posted April 24, 2009 08:35 AM            

03/02/2009

In his February 24 speech, President Obama asked Congress to send him “…legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America.” But by “market-based cap” he means that the government would mandate carbon dioxide emission permits – which are essentially permits to use energy – that companies would then be able to sell among themselves.

His budget assumes a staggering $650 billion in revenue from this scheme. But who picks up the tab? Who ultimately pays the cost of buying these slices of global warming baloney, and why would industry support such a scheme?

The answer is that you and I do, as does everyone who buys anything requiring energy, just like we pay the cost of all the other taxes paid by manufacturers. It’s a tax, folks. Plain and simple, Obama’s “market-based cap” plan is a tax on American business.

Industry is actually behind this massive tax, having sold their support so that the tax is not merely passed through to consumers, but it allows companies to skim the scheme for a profit, again at your expense.

This tax, however, is nearly twice the size of the failed BTU tax which Al Gore still attributes the Democrats’ loss of Congress the next year.

The BTU tax was offered in the name of deficit reduction. Obama’s global warming tax is expressly to pay for new middle-class welfare entitlements, even though it takes away from the beneficiaries about the same amount they will fork out in increased energy costs (if not the entire inflationary impact). The important point for his movement, however, is that more money is run through the state, creating dependency.

With BTU, the then-new “rock star” Democratic president Clinton was rebuffed by a Democratic Congress once the public fought back. This was only after the House had passed the tax by one vote – cast by Rep. Marjorie Margolies Mezvinsky (D-PA), who tearfully marched down to change her vote after being singled out for flipping by the White House. As she shuffled back up the aisle, a prescient Republican caucus loudly waived “bye, Margie!” knowing the gift she had given them. She was among many BTU-tax supporters later driven from office.

Then business successfully “Swiss-cheesed” the tax proposal by lobbying and achieving so many carve-outs that the tax simply collapsed. With an insufficient business constituency, Democratic Sens. Bennett Johnston, John Breaux and David Boren could not justify so angering the public and instructed the new president how the world would work.

There are two lessons here.

First, as Al Gore confessed to the Financial Times, going through the front door of a direct energy tax is too risky. Hence the cap-and-trade rationing scheme; it’s a tax but a non-transparent one, also making it vastly less efficient (more expensive) according to economists at, for example, the Congressional Budget Office. The message to lawmakers is to worry about one job: yours. Hide the tax. The part about also doubling the tax seems to be all Obama’s idea.

Second, cap-and-trade shows that business has also learned how to sell its support in return for additional schemes to further pick your pocket, siphoning of some of the cost to themselves. Cap-and-trade provides them billions of your dollars in return for playing along.

It’s still so ugly that some senators are exploring ways to actually ram through the scheme itself – and not just the assumptions of revenue from it – on the filibuster-proof budget process. This means they need just 50 votes plus Veep Joe Biden, not 60. It also means there would be no public development, meaning “exposure”, of the scheme.

So there remains a chance that the administration and industry have managed to lock this deal down without the taxpayer represented in the room.

If business is going to pass on the tax to consumers – as they always have to do – are businesses supporting this plan to curry favor with Obama? Of course they are. But who are “they”?

Top Companies Behind Obama’s “Global Warming Tax”

General Electric – the folks who brought you the expensive “energy-saving” light-bulbs by government mandate also bought Enron’s windmill business, that being the company which originally hatched this scheme. Beyond windmills GE has redesigned its business lines to capitalize on the energy-scarcity agenda, with little luck to date but counting on a lobbying budget bigger than “big oil”, combined. And, just by the way, they’re the owners of MSNBC and one of the few American companies that still trades with our most dangerous enemy, Iran.

Utilities – Cap-and-trade creates what is essentially a carbon cartel, restricting the supply and raising the price of fossil energy and thereby creating windfalls for the lucky holders of emission credits. It is surely a coincidence that companies caught engaging in illegal market manipulation -- Enron, and electric utilities American Electric Power, Cinergy, Entergy, and Calpine -- have been among the most aggressive lobbyists for the Kyoto Protocol or kindred emission trading schemes.

Cinergy’s CEO James Rogers is a Ken Lay protégé who, after merging with and taking the reins of Duke Energy, has added even more muscle to the global warming lobby.

Wall Street -- Among the most influential lobbyists for Kyoto-style policy are Wall Street firms planning to make commissions on the purchase and sale of carbon credits. Again surely a coincidence, the players most heavily invested in profiting from a cap-and-trade scheme were among those mostly heavily implicated in last year’s collapse (e.g., Lehman Bros., JP Morgan Chase). The crumbling Bank of America, naturally, is also a leading cheerleader of the scheme.

