General Discussion

kpete

(71,980 posts) Mon May 21, 2018, 03:59 PM May 2018

"I wouldn't trust his silly ass to pour piss out of a boot if instructions were written on the heel"

At 91, John Dingell doesn't get around the way he used to, so he's letting his fingers do the walking — and the talking.

The legendary Michigan congressman has turned himself into the self-styled "dean of Twitter," tapping tart tweets for 239,000 followers.

One thing hasn't changed: Just as he did during his record-setting 30-term run in the House of Representatives, Dingell speaks his mind.

"When something needs to be said," the gravelly-voiced Dingell declared in an interview from his home in Dearborn, Mich., "I say it."

In his book, "The Dean: The Best Seat in the House, from FDR to Obama," slated to come out in early July, Dingell will spin tales of his more than 59 years on Capitol Hill. He's also sounding the alarm about the Trump administration's handling of energy and environmental issues.

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If you look at what Trump has done, Trump has not filled hardly a job. The end result is you have this huge array of empty jobs in every area of government, I don't care if it's law enforcement or environment or Food and Drug [Administration] or NEPA or the handling of the different problems that they've got on immigration or whatever it might happen to be.

Let's talk about climate change.

Nobody understands how the hell this is going to be addressed. This is one of the most complex scientific problems that we've got in the world. It covers every nation, it covers the oceans, it covers the land masses, it covers different kinds of economies and nations, and everybody's trying to deal with it, but nobody knows exactly what in the hell they have to do to make the situation come to a head and get it done to the point where there's a decision.

You've said the Clean Air Act was not intended to regulate greenhouse gases. Do you still believe that?

It was not the intention of the Congress to have greenhouse gases be regulated by the Clean Air Act. Republicans and Democrats and everybody in the Congress was of clear decision that it could not be used to regulate, the Clean Air Act. It will have a huge impact on clean air, and that's very, very important because you reduce CO2 or methane or any of these other things other than things that are the product of global warming. The courts came up with some crazy idea that it did cover these substances as pollutants when in fact they're not.

Is there a policy solution for tackling climate change?

First of all, we haven't got a policy. Second of all, we don't know what we all have to do. Third of all, developing countries all want to develop the lands so they can have the good things you and I have got.

If you had been chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2008, would we have cap and trade?

Well, cap and trade was a suggestion. I got to say cap and trade was not done in a way or a fashion which enabled it to be enacted into law. The Congress tries occasionally to write legislation that protects the country against sloppily written legislation.

And now we no longer have regular order, we no longer have the committee system, and you've got guys like Trump coming who know nothing about anything. He knows more about making a shoe than he does about writing a tax law. But he's writing tax laws. I wouldn't trust his silly ass to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.

the rest:
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060082125?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWkRSaE9EaG1NekZtTTJObCIsInQiOiJrekR2KzVVY09pOEFjZFljNXpmMmNXZzZud3EydlNoNEpkaVNtMFJBRXNcL3pNWXVzbnBTbDBHS21OVEVjSGw4bjJvZ0R6Vk1cL3RKNlwvNndJelVIMmZ1Y3dIQXVuVEREYjRqTk1tS3k1WFhuXC80cm9oWW9ZdkpsUkF1TXF0MWo4czUifQ%3D%3D