By Myron Ebell, via Globalwarming.org
The chance that the Senate will pass a comprehensive energy-rationing (a k a climate) bill this year remains close to zero. BP’s big oil spill in the Gulf changes very little.
The global warming movement peaked last June 26 when the House passed the Waxman-Markey bill. When members went home for the Fourth of July, many who voted for it discovered that their constituents were angry and mobilized.
Seeing the public reaction, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) dropped plans to move a cap-and-trade bill before the August recess and turned to health care reform. It’s been all downhill since then.
The Kerry-Boxer bill, which is very similar to Waxman-Markey, passed the Environment and Public Works Committee last fall, but it was clear that it couldn’t get 51 votes, let alone 60, on the floor. That’s when Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) began working on a “middle-of-the-road” package with Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.).
Even if he does finally release a draft of the measure this week, it’s still not going anywhere. Whether Graham is on board doesn’t matter because he doesn’t bring any other Republicans with him.
Kerry’s draft has restricted cap-and trade to electric utilities only. And he’s stopped calling it cap-and-trade because the American people have figured out that it is an indirect tax on them. Now it’s “pollution reduction and investment.” Similarly, a gasoline tax has been renamed “linked fee.” Call it whatever you want, it’s still a tax that consumers will have to pay. Adding some offshore oil or nuclear incentives or clean coal research can’t hide the fact that prices will go up when energy is rationed.
What’s become increasingly apparent is that this legislation no longer has much to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a monstrous collection of payoffs to big business special interests, ranging from Goldman Sachs to Duke Energy to General Electric.
(This piece by Mr. Ebell originally appeared on the New York Times’s Room for Debate web site as part of a collection of responses to the bill)
CO2 is pollution? How did that happen. Did plants get a vote?
Obama-Speak, the fusion of sophistry and Newspeak.
Apparently it’s too late for the seals….
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100511/canada/canada_hunting_animal_eu
This politico-speak is just like gang language. You need an ever changing dictionary to keep up with it. And might I add, the similarities between political behavior and gang behavior that go beyond that are too close for comfort, whether your wear a red bandanna or a blue one (see what I mean?).
Watered down versions of group sponsored gang…I mean group sponsored policies often stink more than the original versions.
I’m to the point where I hope no one gets along in government anymore so no agreements can be made about ANYTHING!
Joe Romm is all we need up on the BP hearings today. I see the offshore fire and leak are an awesome push to expand Canadian oil sands production. 2 weeks ago the coal mine tragedy. That is followed by one in Russia but they do not cover it since Russians are already communists and don’t need to become communists. The surface mining for coal is now being boosted.
The energy tax, control and manipulation bills will be great tools to prevent re election for the koolaid drinkers.
Let’s hope that Myron Ebell is correct. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to prepare yourselves (ourselves) to hammer our senators with calls, emails etc. in opposition to this bill. I worry that the clowns in DC are so hot to pass something that they’ll pass anything just to satisfy their ruinous agenda.
Just as Bennet from Utah crashed and burned before even getting to the primaries (he was a 3-term sitting senator!), the voters will turn out most Democrats and a number of Republicans this election cycle. The people are tired of being lied to, taxed to death, and having stupidity and socialism shoved down their throats. I predict this will be the biggest election tidal wave in a century and so much garbage that has passed as politics will be history. The proper words to describe these political scoundrels wouldn’t pass this site’s moderators so I won’t bother typing an accurate description.
Call Kerry-Boxer the Dark Ages Tax, for that will be the net effect.
Same thing will happen here that happened in Europe in the Little Ice Age: The countryside was stripped of anything that could be found to eat and burn. The economy of the US will likewise crash & burn.
What most people don’t realize is that John Q. Public is now fully awake and has the eyes of a hawk, when it comes to environmental taxation. It took a little time for John to understand what was being proposed. Let’s face it, until Obama was elected environmental taxation was going nowhere – i.e. thank you President Bush. That’s why the IPCC and Al Gore could pull the wool over everyones’eyes with the “save our mother” rhetoric/routine. No one was really paying attention because it was all nothing but tub thumping.
