Proponents of climate change legislation argue that a cap and trade will stop the polar ice caps from melting. This is critical to island nations relying on tourism as the primary source of economic activity. After all, who’s going to visit an island if it’s completely submerged by water? According to some reports, the Maldive Islands “in the Indian Ocean is about three feet above sea level, and scientists fear it could be submerged by 2050.” This may or may not be an issue depending on what you read, but …
The idea behind cap and trade is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by putting a price on the right to emit carbon and other greenhouse gases on businesses. Since 85 percent of America’s energy needs are met through carbon-emitting fossil fuels, cap and trade would be a massive tax on energy consumption if enacted. The debate will move to the Senate this fall. Here’s what to expect if the Senate passes their own version of Waxman-Markey and President Obama signs cap and trade into law. By 2035:
There’s a point at which you’ve got to ask yourself, what are we doing here? What’s the point?” That’s Elaine Kamarck, a former Clinton administration official and advisor to at that time Vice President Gore, and she’s talking about the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill. In order to garner enough votes to pass the House of Representatives, policymakers made promises that have groups like Greenpeace questioning the environmental effectiveness of the bill. One of the most contentious provisions in the bill is the use of offsets to reduce carbon dioxide …
Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released their analysis of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that had proponents of the bill claiming we could save the planet for just $175 per household. That was the figure CBO estimated cap and trade would cost households in 2020, which “includes the cost of restructuring the production and use of energy and of payments made to foreign entities under the program, but it does not include the economic benefits and other benefits of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the associated slowing …
The idea behind cap and trade is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by putting a price on the right to emit carbon and other greenhouse gases on businesses. Because fossil fuels emit carbon dioxide, cap and trade becomes a costly tax on fossil fuels and the energy they generate. Since 85 percent of America’s energy needs come from fossil fuels, cap and trade would be massive tax on energy consumption if enacted. How high a tax? The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis found that by 2035 gasoline prices would …
The last few years have been bumpy ones for energy supplies and prices, but one piece of good news has been the upturn in domestic natural gas production. The reason is a technology called hydraulic fracturing that makes it possible to produce gas in areas where it had previously been deemed infeasible. In effect, high pressure fluids are injected underground to free the gas beneath rock formations where the energy would otherwise be trapped. America has a lot of these formations, which many in the energy industry previously thought were …
The House Ways and Means Committee, the chief tax committee that has jurisdiction over all taxes and revenue-generating programs (social security, medicare, unemployment) is saying “no thanks” to dealing with potentially one of the largest taxes in history, the cap and trade energy tax. From CongressDailyAM: “House Ways and Means Committee Democrats are likely to punt on their opportunity to help shape climate-change legislation, given a tiny window for action, zero agreement among panel members and a desire to focus instead on health care.
America is going on a big energy diet. Cap and Trade is the policy that our government is pursuing to force Americans to limit the amount of carbon dioxide that we produce. The problem is that America relies on CO2 emitting fuel sources for 85 percent of its energy. So to force us to use less, the government wants to impose an emissions tax that makes using fossil fuel too expensive. The idea is to put America on an energy diet through forced consumption reduction. Even after changing their consumption, …
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is a man of his words, sort of. He told people he wanted to get a global warming bill that capped carbon dioxide out by Memorial Day and he did: Legislation imposing the first nationwide limits on the pollution blamed for global warming advanced in the House late Thursday, clearing a key committee despite strong Republican opposition. The Energy and Commerce Committee approved the sweeping climate bill 33-25 after repeatedly turning back GOP attempts to kill or weaken the measure during four days of debate. The …
Policymakers made it quite clear consumers will be hurt by a cap and trade bill. They also made it clear that this isn’t an environmental issue. It’s strictly politics. Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) modified their global warming cap and trade proposal to win support from skeptical congressmen, but when any policymakers introduced modifications to protect the consumer and American businesses, Members promptly voted the amendments down. The first was an amendment that would void the legislation within a year without a deal with India and China. …
