INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: WAXMAN-MARKEY A MAN-MADE DISASTER: This article references the “cap and trade” emissions scheme embedded in a bill up for vote today: “The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on an anti-stimulus package that in the name of saving the earth will destroy the American economy. Smoot-Hawley will seem like a speed bump.”
Read on:
As we’ve said before, capping emissions is capping economic growth. An analysis of Waxman-Markey by the Heritage Foundation projects that by 2035 it would reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 trillion. In an average year, 844,000 jobs would be destroyed, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by almost 2 million (see charts below).Consumers would pay through the nose as electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, as President Obama once put it, by 90% adjusted for inflation. Inflation-adjusted gasoline prices would rise 74%, residential natural gas prices by 55% and the average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500.
Hit hardest by all this would be the “95% of working families” Obama keeps mentioning as being protected from increased taxation. They are protected, that is, unless they use energy. Then they’ll be hit by this draconian energy tax.
And what would we get for all this pain? According to an analysis by Chip Knappenberger, administrator of the World Climate Report, the reduction of U.S. CO2 emissions to 83% below 2005 levels by 2050 — the goal of the Waxman-Markey bill — would reduce global temperature in 2050 by a mere 0.05 degree Celsius.
My point is not to debate the merits or lack thereof of global warming / climate change, but to point out that, in the name of “good intentions” and “doing the right thing,” we are about to create more trouble for ourselves. As the headline reads, a Man-Made Disaster. According to other sources, the bill is being rammed through Congress with a three-hour discussion.
Today the world is caught up with Michael Jackson’s death, Gov. Sanford’s crazy antics, and some other mess, but legislation with decades-long negative impact is about to sail through without the attention (and sunlight of transparency) that is critical. I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world, as I believe all sorts of buffoonery can be reversed. But the consequences for this one will be huge. Talk about hope and pray.
UPDATE: Greenpeace opposes Waxman-Markey, albeit for different reasons than my own:
“As it comes to the floor, the Waxman-Markey bill sets emission reduction targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with massive offsets. The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real energy solutions. To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak.
I, for one, am for nuclear energy. I wish the U.S. would build a string of nuclear reactors across the country. It takes more than 10 years to build a plant, so no time like the present to get started.