Then President Obama was elected and the Greens had another shot at it. But that’s now over. America’s populist President now knows what Mr. John Q. Public thinks about environmental taxation.
John is now fully awake and he is pissed at the weak science and money grab that environmentalism has always been about. He is angry that he was manipulated by people with an agenda and weak science. Angry that people with nothign but self-interest have been manipulating him with their fear-tactics.
Climategate was the turning point. It’s over. Polls across the western world show support for environmental taxation as sinking like a stone. It was a money grab, a political opportunity, and a scam.
Mr. Public has let his representatives know what he thinks of environmental taxation: pass that legislation and I will vote you out of office. It’s over.
There won’t be any environmental legislation of any consequence. The Mr. Public
“It’s a monstrous collection of payoffs to big business special interests, ranging from Goldman Sachs to Duke Energy to General Electric.”
No kidding! And whetever the equivalent is in Australia. KRudd747, and your wealthy wife who has benefited from Howards’ and your gubmint “policies” watch out at the polls!
Mind you, come election night here i Aus, there will be a rash of AFL/RFL re-runs to misdirect the real issues. Stay of the turps Aus, let’s sort out this mess KRudd747 has created!
PS. I get to *register* to vote this year. WOW! A mear migrant!
Yes, we must call our representatives, to let them know we object to bills that are driven by special interest groups. Vote the insanity out of office. Get Obama and Chu some medication for their delusional behavior.
Oh dear, typos and spelling errors…oh well it is 3am and I have had a busy few weeks. Chow!
What’s become increasingly apparent is that this legislation no longer has much to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a monstrous collection of payoffs to big business special interests, ranging from Goldman Sachs to Duke Energy to General Electric.
Oh… imagine that! Let’s subtitle this thread: “Myron Gets a Clue!”
I mean there werent ANY hints of this when AlGor said he ‘Put his money where his mouth is.” Who knew it was really the other way around!
NO hint when GE put out a PR release that they were fine with eating the ObamaCare writeoff instead of declaring it like Caterpillar, Verizon and John Deere.
Nope.. it’s all a big surprise; sorta like the cost of bread going up because of Corn Ethanol.. I mean Bread is WHEAT!!!! And what’s with this rise in beef and pork prices?
And now I get stuck with higher utility bills for the abortion of a wind farm off the cape. OK, first I am financially independent since through luck or hard work I made enough to support myself and have some left over when all is said and done. That implies a fairly simple life style. I even have 10 KW of solar panels, etc. as a hobby. So I really do not buy much off the utility. But the single mom or single dad working the low level job is not going to be so fortunate. Also when the Bush tax cuts expire, a lot of these guys at the bottom will find out the raw truth. The Bush tax cuts took a lot of the lowest earning Americans off the income tax rolls. When they expire, “this tax break for the rich” is going to hit the low end guys with income taxes that they currently do not pay. I would urge people to put Lurch on a barge and take him out to sea and sink it, but that would be pollution. Just vote the clown out the next time.
Goldman Sachs, Duke Energy, and General Electric support cap and trade? We all know what selfless humanitarians these are. This must be a great thing for us taxpayers.
What does “linked free” mean?
Crap and Trade.
A brother of a workmate of mine here in Australia has, apparently, been hired as a “carbon trader”. Not sure how that career path will pan out for him. Seems dim prospects, maybe he should light a candle.
Well don’t count your chickens just yet. Obampelosi have to get this massive tax passed to pay for their “free” medicare for all; and don’t forget; for everybody in the United Nations as well. Obama has to get “free” handouts to the descendants of his Mau mau terrorist ancestors in Kenya; to compensate them for having to hack all the farmers up, so they could destroy all their farms back in the 40/50s.
