so, cap and trade… is it a good thing or not?
By American Girl in Italy on June 29, 2009 at 5:00 PM in Barack Obama, Campaign promises, Congress (House & Senate), Current Affairs, Energy Policy, Environment, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Sara in Italy
I do think it a good thing to reduce pollutants in the air – and whether you believe in manmade climate change or not, I imagine you would agree. I also think the US needs to stop spending $200,000 per minute on foreign oil, and would love to see alternative methods developed and utilized.
The question seems to be whether Cap and Trade is the best method to achieve these goals. (And, how can Congress even make that decision, and vote on the bill when they haven’t read it? Heck, even Carol Browner, Obama’s Energy Czar, hasn’t read it….)
In theory, supporters of Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain shouldn’t be all that opposed to the Cap and Trade bill since all three candidates supported Cap and Trade during the primary. I don’t know if the proposals put forth by Clinton and McCain were similar to Obama’s, since, like Congress, I haven’t read the new bill.
Hillary Clinton and John McCain both supported cap and trade during the primary.
“Under Clinton’s cap-and-trade plan, 100 per cent of carbon credits would be auctioned to polluting companies, with the proceeds going towards new technology investments and a program to help low-income families heat and cool their homes.
She also announced plans to increase investments in energy efficiency and cleantech R&D, set targets for a quarter of US electricity to come from renewables by 2025, and introduce legislation demanding all listed firms report on climate change risks.”
My biggest concern regarding this bill is the argument that it will kill jobs. Obama flat out told his supporters before the election that he would cause their electric bills to skyrocket, so I assume this must not be a concern, at least for the 69 Million who voted for him. But, losing jobs is a major concern, especially now.
Obama – Energy Prices Will Skyrocket
The President’s Budget Director, Peter Orszag, added: “firms would not ultimately bear most of the costs of the [carbon] allowances but instead would pass them along to their customers in the form of higher prices….price increases would be essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program.”
If The Heritage Foundation’s numbers are correct, electricity bills will go up 90%, gasoline will go up 85%, and natural gas will go up 55%.
Without international participation, jobs and emissions will simply shift overseas to countries that require few, if any, environmental protections, harming the global environment as well as the U.S. economy. The jobs and industries that will bear the greatest costs of cap-and-tax are the industries we must keep in America in order to remain a power on the world stage. Quite simply, cap-and-trade caps our growth and trades our jobs.
Does cap and trade lose or create jobs?
Proponents of the Cap and Trade bill claim that it will not cause job loss, just a job shift into green jobs.
“Such a law would impact how much people pay to heat, cool and light their homes (it would cost more); what automobiles they buy and drive (smaller, fuel efficient and hybrid electric); and where they will work (more “green” jobs, meaning more environmentally friendly ones).
Critics of the House bill brand it a “jobs killer.” Yet it would seem more likely to shift jobs. Old, energy-intensive industries and businesses might scale back or disappear. Those green jobs would emerge, propelled by the push for nonpolluting energy sources.”
PBS had a debate about Cap and Trade, the transcript is here.
Link to story.
Cap and trade programs are defined by the US EPA as “an environmental policy tool that delivers results with a mandatory cap on emissions while providing sources flexibility in how they comply. Successful cap and trade programs reward innovation, efficiency, and early action and provide strict environmental accountability without inhibiting economic growth”.
“In a cap and trade system for emissions, the government sets a limit to the permissible amount of emissions. This limit is known as a cap, is flexible and is expected to be lowered with time. Depending on the particular system implemented, companies that pollute and cause those emissions can either buy emissions allowances or credits or are given them by the government. The companies can then trade those emissions credits against their emissions or pollution. The choice is then with the company to either trade all their credits and continue polluting at their current level or to implement new procedures and equipment to reduce their emissions. If they reduce their emissions, they don’t need all their emissions credits and can then on sell them to other companies. In this way reducing emissions becomes more financially prudent for the company than to continue polluting.”
The US EPA says that cap and trade systems are best used where:
• Emissions have longer residence times
• The environmental and/or public health concern has broad geographic impacts
• A significant number of sources are responsible for the problem
• The cost of controls varies from source to source
• Emissions can be consistently and accurately measured
• Strong regulatory institutions and financial markets exist
Some pros and cons from AzoCleantech.com:
Pros
• Shinking emissions caps guarantee that specified emissions reductions targets will be met
• Can produce revenue that can be used to help others to reduce their emissions, enhance the exisiting program or bring about faster emissions reductions.
