The guests on this show, which I've never seen before, touch on most of the basic issues surrounding the debate about man-caused global warming, what if anything can be done about it, and perhaps most-importantly, this country, (America) and this Administration's (Obama) proposed solutions. The video takes a long time to load, at least it did for me, but it is well worth watching.
Peter
Climate Depot’s Morano debates Global Warming with former Clinton Admin. Official Romm
Thursday, 09 April 2009 (source)
Green Politics - Part 1
Part II
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Oil Companies Wisely Steer Clear Of Most "Renewable" Sources Of Energy
The major oil companies are not known for being stupid, or they would not still be in business. Why would (or should) they invest in technology beyond their areas of expertise and in ways they consider un-economic? They are not in the business of drilling dry holes.
Unless of course they are owned by the government, like General Motors (GM) perhaps. Then the government can force them to waste their talent and resources. If the government imposes this insane "cap and trade" tax and other punitive measures on the oil and gas industry, America is in bigger trouble than we can imagine.
Peter
Oil Giants Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead
By JAD MOUAWAD (source)
The Obama administration wants to reduce oil consumption, increase renewable energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions in the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation.
But the world’s oil giants are not convinced that it will work. Even as Washington goes into a frenzy over energy, many of the oil companies are staying on the sidelines, balking at investing in new technologies favored by the president, or even straying from commitments they had already made.
Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it would freeze its research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus its alternative energy efforts on biofuels. The company had already sold much of its solar business and pulled out of a project last year to build the largest offshore wind farm, near London.
BP, a company that has spent nine years saying it was moving “beyond petroleum,” has been getting back to petroleum since 2007, paring back its renewable program. And American oil companies, which all along have been more skeptical of alternative energy than their European counterparts, are studiously ignoring the new messages coming from Washington.
“In my view, nothing has really changed,” Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said after the election of President Obama.
“We don’t oppose alternative energy sources and the development of those. But to hang the future of the country’s energy on those alternatives alone belies reality of their size and scale.”
The administration wants to spend $150 billion over the next decade to create what it calls “a clean energy future.” Its plan would aim to diversify the nation’s energy sources by encouraging more renewables, and it would reduce oil consumption and cut carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
The oil companies have frequently run advertisements expressing their interest in new forms of energy, but their actual investments have belied the marketing claims. The great bulk of their investments goes to traditional petroleum resources, including carbon-intensive energy sources like tar sands and natural gas from shale, while alternative investments account for a tiny fraction of their spending. So far, that has changed little under the Obama administration.
“The scale of their alternative investments is so mind-numbingly small that it’s hard to find them,” said Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “These companies don’t feel they have to be on the leading edge of this stuff.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, most investments in alternative sources of energy are coming from pockets other than those of the oil companies.
In the last 15 years, the top five oil companies have spent around $5 billion to develop sources of renewable energy, according to Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, an industry trade group. This represents only 10 percent of the roughly $50 billion funneled into the clean-energy sector by venture capital funds and corporate investors during that period, he said.
“Big Oil does not consider renewable energy to be a mainstream business,” Mr. Eckhart said. “It’s a side business for them.”
Shell, for example, said it spent $1.7 billion since 2004 on alternative projects. That amount is dwarfed by the $87 billion it spent over the same period on its oil and gas projects around the world. This year, the company’s overall capital spending is set at $31 billion, most of it for the development of fossil fuels.
Industry executives contend that comparing investments in oil and gas projects with their research efforts in the renewable field is misleading. They say that while renewable fuels are needed, they are still at an early stage of development, and petroleum will remain the dominant source of energy for decades.
In its long-term forecast, Exxon says that by 2050, hydrocarbons — including oil, gas, and coal — will account for 80 percent of the world’s energy supplies, about the same as today.
“Renewable energy is very real,” David J. O’Reilly, the chief executive of Chevron, said in a speech in New York last November. “We need it. It will be an essential part of the future I envision. But it’s not realistic to suppose we can replace conventional energy in a timeframe that some suggest.”
Chevron has spent about $3.2 billion since 2002 on “renewable and alternative energy and energy efficiency services,” according to Alexander Yelland, a spokesman. It plans to spend $2.7 billion in the three years through 2011 on a variety of projects, including a business that helps improve energy efficiency for companies and government agencies, he said.
Despite Washington’s newfound green enthusiasm, industry executives argue that replacing any significant part of the fossil fuel business will take decades, at best. Just to keep up with growth in demand for conventional sources of energy, producers will need to invest more than $1 trillion each year from now to 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.
“Many of these companies see the world is changing,” said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and a historian of the industry. “But the challenge for a very large company is to get critical scale. People tend to forget the scale of the energy business.”
The world consumes about 85 million barrels of oil a day. The United States alone would require six times its arable land — and 75 percent of the world’s cultivated land — to supply its needs with ethanol made from corn, according to calculations by Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba.
More realistic, and modest, targets are proving tough to reach. Congress’s ethanol mandate, which requires oil companies to use 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2020, cannot be achieved, experts say, without major technological advances that are still years away.
To increase supplies, most companies are looking to tar sands in Canada or converting coal or natural gas into liquid fuels, technologies that emit far more carbon dioxide than conventional oil does.
Shell, a major investor in Alberta in Canada, says that traditional oil supplies will not be enough to meet the growth in the world’s energy needs over the next half-century. In 2007, BP invested in Canadian tar sands, prompting criticism that it was “recarbonizing” itself.
John M. Deutch, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former director of central intelligence, said there was little point in criticizing oil companies without first establishing federal rules that set a price on carbon dioxide emissions. Once that happens, he said, companies will adapt their strategies.
“What role will oil companies play in the future in alternatives to conventional hydrocarbon? The correct answer is nobody knows,” Mr. Deutch said. “The important thing is for the government to establish a carbon policy. You can be absolutely confident that oil companies will pursue that, as will any other companies.”