These firms are the first cohort of what we will continue to identify for you as the companies lobbying for Congress to stick you with a “global warming” tax.

You are now faced with the question of whether to allow your elected representatives to approve one of the largest tax increases in history, raising $650 billion over eight years from mandating then selling “cap-n-trade” carbon dioxide ration coupons.

posted April 24, 2009 08:37 AM            

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Conservative economic policy is under attack on many fronts by the Obama administration and its liberal allies in Congress: taxes, spending, government borrowing and free-market capitalism itself. As we fight on these fronts, conservatives also must be focused on another issue of critical importance to our country's economic and national security: energy.

America needs more American energy, but the Obama policy is for less American energy and more expensive energy.

Conservatives must wage and win the argument to show voters that President Obama's energy policies mean higher utility bills and gasoline prices. As a candidate, Mr. Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle last year: "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity bills will necessarily skyrocket."

And the cap-and-trade tax he has proposed in his budget fulfills his prediction. It will be the biggest tax increase in history and will clobber low- and middle-income families. His additional proposal for $81 billion of tax increases on the oil and gas industry will add that much more to gasoline and electricity prices, while also reducing supply, thereby driving fuel costs even higher.

A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the cap-and-trade tax will cost every American family more than $3,100 per year. A McKenzie and Co. study says the cap-and-trade tax will raise electricity bills by at least 5 cents per kilowatt hour. In Jackson, Miss., that would be a 56 percent increase and would drive the average residential electric bill from $103 to $160 per month.

Over and above the gigantic cost increases to families, these skyrocketing electric rates and motor-fuel prices will dramatically drive up the cost of doing business in our country. Small businesses, America's economic engine that creates nearly 80 percent of all net new jobs, will pay far higher utility bills, and the cost of manufacturing goods in the United States will make many of our products uncompetitive and drive production and jobs overseas.

Why in the world would our own federal government propose energy policies that will result in far more expensive energy, major cost increases for families, diminished competitiveness for our businesses and industries, and fewer jobs for American workers? It is in the name of climate change and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

There are much better ways to address climate change and prudently reduce emissions here and around the world. Gigantic cost burdens on American families are not the solution.

While the Obama policy is to drive energy costs through the ceiling, what Americans want and need is abundant, affordable, reliable, American energy. And, with the right energy policy, they can have it.

A policy based on more American energy would mean our families and, critically, our economy would benefit from all the available energy sources our tremendously endowed country has to offer: more oil and gas, not less; more nuclear power; cleaner coal-generated electricity; and wind, biomass, hydro and solar to the maximum degree they can contribute. And that will increase over time. Conservation and efficiency also can and must play a larger role in our energy equation.

A policy of more American energy will result in more abundant, more reliable and lower cost energy, and because it's all American, it will reduce our reliance on foreign oil even more than efficiency and conservation, as important as they are.

Our country has benefited from abundant energy since English settlers arrived at Jamestown, Va., more than 400 years ago. Indeed, abundant, affordable energy has made America the greatest, strongest, richest country in the history of the world. We still have plentiful supplies of oil, gas and coal, and we will rely on them for motor fuels and to generate electricity for decades to come.

We also have developed a remarkably efficient power-production capacity through nuclear energy - the clean, green energy machine. Renewable alternatives such as hydro, biomass, wind and solar are also increasingly important to the mix.

The point is that it is a mix - diversity of supply. The answer to our energy policy is: All of the above - more American energy. We need it all.

[Such a policy reduces, then eliminates excessive U.S. dependence on foreign oil. It keeps costs where Americans can afford the quality of life they deserve and work so hard to attain, and allows our nation's businesses and industries to stay competitive.

More American energy is the right policy for conservatives and for our country.

• Gov. Haley Barbour, Mississippi Republican, is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

posted May 18, 2009 02:07 PM            

Rest assured, if O'Bomber had not said that, there would be headlines in all the leftist press..NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Associated Press, LA Times, St Petersburg Times...and all the rest calling Barbour on the carpet for misrepresenting what O'Bomber said.

O'Bomber was also candid about bankrupting coal and utility companies with his carbon taxes...cap and trade.

Other publications also picked up the story from the Washington Times and reprinted the story.

http://www.sunherald.com/opinion/story/1298246.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/22/cheap-energy-yes-cap-and-trade-no/

posted May 18, 2009 05:11 PM            

i generally trust eleanore to be diligent in her homework, but i just can't find this quote anywhere. eleanore?

and while i understand that it may sound ruthless and catastrophic the implication is that coal will be replaced and the miners may even be able to work above ground!

posted May 18, 2009 06:38 PM            

Let's shut the coal industry and coal fired electric power plants down now. Who needs heat, who needs air conditioning, who needs electricity to run manufacturing equipment and we sure as hell don't need electricity to light our homes and businesses...or run our computers and charge cell phone batteries.

