by Donna Curtin
Whether your views about global warming put you in the skeptics’ camp, the alarmists’ camp or somewhere in between, the issue may soon become a very personal one for you and your family. A 2007 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court gave the EPA permission to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act. On April 17, 2009, the agency issued a “finding,” declaring CO2 (a harmless substance essential to life on earth) to be an environment-endangering pollutant which, indeed, must be regulated. The Waxman-Markey Bill, currently before Congress, attempts to do that by :
- mandating the use of low-carbon motor fuels and a drastic increase in electricity production from renewable sources (e.g. solar and wind).
- by a system of “cap and trade,” under which the EPA will set an absolute limit (cap) on the amount of CO2 that can be emitted into the atmosphere by regulated entities (power plants, factories, schools, hospitals, etc.) in a given year.
Since 85% of American energy is produced by fossil fuels whose unavoidable byproduct is CO2, these regulated entities will need ration coupons or “pollution permits” (quotas) in order to carry on business. Those entities that can cut their greenhouse gas emissions below their quotas can sell their remaining allotment to businesses that cannot. However, the emissions cap will be reduced every year, requiring greater cuts, more costs to businesses and causing more harm to the economy and society. In an analysis of Waxman-Markey for the Heritage Foundation, authors William Beach, David Kreutzer, Karen Campbell and Ben Lieberman project that by 2035, cap and trade will:
- reduce total Gross Domestic Product by $9.6 trillion;
- destroy 1,105,000 jobs/year on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by 2,479,000;
- raise electricity rates by 90%, after adjusting for inflation;
- raise gasoline prices by 74% (inflation-adjusted);
- raise residential natural gas prices by 55%;
- raise the average family yearly energy bill by $1,500;
- increase the federal debt by 26%, for an additional $29,150 per person.
The authors point out that, for the years 2012-2035, a family of 4 will see its direct energy costs rise by $22,800. These inflation-adjusted figures do not include the indirect costs of higher prices for more energy-efficient cars and appliances, the inconvenience and danger of driving smaller, lighter vehicles or the discomfort of using less heating in winter and air-conditioning in summer.
Draconian? You betcha. Necessary to save the planet? Consider: Despite Al Gore’s hysterical insistence that anthropogenic global warming is a real crisis and that the “science” has been settled by consensus, over 31,000 American scientists to date have signed the Oregon Petition, which categorically rejects that conclusion. Of the 2500 scientists and bureaucrats selected to work on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (on which “An Inconvenient Truth” is based), over 700 scientists have openly challenged the report’s global warming alarmist opinions, with some even suing the UN for misrepresentation and misuse of their research for political ends. In fact, most climatologists will tell you that the warming and cooling cycles that have occurred on Earth since its beginning correlate perfectly with increases or decreases in solar surface activity and are not a result of changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2. They will also tell you that the Earth has been demonstrably cooling for the past 10 years.
But let’s suppose that this cooling decade is just a slight detour on a path to crisis-proportion global warming, as Gore and the EPA apparently do. Will cap and trade stop it or even reduce it? According to Beach et al., the program costs listed above accrue in just the first 25 years of a 90 year program. By 2050, the program’s effects might reduce the Earth’s temperature by a few hundredths of a degree; by the end of this century, by no more than 2/10’s of a degree. China and India, the world’s biggest polluters, have made it clear that they will not match U.S. CO2 reductions because doing so would devastate their economies (and you can expect to see American manufacturing jobs relocating to these countries). U.S. Representative Joe Barton of Texas notes in an op-ed to the Washington Times that Waxman-Markey aims to reduce the U.S. carbon footprint to that of present day Haiti – a cesspool of parasitic infection with a life expectancy of 49 years. Is this really the kind of world you want to leave for your children?
So why would our President and Congress, knowing full well that cap and trade (or any other form of energy tax) will have close to no effect on global temperature, waste trillions of dollars that could be spent to develop new technologies that would allow human beings to adapt to and live comfortably and safely through a period of warming?
Why would Obama and the Democrats impose an enormous energy tax that will cost millions of jobs and hurt every American, as higher energy prices raise the cost of production and transportation of goods and services in every sector of our economy, even as this economy is reeling from a recession?
Why would a government already in debt legislate a program so complex and intrusive that it will require a massive new bureaucracy to oversee it? Why would an administration that touts its transparency champion a punishing energy program so opaque that the public will never really know who’s selling or who’s buying pollution permits and who’s getting waivers – a program in which CO2 ration coupons can be handed out as political payoffs to favored industries, businesses, unions and even congressional districts? Ask yourself, and ask your elected officials: Why, indeed?
