The Heritage Foundation - Leadership for America

One of the latest environmentalist attempts to do an end run around the legislative process on global warming is to try and get the polar bear listed as an endangered species due to habitat destruction from global warming. The bears would be the first species listed as threatened with extinction primarily because of global warming. Not wanting to rely solely on the  Bush administration, environmentally minded Democrats in the House recently submitted the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008, which aims to create a more environmentally favorable energy sector by manipulating the tax code.

The Heritage Foundation has obtained an early summary of the bill and can report that it contains tax credits for biodiesel fuel production and distribution. One problem: the journal Science just published two studies showing that the use of biofuel crops actually increases total carbon emissions rather than reducing them. The Democrat bill would therefore give tax breaks to companies that are helping to kill polar bears.

Now nobody really believes that Democrats hate the polar bears. But these are the kinds of inconvenient truths that come along when policy makers try “to do something” when the science is not settled.