June 28, 2009

by Jerry Gordon, The Iconoclast, June 28, 2009

Read this AP analysis of the narrowly passed House version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (“The Waxman-Markey Act”) “Winners and Losers emerge in the Climate Bill” and then look at your monthly electrical bill and visualize a possible five-fold increase. Your utility costs will increase each year until 2050 when we may get an 80 percent reduction in carbon dioxide levels for less than a 0.05 degree Celsius drop in average temperatures at a cost of over $7.4 trillion according to a Heritage Foundation Study cited by Investors Business Daily. Further, an internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report, surfaced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute indicated that: “Given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998 (which some think will continue until at least 2030), there is no particular reason to rush into decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.” The Heritage Foundation Study notes that human activity generates less than 3.4% of carbon dioxide which in turn accounts for less than 3.6 % of all greenhouse gases, the bugaboo of global warming. Moreover, there will not be a net gain in employment from the greening of America, quite the reverse, millions of jobs will be diminished.

I’m a transplant from the Northeast to the Gulf Coast. The one thing I learned as a transplanted New Englander was that electricity is darn expensive in these parts. Part of it is the climate. Its warmer most of the year. But the other factor is in the Southeastern US most of the power is generated by coal-fired plants-a scapegoat of the Waxman-Markey Act promoted by the Obama Administration. The crowning set piece of this Act is the Cap and Trade, some call it Cap and Tax, proposal directed at allegedly putting a cap on carbon dioxide generation by fossil fuels like coal and oil, although natural gas is given a reprieve because of its alleged cleanliness. Gasoline would be taxed at the refinery and passed onto the consumer. Neither would natural gas escape the additional taxes. Western states get heavy subsidies for solar, geo thermal and wind resources, while the Northeast gets incentives for biomass. Nuclear power, the cleanest of all energy sources, gets some support, but nowhere near that going to the renewable energy advocates. Further, lumber companies get paid not to cut trees down because trees absorb carbon dioxide and transform it into oxygen. The Act also gives foreign aid to reforest tropical forests. Tropical forests like those in Brazil, currently being cleared for agricultural production of sugar ethanol with its flex fuel mandates. (Continue Reading this Article)