One way or another, that bunch of Saul Alinski radicals plans to transform America into something that can never be changed back to anything like the founders contemplated; and cap and tax is an essential part of achieving that goal.
And total idiots like Joe Lieberman are going to help them do it. Hey Joe; do the words “Never Again” mean anything to you; and you are going to hold the shower curtain for them.
I’m not really equipped to be of much help in the politics of all of this; but I at least can try to help the public see that the Climatologers have been feeding them a lot of statistical hogwash disguised as science. In the end; my only interest is in seeing that they get the science correct; and they aren’t even close to that yet; they’re not even close to having it slightly wrong.
It appears that someone I never heard of before has just received a Pulitzer Prize for his ‘outstanding’ work demeaning the Climategate scandal with ridicule and satire.
Is the Caption for that Cartoon: Obama’s Economic Policy in action?
Pamela Gray says: “…..I’m to the point where I hope no one gets along in government anymore so no agreements can be made about ANYTHING!”
I thought the quote was “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” Gideon J. Tucker 1866
Either way I certainly agree. When the number of people “working” as bureaucrats represent 20% of those employed as it is today in the USA, a country is heading for real trouble.
“With each alternating shift of party, the merit system was thereby extended, ratcheting the number of government officials upward, in order to find room for deserving party workers.”
“If the watchword of the market economy is profit, the watchword of bureaucracy is growth… The major group the bureaucrats benefit is, of course, themselves. Their entire income is extracted at the expense of taxpayers. The existence of government bureaucracy, Calhoun pointed out, creates two great conflicting classes in society: the net taxpayers, and the net tax-consumers. The greater the scope of taxes and of government, then, the greater the inevitable class conflict created in society….” Bureaucracy and the Civil Service in the United States by Murray N. Rothbard http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard123.html
Just think with the new Health Care Law we now have an entire “new” bureaucracy that can be used to pay off party “debts” and a whole new layer of salaries taxpayers will now have to pay.
Goldman Sachs donated almost a million dollars to Obama in ’08:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
There’s also a few ex-Goldman Sachs executives in Gore’s Green investment firm and both this firm and Goldman Sachs owns a stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange of which Maurice Strong is affiliated with.
pettyfog says:
May 11, 2010 at 10:11 am
“….Nope.. it’s all a big surprise; sorta like the cost of bread going up because of Corn Ethanol.. I mean Bread is WHEAT!!!! And what’s with this rise in beef and pork prices?”
__________________________________________________________________________
The cost of my HAY (dried grass) doubled and so did the price of feed even though it is made from what is left over after they make grain ethanol. Remember the cost of diesel fuel doubled a couple of years ago and so did crude oil. That means the cost of fertilizer doubled and the cost to transport food doubled. The only thing that DID NOT double was the price paid to the farmer for his animals, that went DOWN GRRrrrr.
What are you Americans complaining about?
At least you are miles away from the measures ALREADY implemented in politically-correct Norway:
Fact: Norway has 100% CO2-free-produced electricity, the best in the world.
As a reward, we pay 50% carbon TAX upon it. Approx. 1.25 billion US$ of a total of 3.75 billion paid for energy bills for the whole nation last year.
Our politicians have stated that we SHALL have the world’s HIGHEST taxes against POLLUTION. (You wish to have references, just ask – I recently wrote a leading article about this in a Norwegian daily newspaper.)
Obama and company can still obtain shiploads of money – they look to the Scandinavian social democrat states for inspiration.
What are you complaining about? Please, praise yourself happy that you have people in government that can protest, that you have attorneys that can investigate.
We haven’t. and we are screwed.
Gail Combs says:
May 11, 2010 at 11:08 am
That scheme ends abruptly in bankruptcy. Just wait and see. But, as always, YOU will be the one “to pay for the lunch” other people ate.
It’s getting hard to keep up with all the tax’em to death plans. The WHO (not the rock group ) and UN also want to tax everything in sight – http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/05/10/world-health-organization-moving-ahead-billion-dollar-internet-tax/ . In addition to local and state govt’s going after what ever they can get also. What we really need are TACKS, to nail their butts to the wall.