One area where companies are increasingly focused is the development of liquid fuels from plants. BP said it would soon build a demonstration plant in Florida for a type of ethanol made from plant material; Shell has worked with several firms since 2002 to develop ethanol from nonfood crops. Last year, it signed agreements with six companies, including one in Brazil, and decided to drop its other renewable efforts to focus solely on biofuels.
“Biofuels feels closest to our core business,” said Darci Sinclair, a company spokeswoman.
Other areas also hold significant promise for the industry, like technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions and store them underground, and energy-efficiency programs, especially in the transportation sector. Exxon, long the most skeptical of the oil companies toward alternative energy investments, is working on long-term programs to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions.
In the end, many analysts say they believe that oil companies are waiting for a winning technology to emerge. Alan Shaw, the chief executive of Codexis, a biotechnology company in Silicon Valley that works with Shell, said oil companies were not blind to the new political reality but they were also in the business of making a profit.
“Don’t lose heart with Big Oil,” Mr. Shaw said. “They aren’t at a point where they are ready to invest yet, but they are getting there. I think in the next 10 years, they will invest hundreds of times more than they have in the past 10 years.”
Unless of course they are owned by the government, like General Motors (GM) perhaps. Then the government can force them to waste their talent and resources. If the government imposes this insane "cap and trade" tax and other punitive measures on the oil and gas industry, America is in bigger trouble than we can imagine.
Peter
Oil Giants Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead
By JAD MOUAWAD (source)
The Obama administration wants to reduce oil consumption, increase renewable energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions in the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation.
But the world’s oil giants are not convinced that it will work. Even as Washington goes into a frenzy over energy, many of the oil companies are staying on the sidelines, balking at investing in new technologies favored by the president, or even straying from commitments they had already made.
Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it would freeze its research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus its alternative energy efforts on biofuels. The company had already sold much of its solar business and pulled out of a project last year to build the largest offshore wind farm, near London.
BP, a company that has spent nine years saying it was moving “beyond petroleum,” has been getting back to petroleum since 2007, paring back its renewable program. And American oil companies, which all along have been more skeptical of alternative energy than their European counterparts, are studiously ignoring the new messages coming from Washington.
“In my view, nothing has really changed,” Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said after the election of President Obama.
“We don’t oppose alternative energy sources and the development of those. But to hang the future of the country’s energy on those alternatives alone belies reality of their size and scale.”
The administration wants to spend $150 billion over the next decade to create what it calls “a clean energy future.” Its plan would aim to diversify the nation’s energy sources by encouraging more renewables, and it would reduce oil consumption and cut carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
The oil companies have frequently run advertisements expressing their interest in new forms of energy, but their actual investments have belied the marketing claims. The great bulk of their investments goes to traditional petroleum resources, including carbon-intensive energy sources like tar sands and natural gas from shale, while alternative investments account for a tiny fraction of their spending. So far, that has changed little under the Obama administration.
“The scale of their alternative investments is so mind-numbingly small that it’s hard to find them,” said Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “These companies don’t feel they have to be on the leading edge of this stuff.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, most investments in alternative sources of energy are coming from pockets other than those of the oil companies.
In the last 15 years, the top five oil companies have spent around $5 billion to develop sources of renewable energy, according to Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, an industry trade group. This represents only 10 percent of the roughly $50 billion funneled into the clean-energy sector by venture capital funds and corporate investors during that period, he said.
“Big Oil does not consider renewable energy to be a mainstream business,” Mr. Eckhart said. “It’s a side business for them.”
Shell, for example, said it spent $1.7 billion since 2004 on alternative projects. That amount is dwarfed by the $87 billion it spent over the same period on its oil and gas projects around the world. This year, the company’s overall capital spending is set at $31 billion, most of it for the development of fossil fuels.
Industry executives contend that comparing investments in oil and gas projects with their research efforts in the renewable field is misleading. They say that while renewable fuels are needed, they are still at an early stage of development, and petroleum will remain the dominant source of energy for decades.
In its long-term forecast, Exxon says that by 2050, hydrocarbons — including oil, gas, and coal — will account for 80 percent of the world’s energy supplies, about the same as today.
“Renewable energy is very real,” David J. O’Reilly, the chief executive of Chevron, said in a speech in New York last November. “We need it. It will be an essential part of the future I envision. But it’s not realistic to suppose we can replace conventional energy in a timeframe that some suggest.”
Chevron has spent about $3.2 billion since 2002 on “renewable and alternative energy and energy efficiency services,” according to Alexander Yelland, a spokesman. It plans to spend $2.7 billion in the three years through 2011 on a variety of projects, including a business that helps improve energy efficiency for companies and government agencies, he said.
Despite Washington’s newfound green enthusiasm, industry executives argue that replacing any significant part of the fossil fuel business will take decades, at best. Just to keep up with growth in demand for conventional sources of energy, producers will need to invest more than $1 trillion each year from now to 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.
“Many of these companies see the world is changing,” said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and a historian of the industry. “But the challenge for a very large company is to get critical scale. People tend to forget the scale of the energy business.”
The world consumes about 85 million barrels of oil a day. The United States alone would require six times its arable land — and 75 percent of the world’s cultivated land — to supply its needs with ethanol made from corn, according to calculations by Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba.
More realistic, and modest, targets are proving tough to reach. Congress’s ethanol mandate, which requires oil companies to use 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2020, cannot be achieved, experts say, without major technological advances that are still years away.
To increase supplies, most companies are looking to tar sands in Canada or converting coal or natural gas into liquid fuels, technologies that emit far more carbon dioxide than conventional oil does.
Shell, a major investor in Alberta in Canada, says that traditional oil supplies will not be enough to meet the growth in the world’s energy needs over the next half-century. In 2007, BP invested in Canadian tar sands, prompting criticism that it was “recarbonizing” itself.
John M. Deutch, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former director of central intelligence, said there was little point in criticizing oil companies without first establishing federal rules that set a price on carbon dioxide emissions. Once that happens, he said, companies will adapt their strategies.
“What role will oil companies play in the future in alternatives to conventional hydrocarbon? The correct answer is nobody knows,” Mr. Deutch said. “The important thing is for the government to establish a carbon policy. You can be absolutely confident that oil companies will pursue that, as will any other companies.”
