production of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning, this claim cannot be demonstrated through science. At least some of the measured warming could be natural. Contrary to media reports and environmental organizations’ press releases, global warming offers no justification for carbon-based regulation.”
Two “Key Takeaways” from the Heritage article are:
* Climate models that guide energy policy do not even conserve energy, a necessary condition for any physically based model of the climate system.
* Public policy should be based on climate observations—which are rather unremarkable—rather than climate models that exaggerate climate impacts.
Appearing in emails and elsewhere is this: “After nearly two decades of accelerating ice loss (with losses reaching about 142 billion tons per year from 2011–2020), Antarctica saw a dramatic shift between 2021 and 2023.
“During this period, satellite data (GRACE and GRACE-FO missions) show the Antarctic Ice Sheet gained about 108–119 billion tons of ice per year.
This gain was especially pronounced in four major glacier basins in East Antarctica (Totten, Moscow University, Denman, and Vincennes Bay), which had previously been rapidly losing mass.”
Another article discussed a lesser-known factor that affects our environment. “A recent scientific study confirms that changes in Earth’s orbit play a key role in triggering ice ages. These shifts, known as Milankovitch cycles, affect the planet's climate over tens of thousands of years by altering the amount of sunlight reaching Earth. Based on current orbital patterns, researchers estimate that the next ice age could begin within the next 11,000 years. This discovery deepens our understanding of Earth's long-term climate cycles and the natural forces that drive major environmental changes.”
And Researchers from ETH Zurich and the Carnegie Institution for Science say Earth is cooling far faster than we thought — and will turn into a dead, rocky planet like Mars much sooner than expected.
Our environment is very complex, with factors of which most people are unaware that affect it. They are rarely talked about outside of scientific circles. But they have an effect on the environment that cannot be ignored. We must always be aware of the “big picture” of our environment.
No comments:
Post a Comment