Meanwhile in Europe
Europe’s climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard is to set out the case for a unilateral 30% EU cut in CO2.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10109088.stm
At the end of May she will unveil research examining the consequences to Europe’s economy of outdoing the current 20% target.
Lucky us
Geir in Norway says:
May 11, 2010 at 11:50 am
What are you Americans complaining about?
At least you are miles away from the measures ALREADY implemented in politically-correct Norway:
__________________________________________________________________________
Geir, we want to KEEP it that way. Perhaps we can ship you all our yapping greenie socialists in trade for your want to be capitalists. At least then we would be happy even if the socialists are not.
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”
If you haven’t watched the Beck series on Cap and Trade, you should. He isn’t the source of this information, but brings together new wrinkles I hadn’t seen elsewhere.
http://dailybayonet.com/?p=3755
The IBD also covered it. Pray to God this cannot be implemented.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=531731
Where is this monster energy tax Bill?
From what I read…..
.It’s all Greek to me.
As for the posts you write everyday, it seems that the only solution for green-nuts is to make a kind of green-parks, reserves or camps, or whatever you may call them, where they could happily and ecologically live with their peers and fellow Gaia believers without disturbing the rest of free human kind.
Anyway, if they insist in their non sensical preaching you should insist in making them happy ASAP.
“pollution reduction and investment” ?
There must be a error… I think it must be the “EPA & Gore Economic Portfolio bill”, or “liberty reduction & Profiteering bill”…
Geir in Norway,
When I was in Salzgitter Bad Germany last year nothing good was ever mentioned of their own massive commitment to windfarms, methane sequestering plants and green tech by those benefiting/paying for such save one, “Thank god they’re done with that!” They too are well aware of the staggering costs of going green and those connected few in key positions making massive profits from the green “hard sell”. Also the chant of “It’s about time!” regarding the German government’s push into increased nuclear power was also taken up by everyone I spoke to. Their building of the enormous storage facility in the region solidified for many in business that their government WAS paying attention to the economic “horror” (they use this word a lot when speaking of the financial drain on the country brought about by the EU collective, its dead-weight countries and green fantasies) of putting a green agenda ahead of the country’s citizenry.
Sad thing here is the history of those who have already done as Obama dreams of is there for all to see yet being ignored/denied by the American media, the American Politico and those in America’s halls of learning. Looking at the economic reality of “going green” its easy to see who the real owners of the title “denier” are starting with this current incarnation of POTUS.
The Federal Government, if you include the Postal Service, and the Armed Services employ a little over 4 Million people. Approx 3% of the workforce.
State and Local Governments employ about the same number (if you include highway workers, State Patrol, etc.)
That comes out to about 6% of the Workforce, and I think you’d have a hard time classifying Members of the Armed Forces, Postal Workers, State Troopers, and Highway Workers as “bureaucrats, shuffling papers.”
No national law can have, as a rational objective, the solution of the AGW “crisis”, simply because there is no possible national solution to a global “crisis” such as AGW.
“When you realize that you are digging yourself into a hole, the first logical imperative is to STOP DIGGING.”
The Copenhagen approach of emissions reductions by the developed countries while the developing countries continue building coal plants as fast as possible was totally illogical and irrational, though perhaps attractive to diplomats from a diplomatic perspective.
IEA has recently estimated a global investment requirement of $45 trillion by 2025 to begin reducing global carbon emissions. That ain’t “chump change”. The investors who provide those investment $ would require an annual return of ~$4.5 trillion. That ain’t “chump change” either.
I cannot understand rational governments (oxymoron?) committing to investments of that magnitude based on the quality of the data, the clarity of the analyses and the predictive capability of the climate models we currently have available.