• Encourages rapid adoption of cheap and efficient means for bringing about the largest emissions reductions.
• Increases the value of using new, cleaner companies and technologies rather than maintaining use of historic polluters
• Cap and trade systems have been extensively used in the past and have proved successfulCons
• Prices of emissions credits can be volatile with large price swings.
• Systems can become complex and cumbersome with large amounts of compliance administration
• Cap and trade systems are best implemented at a regional or national level
• Polluters can be rewarded for past polluting while new, clean technologies don’t get such a windfall
Read here for Differences between Cap and Trade and Carbon taxes, outlined by the Sideline Institute.
From The New Ledger - The Great Climate Tax:
“The proposed carbon mandates under consideration would mean that the United States could not emit more in the year 2050 than we emitted in 1910. This is a daunting task considering that in 1910 the United States had only 92 million people, compared to an estimated 420 million in 2050. The only nations in the world today that emit at the proposed levels are struggling nations, such as Belize, Jordan, Haiti, and Somalia. In order to reach the 80 percent reduction required by cap-and-tax, emissions from the transportation sector would have to drop to zero, as would those from ALL electricity generation, and we would still need to reduce all other sources of greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent.
The costs for such misguided policies are staggering. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently determined that rolling back the clock to reach 1910 emissions levels would cost $864 billion, while some estimates put the number closer to $1.5 trillion, and it will be America’s working families left holding the tab.”
The biggest screw this bill gives to the American people is the massive tax hike. A tax hike that Obama promised wouldn’t happen.
This one cracks me up:
“He’s a tax and spend liberal Democrat… ha ha ha … they say that every time. That ol’ McCain, what a crazy coot. I’m not going to raise your taxes! I’m not a tax and spender. Read my lips…”
So, when I hear something like this, I don’t really believe it, do you?
President Obama called on senators to disregard what he called the “misinformation” offered by critics of his energy bill, which passed the House of Representatives late Friday night despite GOP predictions that it will further damage the economy.
“We must not be prisoners of the past,” he said in his radio and Internet address. “Don’t believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth. It’s just not true.”
“Don’t believe those crazy detractors, all that misinformation. They’re just a bunch of crazy coots!”
Warren Buffet – Cap and Trade is a Huge Tax
Rep. Dingell (D-MI) - Cap and Trade is a Big Tax
Michigan Rep. John Dingell recently said of cap-and-trade, “Nobody in this country realizes that cap and trade is a tax, and it’s a great big one…”
And Sen. Sherrod Brown said, “It really does say to manufacturing, ‘Go to China, where they have weaker environmental standards.’ And that’s a very bad message in bad economic times — in any economic times.”
Cap and Trade – What is it? (PRO)
Cap and Trade versus Carbon Tax (CON)
So, where do you stand on Cap and Trade?
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Like everything the child emperor touches he bastardizes and ruins it. We will never know if cap and trade would help with pollution because we won’t implement it across the board. We will implement it in a piecemeal fashion making it an elaborate redistribution of income scheme and nothing more. Watch union based industries be given more carbon credits than they can use in industries that are hurting. We are going to wind up paying auto workers in Detroit to not make cars. We are going to justify that by saying cars pollute the air, so we need to pay these guys not to make cars. These union owned automakers are going to make their money selling carbon credits to companies that do make things. Carbon credits… “like a rock”.
Docelder: You mean like Reagan, Bush I and Bush II paid corporate farms millions not to grow crops?
It is the exact same thing. I was raised on an Oklahoma cattle ranch. There were ranchers in the area with thousands of acres of land who were paid not to raise wheat. They weren’t going to raise wheat to begin with, they were ranchers and didn’t own a combine. But get this… the USDA paid for them to plant wheat… they planted the wheat and then the government paid them not to harvest it. So, they did what they were going to do all along… used it for winter pasture for the cattle. Except the government paid them to plant it and paid them again not to harvest it… which they had no intention of doing anyway. This is just as wrong. If you reward non production you get more non production. But, it makes the farmers and ranchers vote for the money.
Actually, farm subsidies programs are a continuation of FDR’s Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) from the 1930s.
At least we know where the green jobs will be..
Creating an IRS type bureaucracy to enforce cap and trade with penalties.
Creating an army of regulators to monitor households and businesses and interfere with all aspects of our lives.