One area where companies are increasingly focused is the development of liquid fuels from plants. BP said it would soon build a demonstration plant in Florida for a type of ethanol made from plant material; Shell has worked with several firms since 2002 to develop ethanol from nonfood crops. Last year, it signed agreements with six companies, including one in Brazil, and decided to drop its other renewable efforts to focus solely on biofuels.
“Biofuels feels closest to our core business,” said Darci Sinclair, a company spokeswoman.
Other areas also hold significant promise for the industry, like technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions and store them underground, and energy-efficiency programs, especially in the transportation sector. Exxon, long the most skeptical of the oil companies toward alternative energy investments, is working on long-term programs to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions.
In the end, many analysts say they believe that oil companies are waiting for a winning technology to emerge. Alan Shaw, the chief executive of Codexis, a biotechnology company in Silicon Valley that works with Shell, said oil companies were not blind to the new political reality but they were also in the business of making a profit.
“Don’t lose heart with Big Oil,” Mr. Shaw said. “They aren’t at a point where they are ready to invest yet, but they are getting there. I think in the next 10 years, they will invest hundreds of times more than they have in the past 10 years.”
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The Cost Of Believing In The Myth Of Man-Caused Global Warming
The cost to taxpayers and consumers of the proposed "cap and trade" control of carbon (dioxide) emissions by the Obama Administration is almost beyond comprehension. The following brief article puts things in perspective. This a nightmare waiting to happen. This is how Obama hopes to pay for his grand scheme of healthcare and education, and social justice for all. It really is insanity, and will destroy the real health and economy of the entire USA.
The Cost of Global Warming: A Story in Pictures
Written by Nick Loris, Heritage.org
Monday, 06 April 2009
It’s no secret policymakers in Washington want to dramatically change America’s energy policy by regulating carbon dioxide emissions. Their most popular idea, a cap and trade proposal, should really be read as a tax on energy consumption. Indeed, it’s a very large tax that compares with some of the largest government spending items in history.
This translates to real money stripped from real families - causing families to face difficult trade offs and make important budgetary decisions.
Whether they fall on businesses or consumer, higher taxes reduce economic growth. Higher taxes force companies to cut costs elsewhere, typically by reducing production and therefore cutting jobs. According to The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, job losses resulting from cap and trade will surpass 900,000 in some years. Keep in mind; this is net of any “green jobs” created.
Particularly hit hard is the manufacturing sector. Since fossil fuels generally make America’s economic engine run, especially the manufacturing sector, taxing fossil fuels would cause job losses to exceed two million in 2028 and 2029.
The Heritage Foundation’s Manufacturing Vulnerability Index measures a state’s direct and immediate vulnerability to an energy tax based on the extent of the state’s manufacturing workforce and its reliance on coal power generation. Taking a look at the map, the Midwest will suffer most.
And what should be the final nail in the coffin: All this economic pain is for very little, if any, environmental gain. Analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency concludes that if the U.S. reduces CO2 emissions 60 percent by 2050, it will reduce global temperature by 0.1 to 0.2 degree Centigrade by 2095. A multi–lateral approach wouldn’t fare much better. Why? Well, there’s a lot of reasons. After all, the science behind global warming is anything but conclusive, but one reason could be how small man’s contribution to carbon dioxide emissions is.
Peter
The Cost of Global Warming: A Story in Pictures
Written by Nick Loris, Heritage.org
Monday, 06 April 2009
It’s no secret policymakers in Washington want to dramatically change America’s energy policy by regulating carbon dioxide emissions. Their most popular idea, a cap and trade proposal, should really be read as a tax on energy consumption. Indeed, it’s a very large tax that compares with some of the largest government spending items in history.
This translates to real money stripped from real families - causing families to face difficult trade offs and make important budgetary decisions. Whether they fall on businesses or consumer, higher taxes reduce economic growth. Higher taxes force companies to cut costs elsewhere, typically by reducing production and therefore cutting jobs. According to The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, job losses resulting from cap and trade will surpass 900,000 in some years. Keep in mind; this is net of any “green jobs” created.
Particularly hit hard is the manufacturing sector. Since fossil fuels generally make America’s economic engine run, especially the manufacturing sector, taxing fossil fuels would cause job losses to exceed two million in 2028 and 2029.
The Heritage Foundation’s Manufacturing Vulnerability Index measures a state’s direct and immediate vulnerability to an energy tax based on the extent of the state’s manufacturing workforce and its reliance on coal power generation. Taking a look at the map, the Midwest will suffer most.
And what should be the final nail in the coffin: All this economic pain is for very little, if any, environmental gain. Analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency concludes that if the U.S. reduces CO2 emissions 60 percent by 2050, it will reduce global temperature by 0.1 to 0.2 degree Centigrade by 2095. A multi–lateral approach wouldn’t fare much better. Why? Well, there’s a lot of reasons. After all, the science behind global warming is anything but conclusive, but one reason could be how small man’s contribution to carbon dioxide emissions is.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Man-Caused Global Warming: An Update
Or call it man-caused climate change, or anthropogenic global warming, whatever you prefer. It is all a hoax, a big lie, and a scam. Now the Obama Administration, using the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) as a tool, is trying to ram it down our throats. We will pay dearly if his proposed legislation succeeds. This will be done without open debate, without a vote, in fact it represents a tremendous amount of taxation without representation. Weren't there wars fought over the violation of that right, the right to have a say in how one is taxed? Read on.
Peter
Thomas: Is it consensus or really censorship?
Cal Thomas Tribune Media Services (source)
The Environmental Protection Agency has submitted a "finding" to the White House Office of Management and Budget that will force the Obama administration to decide whether to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. If adopted, new laws and regulations will likely follow that have the potential to change our lifestyles and limit our freedoms. None of these will be preceded by debate, they will be imposed on us by fundamentalist politicians and scientists who have declared global warming as fact; end of discussion.
