By a party-line vote, the House Energy and Commerce Committee rejected an attempt to tie any limits on carbon in the US to the same limits in India and China. 

First off, it's good it failed. However...

When are these people going to get past the "well, he did it too!" school of international political strategy? The fact is, CO2 and other pollution are bad for us, as is reliance on fossil fuel controlled by nations that don't like us. They give us all the reasons we need to quit them, regardless of what others do.

The nations that get beyond them first will be ahead! Not only will we be cleaner, and more independent, but we will have the technologies a new world needs, and the now-more-polluted-than-us nations will come to us to buy what we have.

To try to retard action in our own best interest, on the grounds that the other guys haven't stopped yet, is to put them in charge of our policy. Is this GOP Congressman Mike Rogers's vision for America?

I grant that CO2 knows no national borders, so it would be far better if we all worked together on these issues. But a policy under which we tie for last in addressing them is just plain stupid. How 'bout we worry about what's best for us, and let the laggards follow, when they see that we were right?

[Link via climateark.org]