This is the worst thing Obama and his anti-american, anti-business minions could thrust on this country at this time.
They keep saying that it will cost each individual close to $600. That’s too bad for big families.
However, they are lying about the other price increases on each and every item produced in this country.
I predict a four fold increase in all items food and industrial…
That process of increases starts with me.
Here is how it works for industrial packaging
Resin suppliers forced to raise prices
Box manufacturers
Tape
Glue and Ink
machine tools and equipment
Freight movers
and finally my industrial bags will increase dramatically due to the above suppliers which in turn will passed on to all the producers of food and products which buy the same products.
The person that articulates this issue the best is Mark Levin
Democrats are tools…This bill will be used against them as an example of how they don’t care about the existing economy or jobs.
It is a massive tax that will solve nothing but I guess that is acceptable considering that man made GW is a hoax. This bill will provide windfall profits for polluters and most of the money will go directly to the UN. Additionally is you sell your home you will have to have a Carbon inspector analysis your home to ensure it is not an energy hog. If it is you will have to address the problem before it can be sold. I wonder if the government will use this as a reason to seize property? Oh but at least Al Gore will become a billionaire while we lose 2.2 jobs for every one created. If the politicians really believed this crap the revenue generated would actually go towards renewable energy but it actually is going to the UN and healthcare. What a f@cking joke!
Thank you for all this info. I thought I’d add to the idea of the Cap & Trade Bill leading to the US reducing importing foreign oil. I have seen articles stating the opposite, such as this one:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=avLVPogS6lh0
I am afraid that this bill is more about the government’s agenda than actually doing something good for the world.
Yes, we don’t make electricity from imported oil. This is just a redistribution scheme. No trees will be saved and no child will breathe a bit easier because of this tax. The greenies are just the doormat. But alas, the man-child emperor has already spoken and his words appear henceforth in red typeface.
Cap-and-Trade–it’s going to be a really swell thing for Goldman-Sachs according to Matt Taibbi’s eye-opening new article “The Great American Bubble Machine.” I suppose this is one of those “must-reads” that well-intentioned folks like me are always annoying people with:
http://www.correntewire.com/great_american_bubble_machine_0
Note that the pertinent paragraphs regarding cap-and-trade appear towards the end of the article.
My favorite part of the article. All we need is another f-in market for speculators to gamble in with our money backing them in case they speculate wrong. But, if we won’t pick up the pitchforks then we deserve what we get. People are acting like sheep being led to the shears and they are going to lose everything. Unless there is an awakening very soon, we are all going to die as penniless paupers in some government ran slumlord tenant house.
Obama is a investor in the Chicago CLimate Exchange. He sat on the Board and was awarded stock. This firm is also connected to the Chicago Annenburg Challenge Group.
Egads. I’ll ask before someone else does: do you have a link or can you point to a location where we can read about this?
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chicago_Climate_Exchange
This comes from here:
http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/2009/06/richard-sandor-barack-obama-and.html
I think there is some real meat in this story and it is darn fortuitous that this came out of Chicago and has Obama all over it… and that it was born before Obama made his “historic” bid for the White House. I think this may be why he really is “the one”. This could turn out to be the biggest scheme of all time.
Amazing, horrifying article. Must read is right.
I found the last two paragraphs of this article chilling and heartbreaking, oowawa. It confirms everything I’ve been reading over the last several months. Cited from Taibbi’s article:
“It’s not always easy to accept the reality of what we now routinely allow these people to get away with; there’s a kind of collective denial that kicks in when a country goes through what America has gone through lately, when a people lose as much prestige and status as we have in the past few years. You can’t really register the fact that you’re no longer a citizen of a thriving first-world democracy, that you’re no longer above getting robbed in broad daylight, because like an amputee, you can still sort of feel things that are no longer there.
But this is it. This is the world we live in now. And in this world, some of us have to play by the rules, while others get a note from the principal excusing them from homework till the end of time, plus 10 billion free dollars in a paper bag to buy lunch. It’s a gangster state, running on gangster economics, and even prices can’t be trusted anymore; there are hidden taxes in every buck you pay. And maybe we can’t stop it, but we should at least know where it’s all going.
The bubbles don’t come ’til the end of the program… Turn off the bubbles… Turn off the bubble machine!”
If that doesn’t make your hair stand up, I don’t know what will. We are so-o-o screwed! And we’ve been so had.
