Senator Kerry and “Ma’am” Boxer have developed their own Senate version of Cap-and-Tax to complement the Waxman-Markey idiocy that passed the house earlier this year.
I just joined Energy Citizens to start fighting back against this assault on the economy. We weren’t in a position to absorb these additional costs before the recession, much less now. And keep in mind that Energy Tomorrow is another terrific resource for citizen activists; the information there is kept updated by the folks at API, who are expert at providing data in a way that even an English major such as I can understand. Their blog, BTW, is here. (Most of the heavy blog-lifting is done by my dear friend Jane, who—full disclosure—bought me two hamburbers and a couple of beers last time I was in Long Beach. She and API also picked up the costs of the room I stayed in the night before the THUMS tour. That was the practical way to handle it, given how early things got underway the next morning.)
The economic impact of cap-and trade is quite frightening. Sacrificing the country’s financial future to save the environment is not going to work, no matter how good the intentions of the congresscritters who passed Cap-and-Trade, and no matter how righteous the Senate feels about its own version thereof. Clean air, maximum use of renewables, and sensible carbon policies can only happen when the economy is healthy.
BTW, here is the official statement on the Senate version of Cap-and-Trade from Jack Gerard of API:
Unfortunately, the Kerry-Boxer legislation is beginning to look a lot like the House’s Waxman-Markey bill, and a loser for American consumers. We can do better. If the Kerry-Boxer approach mimics the House bill, as early indications suggest, it will undermine our energy security by making American consumers more reliant on foreign sources of refined products, kill jobs and increase fuel costs.
America needs all the jobs we can get and our economy will need energy from all sources to fuel a recovery and sustain economic growth.
The 9.2 million workers supported by the oil and natural gas industry have a hard time understanding how America’s economy will be better by threatening or eliminating their jobs and the jobs of those who depend on the energy they produce. And with America depending on fossil fuels for a substantial portion of its energy, many American consumers will wonder why their elected leaders in Washington are supporting policies that will likely raise energy costs and constrict supplies without delivering a realistic and measurable benefit to the environment.
Analysis has shown Waxman-Markey would drive fuel prices up to between $4 and $5 a gallon and double our dependence on imports of gasoline and other fuels. We strongly encourage the Senate to not follow the House example.
This bill is a terrible, terrible idea. I can see why the the environmental extremists would want to try it, though: if 2010 is likely to be a blood bath for the House Democrats—and it is—there are those on the left who will want to go even faster to get their legislative goals achieved before the voters blow the whistle and tell everyone (well, a lot of people) to get out of the pool.
The problem is that the economy is in such delicate shape right now that it can only take so many more body blows: unemployment is the worst it’s been in decades. Ace (who may or may not be speaking to me at the moment, come to think of it) is furious about the unempolyment rate, and his language is starting to wax vulgar again—bog-advertisers or no:
Among those Democrats cheerleading against America were the Leftwing Media, who relentlessly talked up “discouraged workers” as greatly adding to Bush’s relatively low unemployment rate.
Now that Obama’s in office, no one in the Leftwing Media wants to talk about discouraged workers anymore. The stat has all but disappeared — it’s mentioned on occasion, but not masturbated over on television as it was during the Bush years.
So let’s take a moment to note the true unemployment rate, when discouraged workers are taken into account — 17%.
Seven. Fucking. Teen. Percent. Over one sixth of the entire workforce.
But by all means: let’s create a huge new bureaucracy in charge of, essentially, taxing the energy we refuse to develop adequately. The Kerry-Boxer bill at least encourages a few new nuclear power plants, but of course what we need now are a lot more nuclear power plants, and massive expansion of oil and natural gas develoment. We will have renewables as they become more economical, but they aren’t where they need to be, yet—and in the meantime, we have to “water the plants” of economic activity with fossil fuels and nukes, while solar and wind pick up the slack when they can, and biodiesel chips in on the weekends.
We’re still a few breakthroughs away from using renewables as heavily as we’d like to, and we can’t force the transition until the new technologies are ready. The existing infrastructure still needs to last us another 20 or 30 years.
But what Cap and Trade does is tax energy production, increase our dependency on foreign oil, hit what remains of manufacturing in this country with a baseball bat, and lose us even more jobs.
And I’m afraid it gets better (worse):
President Obama’s energy “czar” Carol Browner hinted today that the EPA might implement a cap and trade plan for carbon dioxide emissions even if that type of plan fails in the Senate. In other words, if our elected leaders recognize that enough Americans oppose a cap and trade system and the energy tax is defeated, the government is preparing to impose it on us anyway.
That’s from the blog at Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions site, which is also an awesome resource, and—unlike Energy Tomorrow and Energy Citizens—covers economic issues as well as energy problems. It summarizes both versions of Cap-and-Trade (plus, the “stealth” bill, which would be having the EPA impose a lot of the same policies on us if our legislators don’t–taxation without the muss and fuss of representation):
[T]hink about how these expenses would affect you and your family. This new tax [Cap and Trade] would:
1. Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent.
2. Raise electricity rates 90% after adjusting for inflation.
3. Raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year.
4. Raise residential natural gas prices by 55%.
5. Destroy 1-3 million jobs per year, every year until 2035.
American Solutions also has a petition for you to sign against Cap and Trade, so go for it.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 0 comments… add one now }