Obama is making “America has never done more to curb Carbon emissions…” noises. Based on nothing at all, Obama says:

“I am proud to say that the United States has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our history.”

I’m getting tired of this empty suit and his empty words.

Meanwhile, here is reality - in those bad old days of 2006:

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropped slightly last year even as the economy grew, according to an initial estimate released yesterday by the Energy Information Administration.

The 1.3 percent drop in CO{-2} emissions marks the first time that U.S. pollution linked to global warming has declined in absolute terms since 2001 and the first time it has gone down since 1990 while the economy was thriving. Carbon dioxide emissions declined in both 2001 and 1991, in large part because of economic slowdowns during those years.

In 2006 the U.S. economy grew 3.3 percent, a fact President Bush touted yesterday as he hailed the government’s “flash estimate” that the country’s carbon dioxide emissions dropped by 78 million metric tons last year.

“We are effectively confronting the important challenge of global climate change through regulations, public-private partnerships, incentives, and strong economic investment,” Bush said in a statement. “New policies at the federal, state, and local levels — such as my initiative to reduce by 20 percent our projected use of gasoline within 10 years — promise even more progress.” A number of factors helped reduce emissions last year, according to the government, including weather conditions that reduced heating and air-conditioning use, higher gasoline prices that caused consumers to conserve, and a greater overall reliance on natural gas.

And since you probably never heard about this from 2005:

In a surprise move that caught Europe’s smug moralists and the environmental movement’s noisy extremists flatfooted, the United States announced in Vientiane, Laos, last week that it was joining five other nations – China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia — in a new pact that offers a refreshing and effective alternative route to tackling the problem of climate change.

While given short shrift by the puzzled media, this is a big deal, in many ways.

First, it breaks the climate-change deadlock. This is the agreement that responsible scientists and public officials have been seeking since the failure of the Kyoto Protocol became evident at the global warming conclave in Delhi two years ago. Call it “Beyond Kyoto” – Way Beyond Kyoto.

Second, the new deal was negotiated and settled without the involvement of the United Nations or the European Union – a clear message from the United States that multilateralism does not have a single definition. In fact, according to The Guardian newspaper, the agreement – called the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate — was kept secret by President Bush from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, an uncompromising champion of Kyoto, during last month’s G8 meeting” in Scotland.

Third, the agreement comprises countries that account for 45% of the world’s population and about half the world’s economic output and greenhouse gas emissions, mainly carbon dioxide, implicated in raising surface temperatures. More Asian countries may soon join the pact.

Fourth and most important, it takes a pro-growth approach to combating the possibility of global warming in the century ahead. The new Beyond Kyoto agreement focuses on innovative technology as the antidote, not only to carbon-dioxide emissions but also to dirty air and economic deprivation. The very first statement in the pact is: “Development and poverty eradication are urgent and overriding goals internationally.”

That’s a stark contrast with Kyoto’s preference for hard CO2 targets, met through government directives, to reduce energy use. Development is an afterthought.

And, just a reminder:

An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief.

On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year’s levels and that the deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago. The rising tide in tax payments has been building for months, but the increased scale is surprising even seasoned budget analysts and making it easier for both the administration and Congress to finesse the big run-up in spending over the past year.

Tax revenues are climbing twice as fast as the administration predicted in February, so fast that the budget deficit could actually decline this year.

The main reason is a big spike in corporate tax receipts, which have nearly tripled since 2003, as well as what appears to be a big increase in individual taxes on stock market profits and executive bonuses.

On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that corporate tax receipts for the nine months ending in June hit $250 billion — nearly 26 percent higher than the same time last year — and that overall revenues were $206 billion higher than at this point in 2005.

Those bad old days of 2005-2006, when Bush was such an atrocious president that we elected the Democrats into congress, to fix everything.

A nice link from Hot Air, thanks, Ed!