But yes, turn off the damn bubble machine. And reveal the gangsters for who and what they are, Bernie Madoff clones. They should all rot in Hell.
“So, where do you stand on Cap and Trade?”
You gotta be kidding?
It’s a no brainer.
It’s a punitive measure once again inflicted on the middleclass citizens by those oligarchs in DC to solidify their power grab.
Who stands to gain? Oh, I don’t know maybe a couple like Pelosi-Pickens & their wind farms corporations & GE NBC or Algore being the brokerage for the carbon credits, that’s a couple right there.
I don’t know what is in the 300 page ammendment inserted at 3am before the vote that once again, NO ONE had time to Read.
Gimme a break, who can defend this travesty!
True. No one can defend this travesty. What are they thinking?
I would guess that families will turn to burning wood to heat their homes. I remember my father-in-law bought a wood burning stove in the past when electricity jumped in price. If both natural gas and electricity prices go up there will be more burning of wood.
It is indeed a massive tax. And certainly not the last one being passed into law, unfortunately.
We have a startling example of “cap & trade” in Spain, where energy prices have spiked 31% and unemployment is nearly 20% because for every very expensive job created, 2.2 jobs were lost.
And this is what Obama calls a “jobs program?”
What I see is just another bloated bureaucratic program that will have no effect on climate change because we don’t control the rest of the world’s behavior. Will China participate in this? No. Will India? No. In fact, none of the developing or still-to-be developed nations will be coming to the party. And that’s even if you accept the notion that climate change is manmade and reversible.
So do I buy into this legislation that again no one has read but pushed through in the wee hours. No. I think it’s just another way to pick the public’s pocket, which is getting more and more threadbare.
But maybe that’s the point. Make us all paupers, equal in our misery so there’s only one place to turn: to our cat-smiling government.
This is Carter on steroids. I voted for Jimmy Carter. And boy, was I ever sorry!
This is indeed the big government schemes, at work. It’s not even a big job creator, either.
Beware of the new “smart grid” it tells how much you owe the govt it actually is an electronic govt. controlled electricity czar. Thats hope and change? Thats dishonest. Thats barack obama, A small man in a job way over his head
No, the man behind the curtain. Pay no attention to him as he is just the smarmy public face.
The Obama Administration censored a major study on Climate Change. The study concludes that the major causes of climage change is not anthropogenic, but but the solar cycle and the ocean cycles. Moreover, the danger to the planet has been grossly exaggerated.
The nonsense of man-made global warming is one of the geatest frauds ever concocted. For more than twenty years there has been a fanatical environmental movement that is intent on driving mankind back to the stone age, and global warming has been their main weapon. ALL of the man made influences that they claim have warmed the atmosphere have been proven to be insignificant when weighed against the natural forces and cycles that are constantly working on climate changes in a system that can’t possibly remain static. The climate ALWAYS changes either up or down regardless of man’s activities. People could dissappear tomorrow and it wouldn’t make any difference, change simply occurs with the passage of time, and as much as you may want things to stay the same, it’s simply not possible no matter what we do.
To twist natural changes in global climate into a man-made phenomenon is scientifically insulting. For the governments of the world to use this big lie to clamp down on production, create famine, and foster worldwide shortages of everything except misery, will rival the Holocaust in terms of man’s inhumanity to man. Unfortunately, there are many creeps like Al Gore out there that don’t give a rat’s @$$ about anything other than enriching themselves, and living an opulent lifestyle far away from the squalor they’re creating for the rest of us.
And now we are seeing the real reason, it’s the carbon market. What if somebody could reinvent the stock market and own a big share of it for doing so… it is happening with the Chicago Climate Exchange. This is the story behind the story. This is how a nobody community organizer can be made President of the United States. This is how the king makers work in real life. And we thought we were free… free like cattle roaming an open range maybe… free until the big boys get hungry maybe… that kind of free.
Where do I stand? Totally against it! It will crush this already unstable economy. I live in Ohio where most of our electricity is from coal powered electric plants. This cost will be pushed directly to consumers. Do they really think we are that freaking stupid????? I’ve already called my representatives and will be attending a Tea Party on July 4th. This administration needs a wake up call! Stop the spending! We are watching!
This was an interesting point brought up by a caller on Limbaugh’s show about what Rep. Boehner stated while reading the C&T bill last Friday in the House.
CALLER: Use their own words because I’ve been telling people about what he read and people are like, “That can’t happen. I didn’t hear about that.” Talk about going to sell your house. You can’t put your house on the market unless it’s rated by who? It’s gotta be rated. You’ve gotta have all new windows, all new doors.
