The Wall Street Journal: What are Sens. Snowe and Rockefeller Afraid of?

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Today’s lead editorial in The Wall Street Journal, “Global Warming Gag Order—Senators to Exxon: Shut up, and pay up,” hits Sens. Olympia Snowe and John D. Rockefeller IV’s letter to ExxonMobil telling the oil company to stop funding “global warming deniers” like the Competitive Enterprise Institute. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />

CEI, the Senators seem to believe, almost single-handedly has kept climate change proposals from being enacted. We particularly like these words from the editorial:

“We respect the folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, but we didn’t know until reading the Rockefeller-Snowe letter that they ran U.S. climate policy and led the mainstream media around by the nose, too. Congratulations.

“Let’s compare the balance of forces: on one side, CEI; on the other, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, the U.N. and EU, Hollywood, Al Gore, and every politically correct journalist in the country. We’ll grant that’s a fair intellectual fight. But if the Senators are so afraid that a handful of policy wonks at a single small think-tank are in danger of winning this debate, they must not have much confidence in the merits of their own case.”

While CEI has previously responded to the Snowe-Rockefeller missive, we welcome the Journal’s defense of free scientific debate—and our role in it. (Free subscription required for Wall Street Journal link.)