Can Americans afford cap and trade?
Do you know of anyone who doesn’t believe in protecting the environment? If you can find someone who really believes it is okay to treat the Earth any old way, you will have found someone who is very lacking in their knowledge about the world in which we live. When I was a young boy, I thought nothing about some of the things I did, such as throwing glass bottles in my father’s stock pond (actually a small lake) and shooting them up with a .22 revolver. We also thought nothing about dumping our trash on the other side of the pond dam and burning the whole lot a couple times each year.
Looking back at those years, I can see some of the things we did were foolish, but we really didn’t understand the repercussions of those actions. Today, I would not want to throw those glass bottles into the water and my father no longer allows the dumping of trash on his land. Instead, he has a dumpster for the trash from his and my brother’s home. It is emptied once a week and disposed of in a proper landfill. Point of fact, we all look at the environment differently than we did 20 or 30 years ago and most people want to take care of it as best we can.
Having said all of that, I come to the real issue at hand, the cap and trade energy bill that just barely passed the United States House of Representatives and will be debated in the United States Senate in the coming months. Officially known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 or Waxman-Markey, the legislation passed the House on Friday by a vote of 219-212 and it could arguably be one of the most controversial pieces of legislation to ever come out of Congress. It’s impact will certainly reach far and wide and not all of that impact will be positive.
At the center of the legislation is the desire by certain groups of people to drastically reduce the effect the human race is having on the Earth’s environment. While that is an admirable idea, I question the theory that it is a good idea to reduce energy consumption by making it so expensive that the average American has trouble making ends meet. If you believe everything President Obama and some of the more liberal Democrats are saying, that will not happen. In fact, Obama is using every resource available to him to convince the American people that this legislation will actually create jobs. From The Associated Press:
The sharply debated bill’s fate is unclear in the Senate, and Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to ratchet up pressure on the 100-seat chamber.
“My call to every senator, as well as to every American, is this,” he said. “We cannot be afraid of the future. And we must not be prisoners of the past. Don’t believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth.”
Obama said the bill would create jobs, make renewable energy profitable and decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil.
“It will spur the development of low-carbon sources of energy – everything from wind, solar and geothermal power to safer nuclear energy and cleaner coal,” he said.
While all of that sounds good to the naked ear, one must go digging into the 1200 pages of the bill to find out all is not so good. It is a favorite tactic of the Obama administration to declare any opposing views as “misinformation”. They are right and we are wrong because we have been “misinformed”. Well, consider this little tidbit of misinformation that the President, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and other liberal Democrats would just as soon we not know about this legislation. You had better start saving your money because if the cap and trade policies that are contained inside this bill go into effect, you are going to need it to pay your energy bills.
The main regulatory targets of Waxman-Markey will be electric utilities, producers of natural gas, oil refineries, and some manufacturers who produce energy on site. While that may sound good on the surface for the rest of us, underneath it is a disaster waiting to happen. Has anyone heard of trickle down economics? That is the theory that if corporations and business are given tax breaks for job creation, business expansion, etc., then that affect trickles down to the rest of the economy, ie. consumers like you and I. Some have scoffed at this idea, but it does work and in more than one area of our lives.
The companies who sell us the energy we use to heat and cool our homes and power our cars will be faced with a much higher cost of doing business if this legislation is signed into law. We need not be so naive to believe they will not trickle this higher cost down to the consumer. (That’s you and me.) Of course they will. So who is going to be actually paying for this higher cost of doing business? Again, that would be you and me.
If you would like to read some of what the bill would do, I urge you to visit John Boehner’s website and read what he has to say. Yes, I know he is the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, but that doesn’t make what he has written any less the truth. For example:
Homebuyers Beware. Trying to save up for a new home? You may have to save up a little longer for your purchase. The Democrats’ bill would dramatically increase new home costs by mandating California’s expensive new building codes for the entire nation. Immediately upon enactment, the Democrats’ bill would demand a 30 percent increase in energy efficiency for new construction. A couple of years later, the Democrats’ bill would require an additional 50 percent improvement. These numbers were chosen with no concern for cost to consumers or feasibility in implementation.
The Heritage Foundation has a good article that is also worth reading. It lays out some of the actual costs of the energy tax that President Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi are passing off as cap and trade to reduce energy consumption and pollution. This article is based on the testimony of Ben Lieberman before the Senate Republican Conference.
It is clear that cap-and-trade is very expensive and amounts to nothing more than an energy tax in disguise. After all, when you sweep aside all the complexities of how cap and trade operates–and make no mistake, this is the most convoluted attempt at economic central planning this nation has ever attempted–the bottom line is that cap and trade works by raising the cost of energy high enough so that individuals and businesses are forced to use less of it. Inflicting economic pain is what this is all about. That is how the ever-tightening emissions targets will be met.
