The Breck Girl Claims His Mansion Is Carbon Neutral

RUSH: Dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut. Special dedication time, ladies and gentlemen. Info babe and reporterette Carol Costello at CNN, this is for you.

(Playing of ‘I am Woman’ parody song.)

RUSH: That’s our John Edwards Breck Girl Update Theme Song, dedicated exclusively today to Carol Costello, info babe extraordinaire at CNN. Well, the Breck Girl was on CNN. He was on American Morning yesterday, and the cohost Miles O’Brien asked him this question. He said, Breck Girl, ‘I gotta ask you about the house, though. You’ve got a house that’s 10,000 square feet, the whole compound is 28,000 square feet, and that isn’t even complete it. There’s a whole other wing that we’re not showing you there,’ and, of course, Miles didn’t mention the 2,800 square feet beach house on some island there in southern North Carolina. ‘First of all, what’s your power bill every month there?’

EDWARDS: It’s actually not bad. First of all, I have the 10,000 square feet house, which is where we live, is a five-star energy rated house, which is a federal government rating. It’s extraordinarily energy efficient. We use solar to power part of the energy needs of our house, and I might add, we have — Elizabeth, myself, my family — we’ve committed to operate this house in a carbon neutral way, which means in addition to using energy-saving devices in the house itself, to the extent that doesn’t cover it, we’re going to purchase carbon credits on the market.

RUSH: Oh, wonderful. So the carbon credit scam now extends from former Vice President Algore to the Breck Girl, and the dutiful wife Elizabeth’s out there changing out all the lightbulbs, putting in these compact fluorescents. Speaking of which, a Democrat lawmaker has introduced a bill that would ban the sale of traditional incandescent lightbulbs, the old Thomas Edison lightbulbs. It would ban them. ‘A Democratic lawmaker has introduced a bill that would ban the sale of traditional incandescent light bulbs – which are less energy-efficient, prompting claims that they contribute to ‘global warming’ – one day after a colleague told a press conference that legislating a ban would be a ‘last choice.’ As Cybercast News Service reported last week, Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.) and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) held a news conference Wednesday calling for more efficient lighting options, and Manzullo said ‘the last thing we want to do is force legislation down people’s throats.’ One day later, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) introduced legislation that would set target dates for certain types of light bulbs to be prohibited for sale in the United States.’

RUSH: These people are getting more and more out of control. A bill to ban regular lightbulbs has been introduced in the House of Representatives! ‘Harman calls the bill ‘an important first step toward making every household, business and public building in America more energy-efficient.” Now, I gave you a brief, simple definition between conservatism and liberalism about a half hour ago on this program, and this is a great illustration here of liberalism. You people are too stupid to know what to drive. You’re too stupid to know how to manage your lives. You’re too stupid to budget. You’re too stupid to go out and put the proper lightbulbs in your house. So the Democrats in Congress, figuring you to be the fool and idiot you are, are going to ban the sale of ‘traditional lightbulbs.’ That’s what they want to do. Now, this is clearly so over the top, it’s to be laughable. But I’ve warned you, this is where they’re headed. This is the kind of thing that’s happening.

When Algore is up there saying that we can cure global warming without any harm whatsoever to our economy — right! These things are not carbon neutral. There are all kinds of disposal problems that you have with these bulbs because they have mercury in them. You drop one of these things and you gotta have haz-mat people come out. You drop one and break one in your house, keep the animals away (Keep grandma away unless it’s time for her to go), and bring the haz-mat people out and clean the place out. It can be arduous. It can be a mess. Anyway, the Breck Girl is out there now saying that his house is carbon neutral. I just want to tell you, as a functioning concept that’s impossible because we exhale — and because we exhale, there’s no way of neutralizing that. You can’t hold your breath all your life, and there’s no way that you can go around and make up for all the exhalations. Even beyond that, the idea that the Breck Girl’s house is entirely carbon neutral is absurd, as is the carbon offsets or the carbon credit scam. Miles O’Brien, though, not satisfied with that politically correct answer, says, ‘Well, what’s your power bill? We’re all just dying to know here. What’s your power bill.’

EDWARDS: (Giggles girlishly.) I’m not telling you.

O’BRIEN: You’re not going to tell me? Why?

EDWARDS: It’s actually not bad. It’s about three, $400 the last one I saw.

