If you look at page 180 of the 451-page monster bailout bill that easily passed the Senate yesterday (PDF here), you will see that it includes at Section 116 language about the tax treatment of “industrial source carbon dioxide.” It also provides, at Section 117, for a “carbon audit of the tax code.”
What could a provision about the tax treatment of “industrial source carbon dioxide” and another provision about doing a “carbon audit” of the tax code possibly have to do with restoring confidence in Wall Street’s troubled credit and banking markets?
The answer: NOTHING.
This appears to be an attempt by global warming alarmists to lay the foundation for a carbon tax in the middle of another crisis, hoping nobody will notice.
Call your congressman now! More at Planet Gore
UPDATE FROM CAPITAL RESEARCH:
Apparently the bill with the carbon provisions existed already and was passed by the Senate. So, the Senate used the bill as a vehicle for advancing the bailout package. They couldn’t under the Constitution initiate a spending bill in the Senate, so they had to amend one that was already passed by the House. Nonetheless, what was so urgent about the carbon provisions that they had to go with the bailout bill? Who decided which bill to use as the vehicle? Why not pick a non-controversial bill? My guess would be that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the call but it’s just a guess.
An expert offers a better explanation of one of the carbon-related provisions that is in the Bailout 2.0 bill.
According to this wizard of Wall Street, one provision provides preferential tax treatment for publicly-traded partnerships when they trade so-called carbon offsets. It was reportedly already passed in another bill: What’s so urgent about that tax provision that it absolutely had to go into another bill that aims to deal with a financial emergency? So, you can see it’s a little more complex than explained above. However, it’s still bad because it gives legitimacy to these strange indulgences known as carbon offsets and provides a tax incentive for trading them.
I am also informed by this source that Henry Paulson did not push to insert these two carbon-related provisions, but he certainly didn’t object to them, and his track record strongly suggests he would support them. When he ran Goldman Sachs, Paulson released a statement specifically endorsing carbon trading. As the Washington Post reported (June 1, 2006) reported: Last year under Paulson’s direction, Goldman Sachs issued an eight-page position paper on environmental policy, saying it accepts a scientific consensus, led by United Nations climate experts, that global warming poses one of the greatest threats this century.
Like Bush, the Goldman Sachs statement endorsed a market for businesses to buy and sell rights to emit greenhouse gases, saying it will spur technology advances by companies “that lead to a less carbon-intensive economy.” But, it added, “Voluntary action alone cannot solve the climate change problem,” a position contrary to the Bush administration’s view.
Source: Capital Research
The text of the provision on page 180 of the bill (PDF here) is in full below:
Lines 1-4
SEC. 116. CERTAIN INCOME AND GAINS RELATING TO IN
DUSTRIAL SOURCE CARBON DIOXIDE TREATED AS QUALIFYING INCOME FOR PUBLICLY TRADED PARTNERSHIPS.
5 (a) IN GENERAL.—Subparagraph (E) of section
6 7704(d)(1) (defining qualifying income) is amended by in7
serting ‘‘or industrial source carbon dioxide’’ after ‘‘tim8
ber)’’.
9 (b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendment made by
10 this section shall take effect on the date of the enactment
11 of this Act, in taxable years ending after such date.
12 SEC. 117. CARBON AUDIT OF THE TAX CODE.
13 (a) STUDY.—The Secretary of the Treasury shall
14 enter into an agreement with the National Academy of
15 Sciences to undertake a comprehensive review of the Inter16
nal Revenue Code of 1986 to identify the types of and
17 specific tax provisions that have the largest effects on car18
bon and other greenhouse gas emissions and to estimate
19 the magnitude of those effects.
20 (b) REPORT.—Not later than 2 years after the date
21 of enactment of this Act, the National Academy of
22 Sciences shall submit to Congress a report containing the
23 results of study authorized under this section.
24 (c) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There is
25 authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section
26 $1,500,000 for the period of fiscal years 2009 and 2010.
[…] for the folly of mandated alt-fuel cars. Now we find that it has added the carbon tax — which would never survive real debate — into the bailout bill. Potential long-range cost: $34 […]
It’s been reported that the Treasury Secretary already has the authority to do this entire bailout on his own authority.
But our politicians have decided that $850 Billion [that’s what it’s up to now] needs divvying up between ACORN, Al Gore, and various other earmarks.