On the Discovery Channel last week, Tom Brokaw hosted a special called "Global Warming: The New Challenge." While promoting the piece, Brokaw declared, "there is a growing consensus that global warming is real and getting worse." Actually, there is a growing body of opinion that global warming is a fraud perpetrated by liberal politicians and their scientific acolytes who want more control over our lives.
Whenever politicians declare a crisis, or an emergency, watch out. Chances are this means they want to impose something before the public discovers the truth. One of the definitions of consensus is "general agreement or concord; harmony." Any honest assessment of scientific opinion leads to the conclusion that there is significant disagreement on global warming within the scientific community among those with expertise in climatology and related fields.
Yet many politicians want us to believe all of science is on board with manmade global warming and that we must act now to save the planet and ourselves from catastrophe (catastrophe is another word politicians like to use when imposing their agendas).You know something is up when prominent apostles of global warming, especially former vice president Al Gore, refuse to discuss the issue with any scientist who takes a contrary view.
For information that debunks the "science" of global warming visit www.globalwarminghoax.com.
For global warming fundamentalists, no amount of contradictory information will dilute their faith. Science makes mistakes, as did NASA when it published data on global warming trends in an effort to gauge the warmest years in U.S. history. Their temperature statistics were flawed. The year 1998 was not the hottest year on record, as NASA originally stated, it was 1934 -- the year Wiley Post discovered the jet stream.
In New York earlier this month, more than 600 scientists, economists, legislators and journalists from many nations met for the second International Conference on Climate Change. Numerous presentations debunked with documentation what they called the pseudoscience and dictatorial intentions promoted by the UN, the European Union and the Obama administration. If there was media coveraget, I missed it.
The keynote speaker at the gathering was Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic and the European Union. Klaus described environmentalism as a new collectivist religion that doesn't just want to change the climate, but us as well. Klaus rejected the executive summary published by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as all politics and environmental activism, "not science."
Truth is sometimes inconvenient, as Al Gore likes to say. But that cuts both ways. Truth can also be inconvenient when it shines light on propaganda. Not to allow for a full-fledged debate on global warming is censorship, a popular practice in totalitarian societies and many fundamentalist religions and cults.
Peter
Thomas: Is it consensus or really censorship?
Cal Thomas Tribune Media Services (source)
The Environmental Protection Agency has submitted a "finding" to the White House Office of Management and Budget that will force the Obama administration to decide whether to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. If adopted, new laws and regulations will likely follow that have the potential to change our lifestyles and limit our freedoms. None of these will be preceded by debate, they will be imposed on us by fundamentalist politicians and scientists who have declared global warming as fact; end of discussion.
On the Discovery Channel last week, Tom Brokaw hosted a special called "Global Warming: The New Challenge." While promoting the piece, Brokaw declared, "there is a growing consensus that global warming is real and getting worse." Actually, there is a growing body of opinion that global warming is a fraud perpetrated by liberal politicians and their scientific acolytes who want more control over our lives.
Whenever politicians declare a crisis, or an emergency, watch out. Chances are this means they want to impose something before the public discovers the truth. One of the definitions of consensus is "general agreement or concord; harmony." Any honest assessment of scientific opinion leads to the conclusion that there is significant disagreement on global warming within the scientific community among those with expertise in climatology and related fields.
Yet many politicians want us to believe all of science is on board with manmade global warming and that we must act now to save the planet and ourselves from catastrophe (catastrophe is another word politicians like to use when imposing their agendas).You know something is up when prominent apostles of global warming, especially former vice president Al Gore, refuse to discuss the issue with any scientist who takes a contrary view.
For information that debunks the "science" of global warming visit www.globalwarminghoax.com.
For global warming fundamentalists, no amount of contradictory information will dilute their faith. Science makes mistakes, as did NASA when it published data on global warming trends in an effort to gauge the warmest years in U.S. history. Their temperature statistics were flawed. The year 1998 was not the hottest year on record, as NASA originally stated, it was 1934 -- the year Wiley Post discovered the jet stream.
In New York earlier this month, more than 600 scientists, economists, legislators and journalists from many nations met for the second International Conference on Climate Change. Numerous presentations debunked with documentation what they called the pseudoscience and dictatorial intentions promoted by the UN, the European Union and the Obama administration. If there was media coveraget, I missed it.
The keynote speaker at the gathering was Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic and the European Union. Klaus described environmentalism as a new collectivist religion that doesn't just want to change the climate, but us as well. Klaus rejected the executive summary published by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as all politics and environmental activism, "not science."
Truth is sometimes inconvenient, as Al Gore likes to say. But that cuts both ways. Truth can also be inconvenient when it shines light on propaganda. Not to allow for a full-fledged debate on global warming is censorship, a popular practice in totalitarian societies and many fundamentalist religions and cults.
Cap-And-Trade Carbon Tax Insanity
Let us hope that the following writer is correct about the failure of the Obama Administration's ability to pass their proposed "cap-and-trade" carbon tax legislation. It truly will be a disaster if it passes. It is becoming clear Obama is taking actions in many areas of the economy without thoroughly considering the consequences. Driving up the cost of energy in a time of economic recession is pure insanity, but that is what is being proposed.
Peter
Obama's Tax Proposals Cap Economic Growth
Donald Lambro Friday, April 03, 2009 (source)
WASHINGTON -- I recently predicted that President Obama's cap-and-trade energy taxes would be the first casualty of his ambitious legislative agenda.
A bipartisan group of Senate Democrats and Republicans drove the first nail into its coffin by adding an amendment to the pending budget resolution. The amendment will deny carbon-emissions-tax supporters the use of a fast-track budget reconciliation rule to limit debate and pass their tax scheme by a simple majority, skirting the tougher 60-vote hurdle to end debate and quickly move to consideration of the measure.
Senate Democratic leaders do not have the 60 votes to bring cap-and-trade to an up-or-down vote. And even if they had 60 members of their party in the Senate, they would lose many, if not most, Midwestern and Gulf State Democrats who fear that Al Gore's so-called climate-change tax scheme on all carbon emissions would be the death knell of their states' oil- and gas-powered economies.