RUSH: Have you heard about this, folks? When you sell your house, environmental experts have to come in and do a survey to find out if you’ve got leaky windows, if all the environmental systems are correct, if you have relatively new appliances, and until you modernize in the way they say, you can’t sell — that’s in the bill. I’m not kidding, Brian. See, you can’t believe it. You can’t. It’s in the bill. It was in this amendment that Boehner read.
Link to entire conversation:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_062909/content/01125113.guest.html
Yikes. I wonder if this applies to foreclosed homes, or will the repossessing lenders be exempt?
Property in the hands of private citizens is the target as well. Properties are to be owned by approved government partnering financial institutions. This is not socialism by the way, it is fascism.
Here’s a thought folks
What if Mankind’s industrialization including population growth,industry and all the pollution belching out is the only thing keeping us from the next Ice age.
We are 2500 years overdo for an Ice age.
Just a reminder…You can grow stuff in a warming world, but you can’t grow anything in an ice age.
What a paradox…Man’s activity being the only thing keeping back the ice.
Hey Seattle, I am not so sure we could alter the weather or temperature of the planet if we tried. What if we never drilled any natural gas? Would it stay in the Earth if we didn’t drill?.. no it would bubble up from the earth if not form a dome and erupt. What if indeed? What if we don’t relieve the natural gas pressure buildup and it erupts into an ice age forming dust cloud? What if instead of us turning this gas into CO2 which plants actually need… instead we let the methane enter the atmosphere? It could very well be that we have been helping things and are too stupid to see it. The research of Thomas Gold found that the Earth forms hydrocarbons at high pressure and high temperatures from totally inorganic material. Titan, a moon of Saturn has five times the methane gas than we do… and no dead dinosaurs. So, the possibility that hydrocarbons are abiogenic is very real. So, if we don’t relieve the pressure by using this resource… it is going to become atmospheric methane instead of CO2.
There are massive underwater geologic pit like formations in the north Atlantic that actually were the result of huge natural gas explosions.
Petroleum naturally leaks to the surface all over the world (underwater also), think La Brea Tarpits.
People are fearful of nuclear power, but it is nuclear decay that keeps the core of this planet molten. Uranium ore is constantly releasing radiation (that’s how we find it, duh) into the surroundings, what is so bad about collecting it, and harnessing that release of energy for our own purposes? It’s going to decay whether we use it or not.
At some point in the distant past, almost all of the carbon in coal and petroleum was part of the atmosphere as CO2, ten times current concentrations. Plant life went crazy, so did sea life. The world was vastly different, so, was it wrong? Is the present state of the world the only acceptable way it should be? If idiotic people want to keep it exactly the way it is now, GOOD LUCK, but please, don’t drag me and my resources into your insane battle with the forces of nature. I would rather spend only a fraction of my time dealing with the inexorable natural changes in this world.
Hey Onofre…
You and Doc are both correct about the release of methane and other naturally occurring elements.
Most of the events unexplained in the Bermuda triangle can be traced to huge methane explosions swallowing up whatever was in the way that day.
The global warming we are actually enjoying today can be traced to the thawing of the permafrost after the last Ice age and not do to Man’s influence.
Where I sit right now blogging here in Seattle a mile thick glacier used to grind overhead as little as 10000 years ago.
Sure glad it warmed up!
Doc, I think this is an incredibly interesting possibility, and nobody should dismiss it out-of-hand. Where’s Ferd? I’d like to hear what he thinks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_oil
The page for the Russian petroleum geologist is interesting also. There is a section on this page for abiogenic theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Kudryavtsev
I know this isn’t conventional thinking, but if the origins of petroleum are biogenic, then explain methane gas on Titan as an example. Or oil fields once believed depleted that now have oil again. If the petroleum is abiogenic then it’s coming up whether we drill it or not. The question is then do we get anything in return for it or not. If it’s abiogenic, we might as well use all of it we can, because it is renewable. I have the feeling if we drilled deep enough, we could tap into huge reservoirs of natural gas we don’t even know about yet. Plus we could inject water into these deep areas and the heat and pressure would produce natural gas. It seem much easier to me than the talk of mining the moon for H3. That is what the recent moon shot is about. They aren’t looking for water in the moon dust. They want a sample to see how much H3 is in the dust. This is also why China is frantically trying to “me too” on the moon. They want to make a claim if we figure out how to mine it. Putting technology into deep drilling seems more plausible to me.