OH MY GOSH! You mean to tell me it REALLY is all about the money? Well, I am just floored! To think that these congress people would even consider passing laws that would favor one group over another – – I am just beside-my-self! Well, shucks! I’ll bet they even buy stock in these companies and then when they get out of Congress even get appointed to their boards or management teams with nice big fat salaries. Well, it’s down-right un-American I tell ya! Trouble! We got trouble! Right here in River City – – – is that somewhere in Texas?
Now my good friends, it behooves me to be solemn and declare,
I’m for goodness and for profit and for living clean and saying daily prayer.
And now, my good friends, you can sleep nights, I’ll continue to stand tall.
You can trust me, for I promise, I shall keep a watchful eye upon ya’ll…
Ooh I love to dance a little sidestep, now they see me now they don’t-
I’ve come and gone and, ooh I love to sweep around the wide step,
cut a little swathe and lead the people on.
Thanks Charles Durning…
Kum Dollison,
There is an ever increasing number of government bureaucrats. Maybe you’re one, eh? And that’s only half of the problem. Here’s the other half.
That should read “some big business”. Not everyone gets a piece of the pie, just the politically correct. GE makes windmills, so they want a mandate for them. Nothing like a law forcing the purchase of products that don’t sell otherwise.
While Cap and Trade may seem dead (so did Health Care a few months back) it may rise again. If not, the EPA will stuff it down our throats. End result: everything will cost more. Good for those on the receiving end, less so for those who have to pay for it.
It’s not about saving the planet, it’s about money. Always has been. Always will.
Them that’s got the gold make the rules. (old pithy cliche)
Them that makes the rules gets the gold. (today’s standard)
Kum Dollison at 1:14 pm said:
I think you’d have a hard time classifying Members of the Armed Forces, Postal Workers, State Troopers, and Highway Workers as “bureaucrats, shuffling papers.”
Kum, the problem is, we’ve gone from a majority of “profit-making” tax-producing jobs to a majority of “profit-eating” tax-consuming government jobs. The total number of government jobs now exceeds the total number of goods producing/servicing jobs. While the tax $$$ are still greater, if we do not STOP the growth of government and the massive increases in Gov. salaries, well – just call us Greece II. And the Chinese will out bail us out.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-goods-producing-wrokers-vs-government-payroll-2010-1
This is just one of many reports (and charts) on the subject.. WSJ had one also a few weeks back.
Smokey, I’m a retired insurance salesman who, outside of a 3 yr stint in the USMC, has never drawn a penny from the government in my life. I just don’t like the people on “my team” to be uninformed.
“The chance that the Senate will pass a climate bill this year remains close to zero.”
The magic number in the ‘energy debate’ is steam coal at $85/ton. Market forces/Cap and Tax, doesn’t really matter.
That’s the price at which nuclear power ends up costing the same as coal according to a 2008 CBO study.
The price of steam coal on the global markets is now over $100/ton.
Globally,coal is no longer the cheapest way to generate electricity.
Even in the US Central Appalachian coal is currently trading above $60/ton plus delivery and no one expects is to stay there when an economic recovery manages to finally arrive.
Milwaukee Bob,
14 Million people are employed in Manufacturing in the U.S.
http://www.industryweek.com/articles/the_face_of_american_manufacturing_14159.aspx?ShowAll=1
The Federal Government, if you include the Armed Forces (1.5 Million,) and the Postal Service (0.7 million,) Employs a little over 4 Million people.
Kum Dollison,
Sorry, I assumed you were being defensive. But if you break down the growth in government, there isn’t much if any growth in the USPS, the military, or the other categories that actually support the infrastructure.
Government growth is in completely non-essential services, and in the inflated pay and the rapidly multiplying supervisor positions. Did you read the link? For example, only 2 1/2 years ago the Transportation Department had one individual who was paid over $170,000 a year. Today, 1,690 Transportation Dep’t employees are paid over $170,000 a year. See the problem?
If those make-work jobs were vacated and advertised, there would be a line of applicants from Miami to Washington, D.C. That means the compensation is far too high for whatever work is performed. And the rest of us are paying for it.
