> the US cutting emissions would basically have an insignificant effect globally

The US accounts for 15% of global emissions while containing only 4% of the population. 15% isn't insignificant. The US also has the bulk of historical emissions - you know the stuff that's already in the environment causing problems. Maybe the US should step up and accept some responsibility for this mess instead of complaining about India and China.

1. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emi...

I wouldn't read anything into that zero votes thing. Bills come up in the Senate for all sorts of reasons. Lobbyists run the bidding process. If they pork it up enough (like, say, CARES act) it will pass. In the end it may not have any of the horrible features that radio show has you worrying about. Besides there's nothing wrong with solar and wind power. They're less centralized than the competition, they're at least as economical, and they cause less pollution. Throwing a few subsidies their way (especially if they're focused on domestic manufacture) isn't going to seriously hurt anyone, although it might make Elon even more smug. Haven't you heard? Subsidies are free. We can print as many dollars as we need. That's how they fight all these ridiculous wars.

If I thought, as you seem to think, that we're going to get a "green dictatorship" I would be more worried. After all, as TFA has it, top-down control isn't required:

Meanwhile, during the same 20-year period, the United States reduced the share of fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption from 85.7 percent to 80 percent, cutting almost exactly as much as Germany did. The conclusion is as surprising as it is indisputable. Without anything like the expensive, target-mandated Energiewende, the United States has decarbonized at least as fast as Germany, the supposed poster child of emerging greenness.

(The "civil war" is going to come when Mike Pence gets a constitutional amendment passed about who is allowed in what public bathroom.)