The Fickle Fracking Finger Of Fate
Leave it to Mecklenburg County’s own Becky Carney to showcase how by sheer ineptitude even an aggressively liberal Democrat can sometimes stumble onto the correct side of an important vote.
In Carney’s case it came when she hit the wrong button to override Gov Bev’s veto of the state’s fracking bill, which clears the way for North Carolina to pursue technology and drilling techniques used to extract natural gas from shale rock formations beneath the earth’s surface.
Carney’s blunder was key in helping override Perdue’s fracking veto, and for all Carney’s gnashing of teeth you’d think she had paved the way for wholesale slaughter of baby seals. This from WRAL:
Carney pointed out that she has voted against fracking in the past, and said she spent the day lobbying other Democrats to uphold the veto of Senate Bill 820.
“And then I push the green button,” she said.
Just after the vote, Carney’s voice could be heard on her microphone, saying “Oh my gosh. I pushed green.”
Carney said she turned her light on, but Speaker Thom Tillis would not recognize her, so she went to the front to speak to him.
“I made a mistake, and I tried to get recognized to change it, as people have been doing all night on other bills, and it was too late,” Carney said. “Because it would have changed the outcome of the vote.”
Under House rules, members can change their vote if they’ve made a mistake – unless the change would affect the bill’s passage.
“I feel rotten, and I feel tired,” Carney said. “And I feel that mistakes are made constantly when people are tired. And I feel rotten about it, but I take responsibility for my vote.”
What’s truly amazing about Carney’s blunder isn’t so much that a 10-year legislative veteran could make one, but rather that an otherwise intelligent woman has become so thoroughly brainwashed by liberal gibberish and enviro-scare tactics that she actually thinks her vote was a mistake, apologizing profusely for enabling legislation that will create upwards of 6,700 new jobs in a state crushed by persistently high unemployment, while adding more than $659 million annually to the state’s gross domestic product and generating nearly $485 million per year for state coffers.
At the same time, fracking has the very real potential to do what Al Gore and a whole army of misguided greenies with their wind turbines, solar panels, exploding Volts and job-killing EPA regulations couldn’t; specifically, lower carbon emissions in a demonstrable and meaningful way. This from John Hanger, former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection:
America’s energy related carbon emissions fell about 7.5%, during the first three months of 2012 compared to the same period of 2011. And first quarter 2012 emissions are approximately 8.5% lower than emissions in the first quarter of 2010.
Total energy carbon emissions were 5,473 million tons in 2011 and last year fell below the 1996 mark of 5,501 million tons.
The first quarter 2012 reduction of 7.5% makes it possible that this year emissions will fall back essentially to the 1990 level of 5,039 million tons. That is shockingly good news.
The 1990 level of carbon emissions is an important measuring stick, as it is often used as a critical data point for judging progress in reducing a nation’s carbon emissions.
Why are US carbon emissions plummeting back to 1990 levels?
First and foremost are sharp reductions from electric power production, as a result of fuel switching from coal to gas, rising renewable energy production, and increasing efficiency. Yet, the shale gas revolution, and the low-priced gas that it has made a reality, is the key driver of falling carbon emissions, especially in the last 12 months.
…
The bottom line is that America’s carbon emissions may drop back close to 1990 levels this year. That result would have been thought impossible, even at the end of 2011.
But the shale gas revolution makes a reality many things recently thought impossible. It was thought impossible to slash carbon US carbon emissions back to 1990 levels by 2012. It was thought impossible to massively, quickly cut carbon emissions and, at the same time, have lower energy bills.
Shale gas production has slashed carbon emissions and saved consumers more than $100 billion per year. Truly astonishing!
The Tar Heel state is on the leading edge of fracking astonishing, thanks to Carney’s vote. And she couldn’t be more crestfallen? Go figure.
And it’s not like North Carolina is going to go out next week and start drilling like mad fiends, although it might sound that way to hear the liberal media fret. The legislation approved with the veto override creates an Energy and Mining Commission that will study fracking and create regulations to oversee natural gas production. The commission is slated to complete its work by late 2014, at which point the General Assembly would need to take another vote before any drilling rigs and derricks could be permitted.
Hopefully if any Democrats are in a position to affect the outcome of that vote, they’ll have as much success as Carney did.
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