Smokey, I was responding to Gail’s comment that 20% of our workforce was in government, bureaucratic, paper-shuffling jobs. That, of course, is silly.
I’m not a fan of “big government,” by no means. I’ve never voted Democratic in any Major Election. However, false statements, and hyperbole do No one any good.
Goldman-Sachs and GE. They keep popping up.
they call it riding the gravy train
Kum Dollison
You left out ACORN. An ACORN kid, about 25 I suppose, had a petition in front of Long’s Drugs one day. He wanted to stir up something about a power plant in Colorado. He actually said he worked for the government. I saw his mouth say it with my very own eyes. So people are being paid by the government to stand in front of busy places and have petitions signed.
It will be a tragedy for the United States if it spurns the chance to take the lead in the burgeoning new energy industries like solar, tidal and wind.
China has already moved ahead, and the jobs will go there. Some will probably come here to Europe, so Thank You, Mr. Republicans!
Actually, CO2 is plant food. Politicians are payoffs go together like peanut butter and jam. Except in the case of politicians, the consequence of their purchased affection is enslavement to the institutions to whom they answer. They’re like human vending machines. Put in your money and select your product. They deliver only after the money’s in their pockets….maybe.
Kum Dollison:
As if the federal government had the only government employees in the USA. Better take a good look around and open your eyes. States, counties and cities also have employees on the government payroll. I am long since retired, but in my career as a civil engineer I worked for both state and local (city) government, as well as in the private sector, and the total number of government employees has been increasing by leaps and bounds over the last half century, with more and more of then doing either useless or even counter-productive “jobs”.
Worse yet, government employees, with compensation considered in total, now make on average far more than the equivalent level employees do in the private sector.
Been there, watched it happen.
*************
toby says:
May 12, 2010 at 2:15 am
It will be a tragedy for the United States if it spurns the chance to take the lead in the burgeoning new energy industries like solar, tidal and wind.
China has already moved ahead, and the jobs will go there. Some will probably come here to Europe, so Thank You, Mr. Republicans!
*************
The tragedy is that the US government insists on interfering with the energy industy. If they would just get out of the way, we would be fine and have a robust economy creating new jobs. Government is taken best in small doses.
All we can say is they better get that well capped or their global warming ‘drill baby drill’ bill is goin’ down the TUBES!
toby says:
China has already moved ahead, and the jobs will go there. Some will probably come here to Europe, so Thank You, Mr. Republicans!
Has nothing to do with republicans. Has a lot to do with pennies per hour wages and a lack of punishing laws on businesses. ALL manufacturing is going to China.
It is the notion that somehow solar cells and windmills will be different that is broken.
The notion of “green jobs” is just bunk and hokum. The lowest cost place to manufacture is where the jobs will be, and that lowest cost place is now China (with honorable mention to India). Solar cells have a lot of toxic materials in use. The various OSHA and EPA regulations along with the liability issues drove most of the semiconductor work overseas years ago ( I worked at semiconductor manufacturers some decades ago as we moved ever larger parts of ‘fab’ overseas…) and solar cells are mostly just large semiconductors ( whizz bang non-manufactured new bright ideas aside…)
Look, you can’t even buy effective de-greaser spray in California anymore due to CARB. You would have to be a massive masochist or ‘intellectually challenged’ to put a semiconductor fab here. Similarly, I’d not do any resin casting here. And forget metal plating operations.
All thanks to the Democrats who’ve run this state the bulk of the time.
So whoever sold you on the notion of USA as competitive with China on “green jobs” sold you a bill of goods…
rbateman says: and the dark-ages tax …
America is significantly different from Europe. We have nearly all the people, resources, machinery and knowledge needed to produce food in huge quantities, and the energy to do so. The USA has the largest fossil fuel reserves of any nation, more than enough for the next 100s of years, according to the EIA.
They will not do to America what was done to Europe. The liberals will be thrown out way before that.