October 14, 2009 12:49 PM

Saudi Arabia Wants Compensation if Global Warming Bill Passes

Joe Romm, over at Climate Progress, passes on the news that Saudi Arabia has been lobbying for compensation to offset their financial losses if the world begins to wean itself off of oil. He finds it outrageous.

I do as well. But could someone explain how this is really any different than what the coal industry has successfully done? Like Saudi Arabia, they have profited mightily for decades in selling a product that is a prime contributor to global warming. They have spent hundreds of millions of dollars successfully bamboozling the press into thinking for years that the climate scientists weren't sure. And now they want to be compensated, to the tune of literally tens of billions of dollars. And they convinced the House of Representatives that they were right.

As someone once said, where is the outrage about that? It is not as if the House legislation is going to take care of the mineworkers - that would be more just and far less expensive.