Better if the Secretary of the Treasury provides the financing; then it would be spent on the actual bailout. But that will never happen now.
It’s as good as a done deal. Too much money is being dangled in front of Congress. The holdouts will be bought off.
And we, the already hard-bitten taxpayers, will pay.
But if you want to do something, here’s some contact info:
Email your Senators: click
Email your Representative: click
[Funny about the government’s official sitefor emailing our Representatives — it’s not working. Maybe it’ll be back online after the bailout vote. In the mean time, the alternate list above will get you their email addresses.]
My hunch is that carbon trading is more a rich man’s deal than a democrat deal. I think that is why both sides vote for this nonsense. Whoever is for free market trading without oversight would love anything to do with carbon trading just like other “pollution” schemes of the past. Its a great way to hide wealth and get more tax deductions. Anyone, of any color, who is for this scheme seems to me to be more on the side of corporations instead of the common person…and common sense. This scheme will soon land in the same spot as fanny and freddy.
Back in the 70’s I had to become familiar with a new law that limited the size of gas fired boilers. I was surprised to find a provision that allowed for the duty-free importation of competition bobsleds!!! Now its 30 years later and the same crap is still going on today.
If you want to stop this monkey business join DownsizeDC.org. Their signature proposal is the “Read The Bills Act.” It would require congress to actually read bills before they vote on them. Novel concept eh?
But they also have proposed a “One Subject At A Time Act” which would put a stop to this nonsense of tacking unrelated bills on to other bills.
http://www.downsizedc.org/etp
You would think that something like the Read The Bills Act would be easy to pass. Well no way! DownsizeDc has been trying for years to get this done without success. Apparently congress doesn’t have time to read the bills.
DownsizeDc needs many more members to have an impact on congress. Please join.
Not willing to afford a (202) area code call, I called one of my Representative’s local offices this morning. That call was before I knew of the carbon language.
I’ll be making another call in the morning. I will let them know, in a calm voice, if they could feel how upset I am, they’d have to take off the rest of the day.
Now that my blood is reaching the boiling point I have one more comment. Both McCain and Obama have endorsed the AGW agenda. And both parties played a roll in creating the mortgage meltdown. We cannot end this garbage by voting for the R’s and the D’s. They are the cause of the financial crisis and they will create an energy crisis with their AGW schemes. If you want to end this then vote for a 3rd party candidate. Otherwise get ready for more of the same.
These bills MUST originate in the house. That’s the law and it should be followed. IF (and that’s an IF) this is such a monsterous event, then just walk the language over and have the House issue a new bill and get it into debate.
This is NOT the time to shortcut the Constitution. If this is to be done, it needs to be clean, tight and to the letter of the law. No pork, no attachments, no amendments, no “sweetners”.
Make em famous!
The reality is this this bill may become law. We will then all be green. Gore will have won. We must vote all of these blood sucking parasites out of office. The election is only a few weeks away. Vote them out.
[…] is the original: Comment on Sneaky: Current credit bailout bill contains carbon tax … Tags: announcements, climate, Climate Change, education, global-warming, halloween, hurricanes, […]
sneaky sneaky!
8 second clip from “Mr. Deeds”…
Ed Scott (17:24:14) :
Is there a total on the earmarks contained in the bill for which McCain voted?
The figure I saw on one of the networks was around $100Billion.
As an outsider, I’m a little amused. Why would a critical economic rescue bill have to be peppered with all those other inclusions? If its as serious as it seems to be, why not just put forward a bill that addresses that issue alone? But, like I said, I’m an outsider and what I know about your legislative process could be put in a thimble with room to spare for your finger.
The only hope we have now is if Palin becomes VP and convinces McCain of the CACO2GW hoax. Maybe this CO2 “rider” could hit the headlines and it can give a journalist itching for a lead in to a story on the hoax, to get it out there.
In her debate tonight Palin got as close as she could to expressing reality when she said man was not entirely responsible. I’ll take any bit of hope I can find that sanity and truth will prevail as I don’t like being snookered.
If some headline level technical or fraud revealing news does comes out, she might be well positioned to say “I told you so”.
We can only hope.
In contrast, Joe Biden KNOWS humans have caused global warming!
Just as a note:
The Senate picked a bill that did originate in the House (as all appropriations must) that had already passed once very handily. Then they amended it with the bailout and sent it back.
So… the bailout was attached to a bill full of crap. The crap wasn’t entirely ‘slapped onto the bailout’.