O’BRIEN: Three or $400 for 28,000 square feet? Boy, I want to move there! Orange County, North Carolina is the place to go! I pay more than that for 2,000 square feet in Manhattan.

EDWARDS: But we live in part of the house and part of the house is being constructed, as you pointed out. So the part that we’re living in, the power bill is extraordinarily energy efficient. The power bill is several hundred dollars a month.

RUSH: Now, wait a second. He has 28,000 square feet of living space but doesn’t live in all of it, doesn’t use all of it. He lives in a portion of it, and the rest is under construction. Can we assume here that some of the parts under construction are not yet under HVAC? You know, the big power drain and so forth? What did he say, three to $400 bucks the last bill he saw? Who else sees the bills? The last bill he saw was three or four hundred bucks, Breck Girl? Okay. I want you people in North Carolina to tell me if this is possible. How many you have 10,000 to 28,000 square foot properties and your electric bill is three to four hundred a month? I can tell you in Florida (laughing) this is an out-and-out lie if somebody were to say that.

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RUSH: I have to remind you about this carbon offset business. We spent a lot of time on this, but John Edwards, the Breck Girl, is saying his house is neutral. By the way, speaking of this, how much energy does construction use? You know, how do you offset the energy you use building a 28,000 square foot compound? I only ask. I don’t care, but you have a guy out here trying to make his bones on the fact that he’s environmentally neutral and all this. This is all such a scam. It’s all such a hoax. You have to understand this carbon offset term is code language for two things. Carbon offsets allow the person supposedly buying them to not reduce their energy use at all, to claim that their energy use is being ‘offset’ by the planting of trees or the investment in some newfangled technology or whatever. But there’s another way to define carbon offsets, and it’s code language for, quote, ‘I’m not willing to stop my over-the-top lifestyle because I use global warming hysteria to attain or keep my power. I’m using global warming as an excuse. To use and have a lot of power and so forth, I’m going to go out and get ‘carbon offsets’ as a means of making you idiots think that I am responsible and I’m cutting back my usage,’ when in fact nobody buying carbon offsets is reducing any of their consumption.

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RUSH: John in coastal North Carolina, nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Rush, thank you. I’m glad President Bush grew some stones. Johnny Donovan wannabe dittos.

RUSH: Johnny Donovan wannabe? Well, he’ll be thrilled! He will be thrilled. Johnny has to send us an e-mail every month to remind us he’s still there.

CALLER: And to send him his check.

RUSH: No, no, that happens automatically. Johnny, we’re just kidding. We love Johnny. Johnny’s the voice of this program, other than me.

CALLER: Absolutely. It is an honor and a privilege. You are my hero. The reason I called was the John Edwards lie. As I told the screener there, that is a damn lie, not just a regular lie.

RUSH: Which one? Which one are you talking about?

CALLER: Oh, the $300 electric bill.

RUSH: He said $300 to $400, last one he saw. That could have been five years ago.

CALLER: Well, it was probably longer than that. I live near the beach and don’t use the heat a whole lot, and have a house about a tenth of size of his, and mine is every $300 a month.

RUSH: You have a thousand square foot house?

CALLER: Well, not quite that small.

RUSH: Eighteen hundred square feet?

CALLER: Something like that.

RUSH: Okay. All right. You’ve got 2800 square foot house, something like that, and your bill is three to 400 a month, and you don’t use much heat.

CALLER: No, I don’t.

RUSH: You live in this house year round?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: What about summertime? You use air-conditioning?

CALLER: Now, I use air-conditioning.

RUSH: Well, what’s the electric bill then?

CALLER: Oh, it’s not quite double.

RUSH: That’s what I’m thinking.

CALLER: I choose to be comfortable.

RUSH: Who’s going to challenge him? He didn’t remember when the last bill was he saw, so it could have been any number of years or months ago. But you know he’s not going to produce his bills. He tried to get way with not telling Miles O’Brien what the answer to the question was.

CALLER: I did notice that. I did notice that. It kind of reminds me of what Mark Twain said about the lies.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: The three kinds of lies, the global warming thing. The three kind of lies are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

RUSH: Yeah, right. That’s true. Well, look, I appreciate the call out there, John, very much. Folks, how many of you bought this? He has a 28,000 square foot, ‘but we only live in a small portion of 10,000 square feet is all that we live in.’ Three to 400 bucks utility bill? Of course, it’s not all constructed. It’s still being built. What’s that cost? You know, you don’t run construction equipment at no charge.