What Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper REALLY THINKS about climate change – and more importantly, what public policies and tax schemes he might favor – is something that deserves MUCH MORE SCRUTINY beyond his recent tap dance at a mining conference in Denver.

Let’s start here…

In December, a month before Hickenlooper entered the Colorado governor’s race, he attended the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Stateside, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made a splash with an “endangerment finding” that carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion: “With cap and trade blown apart in the Senate, the White House has chosen to impose taxes and regulation across the entire economy under clean-air laws that were written decades ago and were never meant to apply to carbon.”

In Copenhagen, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman asked Hickenlooper what he thought about the EPA’s action. [Full transcript at this link.]

“I think the EPA stepping in – clearly CO2 and methane, these six gases, are pollutants, there can’t be any question,” he said. “So there shouldn’t be a lot of discussion about whether the EPA has the jurisdiction or the authority. I think the devil will be in the details.”

So far, so bad. Hickenlooper went on to discuss whether Pres. Obama can achieve political consensus on climate change.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mMPnei6AFk]

[The video above is queued up to 5:40.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b68Rk94jPDk

“It reminds me a little bit of slavery, of Lincoln having to deal…If you look at how moderate Lincoln was in 1856, 1858, 1859, even as he was getting elected [president], it’s an intergenerational problem that has been, you know, intensely polarizing. I think what Obama is trying to do is thread the needle and bring the country together around this issue.”

Say WHAT?

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