Cap and Trade Budget
Not only will the cost of energy go up, but so will nearly everything else. The cost of doing business will go up because electricity and other energies will cost more. Again, those costs will not be absorbed by the businesses, they will be passed along to the consumers. Even without the current recession, the average American family will find it hard put to have enough money to pay for their energy use, along with the rising cost of other necessities. It is clear that the economic impact of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 will be very far reaching in it’s scope.
Again, I am not trying to sound as if I do not care about the environment. I do believe we should take care of the earth on which we live and cherish it with all of our heart. It is a truly wondrous creation of God. However, I do not believe we have to bankrupt our household budget or that of our country to get the job done.
One of the main campaign themes Barack Obama use was to point out how most Americans would pay fewer taxes under his administration. While that may be true to some degree, with his tax rebates and his so-called economic stimulus package, any tax decreases we may have seen are going to be much more than just offset by the energy taxes contained in Waxman-Markey. He may not be taxing more of our income, but he will be taking more of our hard earned money by taxing the energy we use to drive and the energy we use to keep our homes comfortable in the winter cold and the summer heat. All of this in the name of saving the environment. Excuse me if I remain unconvinced that raising energy costs so much that it prohibits the use of said energy is a smart idea for the environment or for Americans.
I think the Obama public relations machine broke down. I definitely don’t understand aspects of this bill (companies can opt to reduce emissions in OTHER countries rather than reduce their own output at home!!) and I have no idea if there are better, cheaper, more efficient or effective ways of achieving our national goals; but I do know those goals can be articulated much better. Energy independence is a national security issue! This bill WILL create jobs in new energy technologies, it WILL reduce our dependence on foreign oil and remove energy issues from the equation in foreign policy discussions, it WILL drive down the price of oil in the long term, it WILL eliminate any power that radical Muslim nations may otherwise hold, and it WILL be good for our country in the years to come.
Are the Obama numbers right? Are the Heritage Foundation numbers right? Are John Boehner’s numbers right? I don’t trust any of them. They all have a political agenda. They all tell half truths to make their case more compelling. And besides long term numbers of this sort are absolutely impossible to predict. Where will oil prices be in 2012 when this bill takes effect? in 2020? in 2035? How much of our energy will be produced by wind, solar, and nuclear in 2035? There are elements of consumer energy-saving like new building codes, energy efficient appliances, improved gas mileage on new vehicles, etc that can and will save consumers considerable amounts. What’s the net impact? Who knows. CBO says the average increase in consumer bill by 2020 will be $175 per year, vary considerably based on income, and increase in years further out. I trust their numbers more than anybody else because they have no political agenda. Both sides have taken pieces from the CBO numbers to support their case and criticize the other but nobody ever accuses the CBO of political ends.
I’m sure the Senate will whittle away at this legislation and the conference to follow will refine things further. But I do hope we get something out of this process. If we’d been treating the environment and our energy independence issues properly the past 30 years our energy costs would have been higher as the fixes now proposed would have been implemented over time. We’ve been dumping our trash in the lake and now it’s time to clean up that lake and figure out someplace else to put our garbage. It costs money and we are the ones who have to pay it and should have been paying all this time. For the environment and for our national security some dramatic steps need to be taken.
My concern is how the Obama administration and some Democrats seem to be willing to raise energy prices to the ceiling, in an attempt to force us to change the kind of energy we use. I know you and I do not necessarily see eye to eye on this, but they are going to make it very difficult for a lot of families to make ends meet, if the utility bills go up like some are saying they will. I fully realize we need to make some changes, but we do not need to bankrupt our citizens in the process.
Cap and trade is completely wrong for our country, imposing an onerous tax on businesses which will be passed on to consumers. It it based on the premise that man is causing global warming and that if we don’t intervene, then the world will be toast.
Lately, voices opposing the theory of global warming have been speaking out around the world. Of course, media folks don’t tell you this which means that most Americans remain woefully uninformed regarding climate change and what that means. Businesses are silent because they’ll pass on their costs to consumers who will soon learn how much this program will cost them with very little effect on improving the environment:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/247787
Matt Keegan´s last blog ..What You Need To Know About The Car Scrappage Program
Don’t you just love the way that people who oppose cap and trade are portrayed as not caring about the environment? I also care about the environment but do not support the cap and trade bill.
You hit the nail on the head, if energy companies are taxed they will pass the tax on to the consumers. They see the tax as a business expense, as part of the cost of doing business, and the costs are always passed on to the customer. People need to understand this.
You brought up something that I hadn’t thought about and that is the way the energy price increases will affect other businesses who will in turn pass those costs on to the consumer. Virtually everything that is purchased will go up in price.
This bill is a disaster waiting to happen.
Mr Pink Eyes´s last blog ..Lindsay Graham supports the cap and trade bill
I agree, Mr. Pink Eyes. This legislation will accomplish nothing except to raise the price of energy for the citizens of this country and will do nothing for emissions and greenhouse gases.