At the end of WWII, German rocket scientists were in high demand. Now I guess Russian petrochemists, geologists, and oil drillers would be interesting folks to talk to . . .
As my tin-hat starts to glow from mysterious radiations, I start to wonder how profitable it is for big oil to keep the world convinced that oil is in short supply and being depleted quickly . . .
You hit the nail on the head! Oil is not in short supply, even if you ignore all of the possible undiscovered reserves, and there are still plenty of those. Last summer’s spike in oil prices was a psychological one, people were fooled once again into believing we were running out, or that oil exploration was slowing down in favor of investment into so-called renewable energy sources. Obama claimed rather famously that “Drilling today will not reduce the price of oil one cent tomorrow.” The reality was that the mere threat of new drilling (remember “Drill here, drill now!”) was enough to cause the price of oil to drop dramatically. The market reacts to future possibilities, that’s why they’re called “futures”.
Had the prices remained high enough, operations in our vast reserves of oil shale would have cranked back up. The known reserves in our oil shale would last 200 years at current usage, and we would only be paying about the same for a gallon of gas that the Europeans currently pay because of their high taxes. This country is fabulously rich in fossil fuels, there’s no danger of running out in the near future. As long as we can sit on those reserves while getting relatively cheap foreign oil, why not keep picking that low hanging fruit? Use theirs up while it’s cheap! Geologists know this, and most good ones also know that man made global warming is a cruel and expensive joke.
The use of coal and oil as our primary energy source is driven by a very fundamental principle, it’s the cheapest form of energy we have, by far. Solar, wind and most other pie in the sky sources have yet to break the cost-benefit barrier. The rewards for developing an inexpensive, renewable, alternative to fossil fuels would be enormous, and there are thousands of enterprises working feverishly on the problem in persuit of those rewards. A government sponsored “Manhatten project” is not necessary, and would probably be riddled with waste and corruption like most other government projects anyway. The mechanics of capitalism have almost always been the best force at finding answers and solutions to our problems. Cap and trade will only serve to entrench the status quo, and spread the misery.
“Cap and trade” will move both jobs and pollution offshore. The jobs will stay offshore. The pollution will not stay offshore. We lose both ways.
i.m afraid this will be the straw that broke the U,S,A,
Al Gore pays ‘Carbon Offsets’ to a firm he owns. Can you say Conflict of Interest? Follow the Money.
It is not a Conflict it is CORRUPTION! the guy is a classic snake oil salesman.
If one is worried about pollution you deal with pollution, not a theory about global warming or climate change that hasn’t been proven. If one is worried about water quality, you pass the Clean Water Act (CWA), something that had water quality goals and standards to be met. That worked and our water quality is better and it was funded. I think we’re all for that kind of improvement. Nobody set up middlemen companies to sell rights to pollute to others, there were no caps of the pollutant levels, but if you did you could trade for something.
This act, which China and India, don’t/won’t follow, will shift jobs to China and India. Global pollution will be worse since they don’t have the kind of environmental regulations we do here.
This whole idea is based on unproven science. Clean water and the CWA was based on sound science and it worked. We fixed broken things with the CWA. We are trying to fix something that we don’t even know is broken with this act.
Total hogwash.
There you go! That’s the real motivation behind this bill in a nutshell. The license to pollute becomes a tradeable commodity that companies like Goldman Sachs can manipulate to make tons of moola.
Judging by the comments on this board, not very many of us are much enthused about this plan.
Please help, American Girl or admin–Almighty Spam Filter, who very well may be the chief deity ruling over Goldman Sachs, cast my comment into the Lake of Fire . . . again . . .
No, admin, don’t stop the SpamMonster from temporarily holding up oowawa’s posts!
I always laugh at the way you say you need posts recovered, it’s always very creative - if your posts stop being waylayed, we’ll lose your funny retorts!
How about this then. “Release my posts or I’ll shave the neighbor’s cat.” Who knows, YOU might be my neighbor.
LOL–Any threat to my cats would sure get MY attention!
Actually, lorac, I’m beginning to suspect it’s Larry Johnson trying to have a little godly fun with his blog at the expense of some of his more annoying bloggers . . .
I think it’s just arbitrary automated scoring to particular words. i.e. word 1 = 1 point, word 2 = 2 points etc. Once you cross the threshold of points it traps the posting. That is why the longer posts are more vulnerable.
