On June 26, a narrow margin of 219 to 212, the U.S House of Representatives passed a “cap and trade” bill, H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, or Waxman-Markey bill.
The 1,200-page bill is said to “literally save the planet,” while creating “millions of green jobs.”
In closing debate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “Just remember these four words: Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.”
The goal is overall reduction of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020, and 83% by mid-century (Wall St J 6/27/09).
It was not possible for Congress to know the true impact of the bill, if enacted and implemented, especially as it was reportedly not possible to find the 1,200-page version of the bill, including the 3 a.m., 300-page amendment, by the time of passage.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimated that federal revenues would increase by about $846 billion over the 2010-2019 period, starting slowly at $0.9 billion in 2010 and growing to $132 billion in 2019 (CBO Cost Estimate 6/5/09). There would, however, also be direct expenditures of $821 billion over the same period, so that the bill could only reduce the budget deficit by $24 billion.
This would fall far short of the $646 billion windfall hoped for by 2019 to cover the “down payment” on health care reform (AAPS News of the Day 3/2/09).
The bill would affect every aspect of American life, and impose massive reporting requirements on energy generators and users—including clinics and hospitals. “Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory in order to battle global warming and reduce our carbon footprints,” said Pelosi in May (Marc Morano, Climate Depot 6/26/09).
The lowest cost estimate is Obama’s—the cost of a postage stamp per day. “It’s paid for by polluters who currently emit dangerous carbon emissions” (AP 6/27/09). The CBO estimate is $175/yr for the average household, after tax credits and rebates, but not counting effects on employment or gross domestic product. Taking the Obama Administration’s estimate of $650 billion from auctioning carbon permits, and “knowledgeable” estimates of $2,000 billion for impact on consumers, and dividing by the number of households and 10 years, the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) calculates $650 to $2,000 per year per household. (The Week That Was 6/27/09).
The net reduction in jobs, according to Charles River Associates International, would be between 2.3 million and 2.7 million per year, as manufacturing is outsourced to China and India.
In the House Energy Committee, three Republican amendments were defeated during the few days in which debate was allowed: to suspend the program if gasoline prices hit $5/gal, or electricity prices increased 10%, or unemployment rates hit 15% (Wall St J 6/26/09).
If the emissions reductions goal were met—reducing carbon dioxide emissions to 1907 levels, when the primary mode of transportation was horses—the largest possible effect on temperature by the end of the century would be 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a climate modeling study by Chip Knappenberger (ibid.) Obama called the initial targets set by the House bill “modest” (NY Times 6/28/09).
As the House was voting on the biggest tax increase in history on 100% of Americans, the Obama Administration attempted to suppress a report by EPA scientists that “completely blows apart the scientific underpinnings of the endangerment finding that the EPA administrator made on CO2” (NY Times 6/26/09).
Alan Carlin and John Davidson were ordered, in emails obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), not to communicate to the public their conclusion that the global warming theory is bunk, because the Administration had decided to go ahead with “the endangerment finding.” CEI has posted the report.
Obama pulled back an address on the urgency of health care reform, substituting a message focusing on the House “climate victory.” He is already turning up the pressure on the Senate, where the “cap and tax” energy-rationing proposal faces stiff opposition (NY Times 6/28/09).
Voting against the bill were 44 Democrats, and voting for it were eight Republicans: Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Mike Castle (R-DW), Mark Steven Kirk (R-IL), Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), John McHugh (R-NY), Dave Reichert (R-WA), and Chris Smith (R-NJ).
Additional information:
- Statement by Congressman Ron Paul on Global Warming Petition Signed by 31,478, June 4, 2009.
- “Electricity without Carbon?” Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, September 2008.
- “Is Life a Pollutant?” Civil Defense Perspectives, July 2008.
- “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” by Arthur B. Robinson, Ph.D., Noah E. Robinson, Ph.D., and Willie Soon, Ph.D. J Am Phys Surg Fall 2007.
This bill, if made law, will and is designed to reverse the industrial age in America by shutting off the principle sources of energy on which our nations prosperity depends. It is thinly disguised snarling, evil, anti human life. It is represented as necessary to save the planet from human destruction, a preposterous fraud propogated by Al Gore and his sycophants. There is conclusive evidence that the earth’s climate is determined by metaphysical forces, mainly variations in the radiant energy of the sun incident on and absorbed by the earth, independent of man’s activities.
This is a much greater danger than the obvious danger of the Obama Care bill and deserves our vigorous and reasoned opposition in self defense.
One can easily these days, with the Internet, become aware of government agency actions like the suppression of EPA scientists’ report that, according to the CEI, “rel[ies] on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.” One is left then to speculate why far more USers are not enraged that they are being lied to by government – this administration as well as previous ones. Are these individuals not listening to and/or reading sites that carry this type of expose? Or do those who remain silent not understand the reports, even though they are not terribly complex in their overviews? Or is it that these non-objectors simply do not think it worth their time to raise public objections? Maybe they simply do not believe the reports like this one from CEI, and choose to believe that the Obama administration (or some previous one in the past) would not conceal pertinent facts regarding proposed legislation, presidential actions or judicial arguments? (Although with so many other concealments previously made known, this latter possibility is hard to believe.)
I am sure that there are other possibilities for the lack of public outrage but they all contribute greatly to the fact that the majority of US politicians continue to act as though it does not matter that a significant minority of the population does not want government creating regulations that will, even if unintended, enormously stifle the economy that it has already hamstrung – done years ago and frequently repeated. If this bill is not stopped in the Senate then it is crucial to remember that laws/mandates/rulings/directives/executive orders are all just words – it is the enforcement of them by government enforcers, with the legal use of force or threat of it, that is the real problem. All the words produced by legislators, judges and executives (the latter including the President) are simply so much squiggles on paper and ripples in the air without direct physical action by enforcers.
I strongly recommend the reading and studying of Gene Sharp’s 3 volume set, _The Politics of Nonviolent Action_. While public information dissemination and protests (in person, by mail, telephonically or electronically) are still allowed actions in the US, they are not sufficient in many cases to stop the opposition (the government). Additionally these methods are currently not enough to convince the great number of “bystanders” and supporters of the government that the problems with the proposed regulations (this one and so very many others) are monumental and that opposition to them is in their long range wide viewed best interest. Many of the methods, strategy and tactics of which Sharp writes are applicable to the US now, just as they have been used (not always successfully) in various parts of the world where the struggle was and is for “democracy”. (The withdrawal from Medicare by physicians is one method that falls under the general category of “Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government” – a boycott of a portion of government.) The US is technically a representative democracy, but that (and any variant of it) has never been and can never be a method by which each person can maximize his/her lifetime happiness all at the same time. This passed bill by the House, now off the to Senate for approval, is another of the many demonstrations of that fact.