DARK AGES REDUX–CAP AND TRADE

The most active House committee is Waxman’s Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce. 

                                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

                                                                   MEMBERSHIP

 DEMOCRATS                                                                  REPUBLICANS

Representative Markey’s Committee on Energy and Environment  is also involved and should be contacted as well.

Committee on Energy and Environment  link

To contact your Representative go to link    

Let’s review what is happening.  Based on faulty science, the environmental radicals say that carbon dioxide (CO2) is causing the Earth to heat up.  They say that if left unchecked, this atmospheric CO2 will result in a global catastrophe of heat, cold, water, drought, disease,etc..

The folks in DC are probably not sure all of this will happen, but they see using this as a way to tax and regulate and so they really don’t care about the validity of the science.  Their plan is to reduce the use of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal) because when the fossil fuel is combusted to release its energy, CO2 is produced.  By setting a limit (capping) on how much CO2 can be emitted to the atmosphere and then over time reducing it, they plan to essentially eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

The bill would set the amount that each CO2 emitter can emit.  The Feds would sell permits to the emitter.  The following year the amount that could be emitted would be lowered.  And new permits would be sold to the emitter.  The Trade part of the bill would allow an emitter that did not need all of its permitted CO2 allowance to sell the excess portion to an emitter that needed more permitted CO2.  The price of this permit would be agreed to by buyer and seller.  For further understanding of Cap and Trade, view this presentation.    view 

The Feds could potentially bring in a lot of money to the Treasury this way.  Obama hopes to raise $624billion over 10 years.  Obama says that $500 billion would be used to make a permanent tax credit that provides individuals up to $400 and working families $800.  See   

However, Douglas Elmendorf, Director of the Congressional Budget Office says that the corporations that buy the $624 billion worth of CO2 permits will pass this cost on to the consumers. He estimates that Cap and Trade would cost each American household an average $1600 per year and it could go as high as $2200 per household.  So the tax credit the Fed plan to give, would be much smaller than the increased costs of Cap and Trade to those same families.   So far Obama’s record of living up to his promises of tax cuts would not seem to inspire confidence on getting any relief from the the proposed tax credits.  see

Moreover, The Wall Street Journal says “But the greatest inequities are geographic and would be imposed on the parts of the US that rely most on manufacturing or fossil fuels—particularly coal, which generate most power in the Midwest, Southern, and Plains States.  It is no coincidence that the liberals most invested in Cap and Trade—Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey—come from California or the Northeast.” Twenty-five states get more than half of their electricity from conventional coal fired generation. See  

Representative Joe L Barton, (R TX), the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in an editorial made a number of important points about the Cap and Trade bill.  He cites other studies that say the increased cost of energy for a typical family will be at least $3100 per year and that over 20 years results in 7 million lost jobs and $7 trillion in reduced economic output.  Barton says “if the Democrats manage to pass a cap-and-trade fiasco, millions of lost American jobs will likely pop up overseas.  I think we can expect to start buying more Mexican cement, Chinese fertilizer and Indian Steel”. He believes you would have to go back to 1875 to find a time comparable to what the US will look like when the Cap and Trade bill meets its stated goals of 80% reduction of CO2 by  2050.  

A  Zogby International poll says that only 30% of the US people support Cap and Trade and 57% oppose it. Other polls show very low interest in this or any new legislation that might weaken the recovery. see

Waxman has had much difficulty with his reluctant Democratic Committee members that see this legislation having a negative effect in their home districts.  The New York Times reports that Waxman is agreeing to no cost emissions permits in trade for votes.  This is BAIT AND SWITCH!  Some industries will be given a free ride for a while, but will eventually have to begin buying these permits.  Mike Doyle (D PA) is saying that approval for an agreement that would give away a large share of the permits for free during the opening 10 to 15 years of the cap-and-trade program is near.  Waxman is said to be comfortable with this give away.  see       It does not seem that Obama is in favor of the give away.   He is banking on this indirect tax to help offset his budget deficit woes.   see

When the European nations signed the Kyoto Treaty, they set up a Cap and Trade system as a means of meeting their CO2 reduction commitments.  It did not work. Their overall emissions have not gone down, but in fact have grown and at a rate faster than non-signer  US’s CO2 emissions.  The reason that Europe failed will be the reason that Cap and Trade will fail in the US.  The law driven reductions of fossil fuels are presumed to be replaced by alternative sources of energy such as wind, solar, ethanol, other biofuels, etc.  that will keep the business’s output  the same or even increase.   But these sources are not ready for prime time.  And they wont be for many years to come, if ever.  Perhaps nuclear will be able, in time, to make up the gap in the electrical generation sector.   If the Europeans had reduced fossil fuels use, they would have, by default, reduced their business output.  They chose to ignore the idea of reducing the use of fossil fuels.   

Additionally, the world’s largest emitter of CO2 is China.  China along with India and Brazil have stated they have no intention of imposing CO2 restrictions on their people.  With their huge populations, they plan to increase their use of fossil fuels to build their manufacturing base and to bring their countries to American and European standards of living.  Cap and Trade will assist these nations and harm ours.   See

The facts are that we don’t need this legislation because there is no compelling evidence at this time that increasing levels of CO2 in our atmosphere will result in disastrous consequences.  There will be disastrous consequences for our economy both short and long term if this legislation is passed into law.  For one of the many documents that show how far off the man-made global warmers are from the real world  see

Please speak up about this issue. Waxman’s goal is to get Committee approval by Memorial Day.  The Republicans and many Democrats on the  Committee are opposed to this legislation.  But they need your support to hold the line.

The need for making better use of our own resources is surely obvious to you. So this blog will discuss the need for expanding our sources of energy–oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear is subsequent postings.