Democrats Unveil Climate Bill

Very few of those on Capitol Hill are really stupid enough to believe that any “climate change” we might experience is actually caused by man.  We might be POLLUTING the environment, but to credit climate change to anything we are doing is more than pretentious.  The REAL science does not back up the assertion.  I’m not talking about the discredited “hockey stick” graph that our environmental savior Al Gore likes to display, or the NASA data that was proven to be falsified and faulty.  I’m talking about data from scientists that number at least as many as the global warming/climate change crowd, but are silenced and/or ignored by government and their willing accomplices the mainstream media.  As I said in my post “Stop the Obama Plan to Take Total Control,” this is not about protecting the climate or environment, it’s about control of wealth and power.

…Have no doubt that they will find another way to put this over on us, and here’s why.  Don’t miss this.  Cap-and-Trade, carbon tax, or whatever label they place on it is the one, single way to tax and control EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE.  Think about it.  We are a carbon based economy.  Is there ANYTHING that you use, consume, buy, etc. that isn’t produced with carbon based energy, made from carbon fuel derivatives (i.e. plastics come from oil), and/or delivered in a vehicle that burns carbon based fuel?  This includes the electricity that lights, heats, and cools your home, and cooks your food.  The producers will be taxed on the carbon used to produce, this tax will of course be passed on to you, the consumer.  The consumer will also be taxed on the carbon they consume.  This will doubly and heavily burden you and I with massive taxes, and will eventually drive producers out of business because we can’t afford to buy their products.  They close, we lose jobs, the tax base of both producers and consumers shrinks, the government has fewer dollars they can tax, the nation goes deeper in debt, and the death spiral of our country’s economy continues.)

Here are a few key points to remember.  CO2, carbon dioxide, is PLANT FOOD, not a “warming gas.”  If you see the GEOLOGIC data which goes back BILLIONS of years, rather than the METEOROLOGICAL data that the global warming/climate change crowd uses which only goes back at most a few HUNDRED years, you see that their assertions about the affects of CO2 on the environment are patently false.  One of the other pieces of data that shows the absurdity of the global warming claims is the evidence that Mars was warming at the same time and same rate as the earth.  I guess that means that our use of the evil SUV’s is causing such bad pollution that it’s even causing MARS to WARM.  Are you starting to see how ridiculous this climate change/global warming crap is?

April 1, 2009

By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON — The debate on global warming and energy policy accelerated on Tuesday as two senior House Democrats unveiled a far-reaching bill to cap heat-trapping gases and quicken the country’s move away from dependence on coal and oil.

But the bill leaves critical questions unanswered and has no Republican support. It is thus the beginning, not the end, of the debate in Congress on how to deal with two of President Obama’s priorities, climate change and energy.

The draft measure, written by Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, sets a slightly more ambitious goal for capping heat-trapping gases than Mr. Obama’s proposal. The bill requires that emissions be reduced 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, while Mr. Obama’s plancalls for a 14 percent reduction by 2020. Both would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases by roughly 80 percent by 2050.

The Waxman-Markey bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, emerges at a time when many Americans, and their representatives in Congress, are wary of wide-ranging environmental legislation that could raise energy costs and potentially cripple industry. The bill, a version of a so-called cap-and-trade plan, also comes as the Environmental Protection Agency is about to exert regulatory authority over heat-trapping gases under the Clean Air Act.

The bill would require every region of the country to produce a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal by 2025. A number of lawmakers around the country, particularly in the Southeast, call that goal unrealistic because the natural resources and technology to meet it do not yet exist.

The bill also calls for modernization of the electrical grid, production of more electric vehicles and significant increases in efficiency in buildings, appliances and the generation of electricity.

But the Waxman-Markey proposal does not address how pollution allowances would be distributed or what percentage might be auctioned or given free. Nor does it say how most of the tens of billions of dollars raised from pollution permits would be spent, or whether the revenue would be returned to consumers to compensate for higher energy bills. (Returned to the consumer? Once the government gets ANYTHING, it never gives it back) Those matters have been left to negotiations, which will begin when Congress returns from its Easter recess on April 20.

Under Mr. Obama’s plan, roughly two-thirds of the revenue from pollution permit auctions would be returned to the public in tax breaks. (Right.  More “tax breaks” for those who pay no taxes to begin with.  That’s know as “welfare.”) Some members of Congress from both parties want to see all the revenue from any carbon-reduction plan returned to the public in some form.

Mr. Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement that his measure would create jobs and provide a gradual transition to a more efficient economy. (See my comments on job and wealth creation by government from the “Stop the Obama Plan to Take Total Control” post HERE.)

“Our goal is to strengthen our economy by making America the world leader in new clean-energy and energy-efficiency technologies,” Mr. Waxman said.

The bill offers a sweetener for members from coal-producing states by including $10 billion in new financing for the development of technology to capture and store emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, which currently produces half of the nation’s electricity.  (Remember Obama’s comments about the coal industry?  He promised he was going to destroy it)

Representative Rick Boucher, a Democrat from the coal-rich southwestern corner of Virginia, insisted on that provision, noting that coal would remain a major part of the nation’s energy mix for decades to come.

A coalition of business and environmental groups, the United States Climate Action Partnership, welcomed the measure as a “strong starting point” for addressing emissions of heat-trapping gases and said it had incorporated many of the partnership’s recommendations.

But the group, which includes major manufacturing corporations like Alcoa, DuPont and General Motors, said that it would push for a “substantial” number of free pollution allowances so that its members could make a gradual transition to less-polluting technologies.