Wednesday's vote on an amendment by Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johanns was a major setback for the White House and top Democratic leaders in Congress. Twenty-six Democrats joined 41 Republicans in the 67-31 vote to insert the amendment into the budget resolution.
The Democrat who first predicted the demise of Obama's energy tax is Bill Galston, President Clinton's chief White House domestic policy adviser and a longtime policy strategist (also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution).
"It is gradually dawning on Washington that cap-and-trade legislation won't pass anytime soon -- certainly not this year, and probably not next year either," Galston wrote in a blog last month that was widely read on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
But cap-and-trade is still alive and breathing in the House, where liberal Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts unveiled their 648-page bill last week for rationing energy use in the United States.
Lawmakers in both parties were aghast when they read the bill's fine print. "The Democrats' ruse of an energy plan is nothing more than a regressive tax being offered when families, small businesses and farmers ... can least afford it," said GOP Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri.
"Their proposal will cost any family that turns on a light switch, drives a car, plugs in an appliance, or purchases an American-made item an extra $3,100 a year," he said.
The Waxman-Markey bill would be especially damaging to Blunt's home state where, he said, "almost 90 percent of electricity is coal-generated."
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis of a less-intrusive cap-and-trade plan estimated it would cost about $3,128 per household nationally.
"Waxman and Markey blithely set targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions without any serious analysis or even awareness of the colossal costs of energy rationing to American consumers, workers and industry," said Myron Ebell, director of energy and global-warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).
"Beyond these enormous economic costs, Waxman-Markey would put big government in charge of how much energy people can use. It would be the biggest government intervention in people's lives since the Second World War, which was the last time people had to have rationing coupons in order to buy a gallon of gas," Ebell wrote in a CEI analysis of the bill.
But the deep damage Obama's cap-and-trade plan would inflict on our economy goes beyond its draconian carbon taxes. Now we learn that the plan could likely start a trade war.
"The bill as drafted clears the way for carbon protectionism," said CEI senior fellow Iain Murray. "It envisages 'rebates' to companies that have to pay higher costs than their international competitors, which amounts to illegal state aid under World Trade Organization rules."
Last month, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a House panel that the United States would likely have to raise trade tariffs on carbon-intensive imports as a "weapon" to protect American businesses to "level the playing field" with countries that do not impose similar greenhouse-gas restrictions that the Obama administration envisions here.
"If other countries don't impose a cost on carbon, then we will be at a disadvantage ... (and) we would look at considering perhaps duties that would offset that cost," Chu testified.
That provoked an immediate counter-threat from Li Gao, a top Chinese trade official, who told the Dow Jones news service that a carbon tariff would be a "disaster" that would lead to a trade war.
Obama already appears to have precipitated a trade war with Mexico, which announced it is raising tariffs on $2.4 billion of our exports to their country in retaliation to the administration's latest restrictions on Mexican trucking access to U.S. roads.
"Taken together, these provisions (in the cap-and-trade bill) represent the first shot in what is likely to prove a disastrous carbon trade war," CEI's Murray said.
Meanwhile, if the Johanns amendment survives in the budget resolution, which must be reconciled with the House version, cap-and-trade is all but dead in the Senate. Stay tuned.
Peter
Obama's Tax Proposals Cap Economic Growth
Donald Lambro Friday, April 03, 2009 (source)
WASHINGTON -- I recently predicted that President Obama's cap-and-trade energy taxes would be the first casualty of his ambitious legislative agenda.
A bipartisan group of Senate Democrats and Republicans drove the first nail into its coffin by adding an amendment to the pending budget resolution. The amendment will deny carbon-emissions-tax supporters the use of a fast-track budget reconciliation rule to limit debate and pass their tax scheme by a simple majority, skirting the tougher 60-vote hurdle to end debate and quickly move to consideration of the measure.
Senate Democratic leaders do not have the 60 votes to bring cap-and-trade to an up-or-down vote. And even if they had 60 members of their party in the Senate, they would lose many, if not most, Midwestern and Gulf State Democrats who fear that Al Gore's so-called climate-change tax scheme on all carbon emissions would be the death knell of their states' oil- and gas-powered economies.
Wednesday's vote on an amendment by Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johanns was a major setback for the White House and top Democratic leaders in Congress. Twenty-six Democrats joined 41 Republicans in the 67-31 vote to insert the amendment into the budget resolution.
The Democrat who first predicted the demise of Obama's energy tax is Bill Galston, President Clinton's chief White House domestic policy adviser and a longtime policy strategist (also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution).
"It is gradually dawning on Washington that cap-and-trade legislation won't pass anytime soon -- certainly not this year, and probably not next year either," Galston wrote in a blog last month that was widely read on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
But cap-and-trade is still alive and breathing in the House, where liberal Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts unveiled their 648-page bill last week for rationing energy use in the United States.
Lawmakers in both parties were aghast when they read the bill's fine print. "The Democrats' ruse of an energy plan is nothing more than a regressive tax being offered when families, small businesses and farmers ... can least afford it," said GOP Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri.
"Their proposal will cost any family that turns on a light switch, drives a car, plugs in an appliance, or purchases an American-made item an extra $3,100 a year," he said.
The Waxman-Markey bill would be especially damaging to Blunt's home state where, he said, "almost 90 percent of electricity is coal-generated."
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis of a less-intrusive cap-and-trade plan estimated it would cost about $3,128 per household nationally.
"Waxman and Markey blithely set targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions without any serious analysis or even awareness of the colossal costs of energy rationing to American consumers, workers and industry," said Myron Ebell, director of energy and global-warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).
"Beyond these enormous economic costs, Waxman-Markey would put big government in charge of how much energy people can use. It would be the biggest government intervention in people's lives since the Second World War, which was the last time people had to have rationing coupons in order to buy a gallon of gas," Ebell wrote in a CEI analysis of the bill.
But the deep damage Obama's cap-and-trade plan would inflict on our economy goes beyond its draconian carbon taxes. Now we learn that the plan could likely start a trade war.
