Companies pulling out of cap-n-trade partnership

Like the best hemorrhoid treatments do to hemorrhoids, market forces appear to finally be forcing global warming measures to the sidelines where they belong. Word is that several companies have pulled out of the US Climate Action Partnership; the latest to jump off are BP, ConocoPhillips and Caterpiller, though they are not alone.

The USCAP existed to help government and business to cooperate on shepherding emission cap legislation… including the notorious “cap and trade” bill… through Congress and into law. Less then a year ago, the measure seemed to be coasting toward approval, but now with a souring economy, more and more companies are not anxious to enact measures that may have minimal environmental impact while skyrocketing the price of goods and services.

Said ConocoPhillips’ senior VP for governmental affairs Red Cavaney, “USCAP was starting to do more and more on trying to get a bill out without trying to work as much on the substance of it.”

Of course, while Bill Clinton forged the path of symbolism over substance in the 1990s with his “politics of meaning,” the scam has been forged into an art by folks like Algore, his zittoheads and President Barak Obama.

Certainly, however, this distancing from global warming-inspired legislation has been helped in no small part by one of the coldest, snowiest winters in quite some time; as one GOP lawmaker recently commented, wryly, “Word is the snowstorms ain’t gonna stop until Al Gore cries uncle.”

If only…