Claim:

"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, 'Having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,' and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States…

"The science is on our side on this one, and the science indicates that human activity is not the cause of all this global warming. And that in fact, nature is the cause, with solar flares, etc."

– Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on AM1280, a local radio station, 3/21/09 (thanks to The New York Times Green Inc. blog for highlighting the quote).

Truth:

We'll leave it to the authorities to decide whether Rep. Bachman's call to arms crosses the line of inciting violence.

As to the substance of her statement, the Congresswoman is way off the mark.

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Last week, we called out Bradford Plumer, Assistant Editor at The New Republic, for saying that he thought there is a "real case" for "waiting until later this year or early next year on cap and trade."

We had two points:

1. Once you start saying, "Why rush this?" it starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
2. There's been ample time to debate global warming legislation — after all, we've known for a generation that this is a problem we'll have to solve, and the first cap and trade bill was introduced in the Senate in 2003.

So, we are pleased to read today that Mr Plumer has clarified his point and now says "cap on carbon emissions can still pass this year."

Not only can a bill pass this year, it is absolutely critical that Congress seize this political opportunity to act. Here are three of many reasons why:

1. The longer we delay action, the more costly it will be to solve this crisis.
2. Scientists are warning that the worst case global warming scenarios are coming true.
3. Without U.S. action, it is unclear how successful international climate negotiations will be this December.

With strong leadership from the White House and key Congressional leaders, combined with constant grassroots pressure, we can pass a bill that will stop global warming and unleash a green energy revolution to put Americans back to work and get the U.S. economy back on track.

Not only can we, but we must.

Claim:

"Back door attempts in Congress to push through a global warming tax are heating up.

"It is our understanding that the Democrat Senate leadership is planning to move forward with a cap-and-trade bill, which would drastically limit levels of greenhouse gases that electrical, industrial, and transportation sectors can emit, tax them for what they do emit, and slap them with hefty fines if they exceed those emissions levels.

"Such a bill would put the brakes on our already slowed economy, forcing industries and businesses to slash jobs and to pass their taxes onto individuals and families in the form of price increases on commodities and energy. This would make it even more difficult for America to climb out of its current economic troubles. Making this worse, the whole basis for the policy — catastrophic human-induced global warming — is not even settled among scientists, who are growing increasingly skeptical, especially since we have been experiencing a decade-long cooling trend."

– From email sent by Dr. Richard Land, President of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Southern Baptist Convention, March 23, 2009.

Truth:

As we have written before, the proposal to set a market-based cap on America's global warming pollution is not a tax. No matter how times they say it, it's still not true.

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Claim

"'Cap-and-trade' is code for increasing taxes, killing American jobs and raising energy costs for consumers."

– Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), House Minority Leader, March 9, 2009

Truth

Opponents of global warming action certainly have their sound bites down.

For style and efficiency, Rep. Boehner gets an A (in 17 words, he certainly makes his point). For truth-telling, he gets a big fat F.

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FreedomWorks, a conservative inside-the-Beltway grassroots organization run by former House Majority Leader Dick Army (R-TX), recently released its Top 10 Reasons to Oppose Cap and Trade.

Their unsound arguments are standard fare for the climate skeptic cognoscenti. They rely on studies from hyper-conservative organizations with a history of catering to industry, while omitting more widely accepted studies, such as those from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It's also clear from their list that they don't have a specific problem with a proposal to cap global warming pollution, but rather with climate action in general—suggesting that they believe nothing should be done to address this crisis.

We respond to each of their arguments after the jump.

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