"The bill as drafted clears the way for carbon protectionism," said CEI senior fellow Iain Murray. "It envisages 'rebates' to companies that have to pay higher costs than their international competitors, which amounts to illegal state aid under World Trade Organization rules."
Last month, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a House panel that the United States would likely have to raise trade tariffs on carbon-intensive imports as a "weapon" to protect American businesses to "level the playing field" with countries that do not impose similar greenhouse-gas restrictions that the Obama administration envisions here.
"If other countries don't impose a cost on carbon, then we will be at a disadvantage ... (and) we would look at considering perhaps duties that would offset that cost," Chu testified.
That provoked an immediate counter-threat from Li Gao, a top Chinese trade official, who told the Dow Jones news service that a carbon tariff would be a "disaster" that would lead to a trade war.
Obama already appears to have precipitated a trade war with Mexico, which announced it is raising tariffs on $2.4 billion of our exports to their country in retaliation to the administration's latest restrictions on Mexican trucking access to U.S. roads.
"Taken together, these provisions (in the cap-and-trade bill) represent the first shot in what is likely to prove a disastrous carbon trade war," CEI's Murray said.
Meanwhile, if the Johanns amendment survives in the budget resolution, which must be reconciled with the House version, cap-and-trade is all but dead in the Senate. Stay tuned.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Mountain-Top Removal Mining In The Spotlight
The following article brings many subjects light. These include mining, coal, energy, jobs, the economy, the environment, and politics. These are complex, and for many, passionate issues. If Americans want to maintain their standard of living, and recover from this current economic "recession", there are hard choices to be made.
Al Gore and James Hansen, the leading global warming alarmists, want to ban all coal mining and the use of coal to generate electricity. The big question is, how are we going to generate all the electricity we depend on? There is talk of plug-in electric cars, where is that additional electricity going to come from? Solar and wind power can not begin to fill the need. It takes ten years to build a nuclear power plant. What are the answers? Our government can not keep printing money forever. At some point people need to begin producing things (again).
Peter
EPA Puts Mountaintop Mining Projects On Hold
by The Associated Press (source)
“It just absolutely puzzles me as to why the same federal government that's trying to straighten the economy out wants to dismantle the economy of another state, particularly as it relates to the workers at these sites.” West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney
“If the EPA didn't step in and do something now, all those permits would go forward. There are permits that will bury 200 miles of streams pending before the [Army] Corps [of Engineers].”Joe Lovett, executive director for the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment
NPR.org, March 24, 2009 · In a move that took the coal industry by surprise, the Environmental Protection Agency put hundreds of mountaintop coal-mining permits on hold Tuesday to evaluate the projects' impact on streams and wetlands.
The decision by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson targets a controversial practice that allows coal mining companies to dump waste from mountaintop mining into streams and wetlands.
Between 150 and 200 applications for new or expanded surface coal mines, many mountaintop removal operations, are pending before the federal government. EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy said the agency does not expect problems with the overwhelming majority of permits.
The permits are issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, an agency that has been criticized by environmental groups and has been sued for failing to thoroughly evaluate the environmental impact of mountaintop removal.
Under the Clean Water Act, companies cannot discharge rock, dirt and other debris into streams unless they can show that it will not cause permanent damage to waterways or the fish and other wildlife that live in them.
Last month, a three-judge appeals panel in Richmond, Va., overturned a lower court's ruling that would have required the corps to conduct more extensive reviews. The appeals court decision cleared the way for a backlog of permits that had been delayed until the lawsuit was resolved.
The EPA's action on Tuesday could leave those permit requests in limbo a little longer.
The EPA said in a statement that it would be actively involved in the review of the long list of permits awaiting approval by the corps, a signal that the agency under the Obama administration will exercise its oversight.
The EPA has the authority to review and veto any permit issued by the corps under the Clean Water Act, but under the Bush administration it did that rarely.
"If the EPA didn't step in and do something now, all those permits would go forward," said Joe Lovett, executive director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. "There are permits that will bury 200 miles of streams pending before the corps."
The EPA action stunned the coal industry, which had been breathing easily since the mid-February ruling by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"It's almost like the EPA's trying to skirt the 4th Circuit appeals decision and do whatever they want to do," Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor said. "We would lose half our production in east Kentucky."
Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, said further delays in the permits would cost the region high-paying jobs.
"This is very troubling, not only for jobs in the region, but production of coal generally," said Raulston.
Mountaintop mines in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee produce nearly 130 million tons of coal annually — about 14 percent of the nation's power-producing coal — which in turn generates electricity for 24.7 million U.S. customers, according to industry estimates.
The low-sulfur, high-energy coal produced from those mines is not easily replaced. The industry has long maintained that eliminating mountaintop mining will lead to increased imports from countries that have far fewer environmental safeguards.
The practice has a huge economic impact in Appalachia.
Mountaintop mines employ some 14,000 people across the four states. Wages average about $62,000 — high pay for rural Appalachia — and states make millions in taxes.
"It just absolutely puzzles me as to why the same federal government that's trying to straighten the economy out wants to dismantle the economy of another state, particularly as it relates to the workers at these sites," said West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney. West Virginia is the nation's second-largest coal producing state behind Wyoming.
In a separate action, the EPA recommended denying permits the Army Corps of Engineers was planning to issue that would allow two companies to fill thousands of feet of streams with mining waste in West Virginia and Kentucky. The Corps of Engineers said Tuesday that it was weeks away from issuing both permits.
But in letters sent Monday to the corps' office in Huntington, W.Va., the EPA said that Central Appalachia Mining, a subsidiary of Lexington, Ky.-based Rhino Resources, and Highland Mining Co., a subsidiary of Richmond-based Massey Energy Co., have not done enough to avoid and minimize damage to water quality and stream channels.
In the case of the Highland Mining's plans, which would fill in approximately 13,174 feet of stream in Logan County, W.Va., the agency said it believes the project "will result in substantial and unacceptable impacts to aquatic resources of national importance."
