Jon Krosnick, professor of communication, political science and psychology at Stanford, has this op/ed in the NY Times today.  First let's look at the set-up:

ON Thursday, the Senate will vote on a resolution proposed by Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, that would scuttle the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to limit emissions of greenhouse gases by American businesses. Passing the resolution might seem to be exactly what Americans want. After all, national surveys released during the last eight months have been interpreted as showing that fewer and fewer Americans believe that climate change is real, human-caused and threatening to people. But a closer look at these polls and a new survey by my Political Psychology Research Group show just the opposite: huge majorities of Americans still believe the earth has been gradually warming as the result of human activity and want the government to institute regulations to stop it.

In our survey, which was financed by a grant to Stanford from the National Science Foundation, 1,000 randomly selected American adults were interviewed by phone between June 1 and Monday. When respondents were asked if they thought that the earth’s temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years, 74 percent answered affirmatively. And 75 percent of respondents said that human behavior was substantially responsible for any warming that has occurred. For many issues, any such consensus about the existence of a problem quickly falls apart when the conversation turns to carrying out specific solutions that will be costly. But not so here.

and then conclusion:

All this makes global warming a singular issue in American politics. Even as we are told that Americans are about equally divided into red and blue, a huge majority shares a common vision of climate change. This creates a unique opportunity for elected representatives to satisfy a lot of voters. When senators vote on emissions limits on Thursday, there is one other number they might want to keep in mind: 72 percent of Americans think that most business leaders* do not want the federal government to take steps to stop global warming. A vote to eliminate greenhouse gas regulation is likely to be perceived by the nation as a vote for industry, and against the will of the people.

In between Krosnick presents his survey numbers to show that Americans "want the federal government to take steps to stop global warming."  Meanwhile Organic Dragonwell is selling for $33.95 a pound.

What? Oh, wait. I thought we were pricing Chinese tea here, not talking about the Murkowski resolution. You see the resolution does not stop the federal government from taking steps to control greenhouse gases, it stops the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act -- these are very different things. Let's look at our letter, my underline:

There is significant consensus that the Clean Air Act is an imprecise, impractical, and unworkable process to regulate greenhouse gas emissions...Other purported endangerment “fixes” are illusory, impractical, and potentially illegal. EPA may attempt to promulgate a rule ostensibly intended to address ancillary impacts of the endangerment finding; such a regulation would likely be invalidated by the courts...Support for S.J. Res. 26 should not be misrepresented as a vote against greenhouse gas emissions legislation. The Chamber supports efforts to address energy security and climate change, and believes that any legislation must be comprehensive and bipartisan, and take into account a wide spectrum of issues including American jobs and our economy.

Prof. Krosnick is by all indications a smart man at a smart school and I am sure that he misrepresents with good intent. But the simple fact is greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA is not our last best hope for addressing climate change -- it is confusing, miserable, and unjust. A vote for this amendment is a vote for a better way, a way that the world will follow and forever applaud.

*Some irony as a little bonus -- earlier on in his piece Krosnick complains about folks having "their views portrayed inaccurately."