Good try, Doc, but no prize. Longer posts are more vulnerable because they’re longer and have more stuff, but no post is too small to escape His amused condemnation. I think it may have something to do with quantum theory. Sorry American Girl! I’m drifting off-topic, I know!
The Cap & Trade concept is yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. If memory serves, it was initially proposed as a way of transferring some wealth to the poorest countries by dint of them ’selling’ their pollution rights to the rich kids on the block.
Unfortunately, the well-meaning, but dangerously naive, people who promulgated this scheme quite forgot to account for human nature. The result is that we have another baseline cultural meme that just doesn’t work in the real world.
“Take your time, think it through.” - Jack Brennan
Was it the “well-meaning, but dangerously naive, people” who were behind this scheme, or was it the shrewd manipulative power brokers who saw the opportunity to make a fortune by dealing pollution trades? Granted, there are many well-meaning folks who put the environment first; but are they being herded into this great green idea by financial wolves?
And another comment bites the dust, courtesy of the Almighty Spam Filter. Oh Great Filter, I promise not to make jokes about you nor take your name in vain anymore! Please admin, help. Thanks.
“Take your time, think it through.” - Jack Brennan
That’s the trouble with this gang. Everything is a big rush, veiled in secrecy. No one had time to read this bill just as no one had time to read the Stimulus. The more they rush, the more you know they’ve something to hide.
They had to rush it through, the foundation of the man made global warming scam is rapidly crumbling, and soon it will not be a reasonable excuse to push through draconian legislation like cap and trade. They have to strike now while there are still enough sheeple that are chugging the global warming kool-aid.
It has become a common theme for the Obama syndicate, claim that there is a rapidly approaching crisis (global warming, healthcare collapse, bank and market failure) and scream that there is no time to waste, immediate action is our only salvation. A congress that is in strict lockstep (or goose step as it were) with Obama, has no need for prudence. Thet all need to be tossed out on their pathetic asses.
An interesting coincidence:
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/remembering-jack-eddy/
Let me get this straight … someone in the government (obama and his thug friends) are going to get filthy rich (no pun intended) selling “permission” to put more CO2 in the air.
Then the cost of the permission gets carried over to us, the consumer.
HuH?
I never heard Hillary talk about cap and trade. She had a green program that centered around green manufacturing and creating alternative energy.
Obama’s bill has some wording where people will be taxed on energy consumption and the money will pay the energy costs of lower income people.
Obama=The Leveler
Yes, this is what I have been saying. It isn’t about energy at all, but solely about income redistribution. The whole concept that middle class people use more power than low income people and owe them something because of that is absurd. But, if that will fly so would reparations. It is equally absurd when slavery exists to this day in the countries in which the slave caste was invented.
http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/special-climate-change-envoy-true-believer-and-the-podestas-man-at-state-todd-stern/
This dirtbag is Hillary`s friend.
Another argument I heard that makes sense is that this is a TRADE plan, which means billions more for Wall St. Financial institutions like Goldman Sachs will benefit greatly from this bill. Now THAT sounds like Obama to me. I just can’t fathom how huge energy cost increases will be acceptable or sustainable to people–especially right now when people are struggling just to get by. Even if the funds go into developing green technologies, that will take years. What is supposed to happen during the transitional phase, we all go bankrupt? I don’t get it.
The middle class is targeted for extinction. In a nanny state, it is easier to manage the children when we all are wearing the same brand of diaper and all eating the same food at the same time. Middle class people that don’t have to go along won’t, so the middle class is being relieved of it’s assets. The poor are cheering because they hate the middle class. The rich are cheering because they are getting a lot of the middle class assets. The middle class think this is just a recession. It is not.
We’ll see what happens by 2010. If the economy is still in unacceptable shape, bye bye Democratic control of the House, and a veto-proof Senate. And it won’t matter how favorable the press is toward Democrats. The antipartisan revolution will be organized over the web, social networking mechanisms, smartphones, talk radio and Fox News. Unless the Obama administration is willing to shut these down, as the Iranian government did, he will be powerless to stop this. The Republicans will be the de facto beneficiaries because they are the opposition party, but if they squander their victory, as they did in the early 2000s, they will be out on their can as well.
Sen. James Inhofe calls for investigating the EPA.
I found this old article that is very interesting.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2007/3413carbon_swindle.html
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