Then we can make candles from animal fat or kill whales and seals for their oil. Life was so much simplier and better way back then...before Edison.

posted May 20, 2009 11:49 PM            

Audio clip where he clearly states that "electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket". Seconds 20-22.

Various other clips are available in the sidebar.

posted May 21, 2009 02:55 PM            

so barbour is taking one line out of context from a statement about the long-range view of improving energy standards and switching to "clean" stuff and better prices...

posted May 21, 2009 05:20 PM            

Global warming is a hoax of gigantic proportions. The earth has been cooling, not warming for the last 10 years. O'Bomber and the rest of the socialists know this. This is all about shutting the United States down by driving the cost of energy sky high, rationing and also driving the price of every commodity, every manufactured item and food sky high too.

It also means the transfer of about 8 TRILLION DOLLARS from the private sector to the government.

Some have not cracked the code that "investment" means "taxes" in government speak.

Here's O'Bomber saying his "Cap and Trade" policy would "Bankrupt" the coal industry and therefore coal fired electricity producers which supply 49% of US electricity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMwBbl6RoIs&NR=1

There's nothing in the wings to replace that lost energy.

posted May 23, 2009 12:24 PM            

May 23, 2009
The Geography of Carbon Emissions
By Jack Dini

No American city is among the top 50 cities in the world for air pollution according to the World Bank. (1) Another list, ‘The Top Ten of the Dirty Thirty,' compiled by the Blacksmith Institute of New York compared the toxicity of contamination, the likelihood of it getting into humans and the number of people affected. Places were bumped up in rank if children were impacted. No US or European sites made the list. Sites in China, India and Russia occupied six of the top ten spots. Some examples: at Linfen in Shanxi province-the heart of China's coal industry-industrial and automobile emissions put the health of 3 million people at risk. At Sukinda in the state of Orissa in India, 2.6 million people face the hazards of one of the world's opencast chromite mines. And in Dzerzhinsk, Russia, 300,000 people are exposed to toxic by-products from chemical weapons. (2)

Have you heard about this? Probably not. But there's more. Another report states that seven of the world's ten most polluted cities are in China. Of the ten cities in the world with the highest levels of air pollution, three are in India. (3). There are more reports but by now you probably get the point. Note that no US city has been mentioned. Steven Hayward in discussing the Blacksmith report makes an observation that could well apply to all of these documents: "Not surprisingly the media and green campaigners in the United States completely overlooked this report." (4)

China has some of the worst pollution problems in the world. Nearly two-thirds of China's 343 major cities currently fail to meet the nation's air quality standards. Pollution levels in China's major cities are 10 to 50 times higher than the worst smoggy day in Los Angeles (5). The twenty fastest growing cities in the world are all in China.

China is adding 100 gigawatts of coal-fired electrical capacity a year. That's another whole United States' worth of coal consumption added every three years, with no stopping point in sight. Much of the rest of the developing world is on a similar path. (6)

As Fareed Zakaria notes,

"The combined carbon dioxide emissions from the 850 new coal-fired power plants that China and India are building between now and 2012 are five times the total savings of the Kyoto accords. So you can put in all those curly light bulbs and drive all the Priuses you want: India just ate that for breakfast and China will eat the next round of conservation for lunch." (7)

Jane Orient adds this on the futility of reducing emissions; "In a symbolic gesture, the Forces of Darkness, which are trying to end an age of enlightenment and reason, urged people to turn off their lights for an hour between 8:30 and 9:30 PM local time. Bjorn Lomborg calculated that if 1 billion turned off their lights for 1 hour, it would have been the equivalent of shutting of China's emissions for a full 6 seconds. (8)

Although China receives the most attention, it is not the only Asian nation where this concern is present. India is also growing rapidly, and its major cities experience particulate levels often eight to ten times higher than the worst American cities. India is the fourth-most coal dependent country in the world and has enough reserves to last for the next 100 years. Carbon emissions in India are rising faster than nearly every other country on the planet. Between 1980 and 2006, India's carbon output increased by 341%, compared to 321% for China, 103% for Brazil 238% for Indonesia and 272% for Pakistan. (9)

Peter Huber sums this up quite well:

"Cut to the chase. We rich people can't stop the world's 5 billion poor people from burning the couple of trillion tons of cheap carbon that they have within easy reach. We can't even make any durable dent in global emissions-because emissions from the developing world are growing too fast, because the other 80 percent of humanity desperately needs cheap energy, and because we and they are now part of the same global economy. What we can do, if we're foolish enough, is let carbon worries send our jobs and industries to their shores, making them grow even faster, and their carbon emissions faster still." (6)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/the_geography_of_carbon_emissi.html