Neither Massey Energy Co. nor Rhino Resources immediately responded to requests for comment.
Al Gore and James Hansen, the leading global warming alarmists, want to ban all coal mining and the use of coal to generate electricity. The big question is, how are we going to generate all the electricity we depend on? There is talk of plug-in electric cars, where is that additional electricity going to come from? Solar and wind power can not begin to fill the need. It takes ten years to build a nuclear power plant. What are the answers? Our government can not keep printing money forever. At some point people need to begin producing things (again).
Peter
EPA Puts Mountaintop Mining Projects On Hold
by The Associated Press (source)
“It just absolutely puzzles me as to why the same federal government that's trying to straighten the economy out wants to dismantle the economy of another state, particularly as it relates to the workers at these sites.” West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney
“If the EPA didn't step in and do something now, all those permits would go forward. There are permits that will bury 200 miles of streams pending before the [Army] Corps [of Engineers].”Joe Lovett, executive director for the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment
NPR.org, March 24, 2009 · In a move that took the coal industry by surprise, the Environmental Protection Agency put hundreds of mountaintop coal-mining permits on hold Tuesday to evaluate the projects' impact on streams and wetlands.
The decision by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson targets a controversial practice that allows coal mining companies to dump waste from mountaintop mining into streams and wetlands.
Between 150 and 200 applications for new or expanded surface coal mines, many mountaintop removal operations, are pending before the federal government. EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy said the agency does not expect problems with the overwhelming majority of permits.
The permits are issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, an agency that has been criticized by environmental groups and has been sued for failing to thoroughly evaluate the environmental impact of mountaintop removal.
Under the Clean Water Act, companies cannot discharge rock, dirt and other debris into streams unless they can show that it will not cause permanent damage to waterways or the fish and other wildlife that live in them.
Last month, a three-judge appeals panel in Richmond, Va., overturned a lower court's ruling that would have required the corps to conduct more extensive reviews. The appeals court decision cleared the way for a backlog of permits that had been delayed until the lawsuit was resolved.
The EPA's action on Tuesday could leave those permit requests in limbo a little longer.
The EPA said in a statement that it would be actively involved in the review of the long list of permits awaiting approval by the corps, a signal that the agency under the Obama administration will exercise its oversight.
The EPA has the authority to review and veto any permit issued by the corps under the Clean Water Act, but under the Bush administration it did that rarely.
"If the EPA didn't step in and do something now, all those permits would go forward," said Joe Lovett, executive director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. "There are permits that will bury 200 miles of streams pending before the corps."
The EPA action stunned the coal industry, which had been breathing easily since the mid-February ruling by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"It's almost like the EPA's trying to skirt the 4th Circuit appeals decision and do whatever they want to do," Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor said. "We would lose half our production in east Kentucky."
Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, said further delays in the permits would cost the region high-paying jobs.
"This is very troubling, not only for jobs in the region, but production of coal generally," said Raulston.
Mountaintop mines in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee produce nearly 130 million tons of coal annually — about 14 percent of the nation's power-producing coal — which in turn generates electricity for 24.7 million U.S. customers, according to industry estimates.
The low-sulfur, high-energy coal produced from those mines is not easily replaced. The industry has long maintained that eliminating mountaintop mining will lead to increased imports from countries that have far fewer environmental safeguards.
The practice has a huge economic impact in Appalachia.
Mountaintop mines employ some 14,000 people across the four states. Wages average about $62,000 — high pay for rural Appalachia — and states make millions in taxes.
"It just absolutely puzzles me as to why the same federal government that's trying to straighten the economy out wants to dismantle the economy of another state, particularly as it relates to the workers at these sites," said West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney. West Virginia is the nation's second-largest coal producing state behind Wyoming.
In a separate action, the EPA recommended denying permits the Army Corps of Engineers was planning to issue that would allow two companies to fill thousands of feet of streams with mining waste in West Virginia and Kentucky. The Corps of Engineers said Tuesday that it was weeks away from issuing both permits.
But in letters sent Monday to the corps' office in Huntington, W.Va., the EPA said that Central Appalachia Mining, a subsidiary of Lexington, Ky.-based Rhino Resources, and Highland Mining Co., a subsidiary of Richmond-based Massey Energy Co., have not done enough to avoid and minimize damage to water quality and stream channels.
In the case of the Highland Mining's plans, which would fill in approximately 13,174 feet of stream in Logan County, W.Va., the agency said it believes the project "will result in substantial and unacceptable impacts to aquatic resources of national importance."
Neither Massey Energy Co. nor Rhino Resources immediately responded to requests for comment.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Economic Suicide By Believing In The Myth Of Man-Caused Global Warming
Is this where America is headed? It looks like it, if we follow the lead of our new socialist leaders in Washington D.C., liberal Democrats, and global warming fear-mongers like James Hansen and Al Gore. (Remember, you can do a search on this blog for key people, subjects, and ideas and find much more information.)
It is insane to increase taxes on conventional energy sources (coal, oil, and gas), destroy existing industries, with vast established infrastructures, (pipelines, refineries, power plants, etc.), put millions more people out of work from skilled jobs, and remove Billions of dollars of royalties and taxes that those industries currently give to local, state, and Federal treasuries.
To destroy industries that have taken a century and a half to build and try to replace these with economically unproven alternatives such as solar and wind power is insanity. Yet that is what people are proposing. I am worried about the economic future of America if we continue down this road.......all in the name of saving the Planet Earth from an imaginary danger.......man-caused global warming. We must stop the insanity such as described in the following article.
Peter
Government Should Compel Consumers to Use Alternative Energy, Congressman SaysFriday,
March 27, 2009By Josiah Ryan, Staff Writer (source)
(CNSNews.com) - Government policy should be crafted to raise the price of carbon-emitting energy sources so consumers are compelled to choose alternative energy, House Democratic Conference Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday. Larson agreed that such a policy would likely result in higher electricity prices for consumers but said this is needed to protect the environment from the possible “catastrophic results” of not implementing a pro-green energy policy.