Some of the crap was added in though. The whole thing is infuriating.
G Alston, you’re a decade to late. The President gained the power of the line-item veto in 1996 with the passage of a “Line Item Veto Act.” However, within two years the ability was declared unconstitutional in the USSC case Clinton v. New York. Crossing out pork, it turns out, is legislating, not executing. Most states still have one, though – and it’s regularly used and abused in a partisan manner, particularly when budgets come for passing.
Pete, I’m glad someone brought up Palin’s curious remark as to global warming. If global warming is a natural, non-manmade thing (i.e. it’s part of a natural cycle), then why even worry about it? Why go through all that hassle of intervening if it’s just a regular occurrence. Or, more importantly, why even bother trying to mitigate it if humans can’t have an effect on the climate?
Global warming is a very politically charged issue. I’d go as far as arguing that the majority of skeptics I’ve met haven’t actually taken their cues from the skeptical scientists out there, but are actually just taking partisan political cues (same goes for many proponents as well). However, I pride myself in keeping most of my politics out of my scientific discussion of AGW; the science interests me, not the politics. I have to break my rule in this situation, though, because Palin’s answer was pathetic. Worst political double-speak I’ve seen in a long, long time.
[…] Watts Up With That, Oct. 2, 2008 [here] […]
David L. Hagen: Very good. If I’m not mistaken (and I may be) what I’m getting is that there are bribes for sequestration and gasification of coal but no actual carbon caps. I can live with that without liking it. At least 20% of it doesn’t go to ACORN (aka registering dead people and DC Superheroes to vote).
Two comments…
1) The reason the markets are in a mess right now is because of trading in imaginary derivatives, rather than in shares of companies that produce honest-to-goodness goods-and-services. So the “bailout” *MANDATES EVEN MORE TRADING IN IMAGINARY DERIVATIVES*!!! Hello?
2) an eerie parallel…
– If you took 1 subprime mortgage, you could never sell it as AAA paper. But http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YNyn1XGyWg&NR=1 on Youtube is a clip from CNBC explaining how a bunch of subprime mortgages can be pooled together, and you actually get allegedly AAA grade commercial paper out of it.
– take one GCM that comes nowhere near forecasting the past 20 years of global temperature, and everybody admits that it’s junk (bond) stuff. Take a couple of dozen GCMs that, individually, come nowhere near forecasting the past 20 years of global temperature, and pool them together into an “ensemble”. The IPCC considers this as a high-grade forecast.
HEY Guys…. This completely sums up both AGW and the Financial Credit sqeeze…… I’ve busted a rib laughin’ at this. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1owcncKCHg
counters…
…exactly.
Maybe you’re starting to come around.
Not to worry, bills come then the weather changes and bills go. Oh that goes for nations as well so be careful.
To summarise the last few months:
Ireland is the first country to be proactive and guarantee Irish bank deposits resulting in increased liquidity and hacking off the europeans who didn’t dare do this and are now complaining that people are moving their money from European to Irish banks. Kudos to the Irish!!
Al Qaeda didn’t have to go through the messy terrorist route to bring down the economy, just take out a few mortgages (better than a dingy cave in Pakistan!) and George W will do the rest.
Sarah Palin doesn’t believe in AGW or evolution, and her phraseoloy is more Deputy Dawg than potential president.
The weather has been cooler over the Northern hemisphere this year, except the pole, check this graph of ice anomolies, the flattening of global temperatures seems to coincide with a sharp downward trend in sea ice area.
So that dagnabbit is the month in focus!
Dagnabbit, forgot the link:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Having worked in Africa ( 8 Countries) and seen how things operate, our new political system is, maybe about to arrive. In African society is divided into 2 (them) the great unwashed. ( Us) super rich politicians and family.
I seem to recall that Al Gore’s company, Generation Investment Management hired several ex-Goldmand Sachs bankers to spearhead its role in trading carbon credits and the like – so GIM is ideally placed to take advantage of the feeding frenzy – which in the EU has seen billions spent by taxpayers to virtually no effect on emissions.
And what’s all this about ‘socialist’ plots – you guys over the pond have no idea what a socialist really is – I agree with Pamela Gray, the plotters are corporate banking types who have misled the greens (who are naive and gullible), and see an easy market – this is not about ‘socialist ‘ control – it is about hidden agendas for wealth creation for an elite riding upon misled environmental concern.