If cap and trade passes, businesses could soon face “The Scarlet Letter” treatment. Businesses may have to include a carbon label on their products that tells consumers how much carbon dioxide used in the production process. Cap and trade would raise production costs for businesses—forcing them to include a carbon label on their products is salt in the wound. Section 274 of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill calls for an Environmental Protection Agency study “to determine the feasibility of establishing a national program for measuring, reporting, publicly disclosing, and labeling products …
In today’s Cap- and-Trade Calamity, we continue on with our critique of government-mandated energy efficiency standards. The newest target is national lighting efficiency standards – detailed in Section 211 of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. Waxman-Markey dictates specific efficiency standards and specifications for specific light bulbs (Sec. 211, g); Sets regulations for several kinds of “luminaires,” “outdoor luminaires,” “portable lighting,” “portable light fixtures,” “light fixtures,” “GU-24 base lamps,” “art worth light fixture,” LED light engines – most of which can be found walking through your home (Sec. 211). The bill also …
Despite being extremely wasteful and creating questionable environmental benefits, the government labeled the cash for clunkers auto program a successful program that exceeded expectations. It worked so well – why not subsidize (again) the housing industry while we’re at it? Detailed in Section 203 of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill is a program that subsidizes the purchase of new Energy Star qualified “manufactured homes” (homes built in a factory, such as mobile homes) for people currently living in manufactured homes built before 1976 (Sec. 203, b). Qualified recipients are …
Not many people enjoy a micromanager – having their boss hover over them monitoring their every move. Well, if Congress passes a cap and trade bill, they will be micromanaging our economy and controlling our decisions. Just one example of many: tree planting. Section 205 of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill creates a program to subsidize targeted tree-planting programs by retail power providers in “residential and small office settings.” To be clear, we are not against planting trees. They are aesthetically pleasing and good for the environment. But do …
Just as renewable energy can be a good thing if the market can provide it at an affordable rate, products designed for greater energy efficiency is a good thing. But not when the government gets in the way. Federal laws dictating how much energy home appliances are allowed to use have frequently harmed consumers, and the Waxman-Markey bill introduces a host of new ones. Improved energy efficiency is a worthwhile goal, but not when Washington tries to mandate it with arbitrary requirements. Consumers who think the resultant energy-efficient appliances will …
It’s easy to forget that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill is not just about cap and trade. There are a number of other problematic provisions buried in the 1,427 pages of legislation. Cap and trade should receive the most attention because it’s the most economically devastating part of the bill, but Waxman-Markey also includes a renewable electricity standard that mandates 6 percent of the nation’s electricity come from renewable sources, chiefly wind energy but also others like biomass and solar, by 2012. The mandate increases each year until it reaches 25 …
Under the Waxman-Markey cap and trade program, businesses that emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases must obtain allowance permits from the federal government for every ton of carbon emissions they produce. The government issues fewer allowance permits in each subsequent year to decrease overall emissions, so the permit price rises as the reduction in supply has to meet the same demands. During his campaign run, President Obama told Grist: “I believe that, depending on how it is designed, a carbon tax accomplishes much of the same thing that a …
Last week, in our inaugural Cap and Trade Calamities, we laid out the exorbitant costs the Waxman-Markey cap and tax bill would impose on your family. But if it saves the planet, isn’t it all worth it? The fact is, our planet is not in the immediate danger environmental activists purport it to be, and even if it were, Waxman-Markey would not do a thing to stop it. When the benefits of cap and trade are measured against the costs, the costs significantly outweigh the negligible benefits. We break down …