Some Republicans who spoke with CNSNews.com at the Capitol agreed that electricity prices would go up, and they dismissed President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade plan as little more than a large tax on energy producers, the cost of which is passed onto consumers. With cap and trade, the amount of carbon an energy company can emit is capped. If it exceeds that limit, the company can purchase credits (“trade”) that would go towards investment in green or alternative energy firms. “I think the government should serve as an impetus to do so, because as I said at the outset, not doing anything -- the catastrophic results that can come from that – are what drives this issue,” Larson told CNSNews.com when asked if boosting electricity prices through government policy to drive consumers to green energy was a good idea.
“We ought to do it in a way that both enhances our economy and our economic opportunity and also preserves the universe and the earth,” said Larson. At a press conference Tuesday, Obama told reporters that a good cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions should be designed to “protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices.” "I think cap-and-trade is the best way, from my perspective, to achieve some of those gains, because what it does is it starts pricing the pollution that's being sent into the atmosphere,” Obama said. (Mr. Obama, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but a harmless gas, produced every time you exhale. Peter)
"The way it's structured, it has to take into account regional differences. It has to protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices. So there are a -- a lot of technical issues that are going to have to be sorted through," he added. But in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle back on Jan. 17, 2008, then-candidate Obama said his plan for cap and trade would tax every unit of carbon emitted, which would in turn create an expanded market for new technologies.
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) (Photo courtesy of Voinovich's Web site)
“I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap-and-trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter,” said Obama. “That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.” Eventually, these taxes would ruin the U.S. coal industry, added Obama. “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” said Obama. “It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.”
Republicans said that Obama’s plan to cap and trade carbon emissions would result in a massive tax hike on the companies and American consumers who have to pay for energy to heat and light their homes, and drive their cars, and to run myriad aspects of their daily lives. “Of course” Obama’s plan will drive up energy costs, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told CNSNews.com. “The president’s proposal is unacceptable, because it’s just being used as a source of revenue.”
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) told CNSNews.com: “Of course the cost is going to rise. When people think of cap and trade, they are going to think of a giant tax increase.” Larson also said he is concerned about “what happens down the food chain.” “My concern specifically is what happens down the food chain, so to speak, to the consumer who ultimately bears the cost,” he said. “I think that no matter what we do, I have to be in favor of a carbon-tax approach, because I think that it just levels with people right from the outset. But I believe completely in passing the savings back down the stream to have an impact on the consumer.”
It is insane to increase taxes on conventional energy sources (coal, oil, and gas), destroy existing industries, with vast established infrastructures, (pipelines, refineries, power plants, etc.), put millions more people out of work from skilled jobs, and remove Billions of dollars of royalties and taxes that those industries currently give to local, state, and Federal treasuries.
To destroy industries that have taken a century and a half to build and try to replace these with economically unproven alternatives such as solar and wind power is insanity. Yet that is what people are proposing. I am worried about the economic future of America if we continue down this road.......all in the name of saving the Planet Earth from an imaginary danger.......man-caused global warming. We must stop the insanity such as described in the following article.
Peter
Government Should Compel Consumers to Use Alternative Energy, Congressman SaysFriday,
March 27, 2009By Josiah Ryan, Staff Writer (source)
(CNSNews.com) - Government policy should be crafted to raise the price of carbon-emitting energy sources so consumers are compelled to choose alternative energy, House Democratic Conference Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday. Larson agreed that such a policy would likely result in higher electricity prices for consumers but said this is needed to protect the environment from the possible “catastrophic results” of not implementing a pro-green energy policy.
Some Republicans who spoke with CNSNews.com at the Capitol agreed that electricity prices would go up, and they dismissed President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade plan as little more than a large tax on energy producers, the cost of which is passed onto consumers. With cap and trade, the amount of carbon an energy company can emit is capped. If it exceeds that limit, the company can purchase credits (“trade”) that would go towards investment in green or alternative energy firms. “I think the government should serve as an impetus to do so, because as I said at the outset, not doing anything -- the catastrophic results that can come from that – are what drives this issue,” Larson told CNSNews.com when asked if boosting electricity prices through government policy to drive consumers to green energy was a good idea.
“We ought to do it in a way that both enhances our economy and our economic opportunity and also preserves the universe and the earth,” said Larson. At a press conference Tuesday, Obama told reporters that a good cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions should be designed to “protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices.” "I think cap-and-trade is the best way, from my perspective, to achieve some of those gains, because what it does is it starts pricing the pollution that's being sent into the atmosphere,” Obama said. (Mr. Obama, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but a harmless gas, produced every time you exhale. Peter)
"The way it's structured, it has to take into account regional differences. It has to protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices. So there are a -- a lot of technical issues that are going to have to be sorted through," he added. But in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle back on Jan. 17, 2008, then-candidate Obama said his plan for cap and trade would tax every unit of carbon emitted, which would in turn create an expanded market for new technologies.
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) (Photo courtesy of Voinovich's Web site)
“I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap-and-trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter,” said Obama. “That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.” Eventually, these taxes would ruin the U.S. coal industry, added Obama. “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” said Obama. “It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.”
Republicans said that Obama’s plan to cap and trade carbon emissions would result in a massive tax hike on the companies and American consumers who have to pay for energy to heat and light their homes, and drive their cars, and to run myriad aspects of their daily lives. “Of course” Obama’s plan will drive up energy costs, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told CNSNews.com. “The president’s proposal is unacceptable, because it’s just being used as a source of revenue.”
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) told CNSNews.com: “Of course the cost is going to rise. When people think of cap and trade, they are going to think of a giant tax increase.” Larson also said he is concerned about “what happens down the food chain.” “My concern specifically is what happens down the food chain, so to speak, to the consumer who ultimately bears the cost,” he said. “I think that no matter what we do, I have to be in favor of a carbon-tax approach, because I think that it just levels with people right from the outset. But I believe completely in passing the savings back down the stream to have an impact on the consumer.”
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