Guest post by Steven Goddard
The Senate Budget Committee chairman said today :
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said he has spoken to enough colleagues about several different provisions in the budget to make him think Congress won’t pass it. Conrad urged White House budget director Peter Orszag not to “draw lines in the sand” with lawmakers, most notably on Obama’s plan for a cap-and-trade system to curb carbon emissions. “Anybody who thinks it will be easy to get the votes on the budget in the conditions that we face is smoking something,”
So who is Senator Conrad referring to with that last comment?
Orszag acknowledged concerns over the budget and added that the budget plan represents the administration’s “best judgments.“
I wonder if the people in Michigan fighting to keep ice from destroying their houses, are willing to pay extra taxes to fight global warming?
“Despite the Obama administration’s claim that its budget wouldn’t raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year, ‘the budget before us assumes large amounts of money’ from the climate-change legislation, Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said at a hearing Tuesday. ‘And that means higher prices for Americans for food, for gas, for electricity, and in a state like Michigan for home heating – pretty much anything that they buy.'”
“So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
– Candidate Obama in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle January 17, 2008
I wonder if any of that huge sum might get passed on to people making less than $250,000? What do readers think?
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Some very rough numbers.
Peabody Energy, said to be the world’s largest private-sector coal company, on its Web site http://www.peabodyenergy.com/default-netscape.asp says:
” … with 2008 sales of 256 million tons and $6.6 billion in revenues. Our coal products fuel 10 percent of all U.S. electricity generation and 2 percent of worldwide electricity.”
If I neglect the difference between US Tons and SI Tonnes, and assume all the income is from coal sales, I calculate that a rough average price for Peabody’s coal is about US$26 per ton. A Carbon Tax of US$25 will more-or-less double the price of Peabody’s coal and a Tax of US$50.00 per ton will triple the price.
Of course, Peabody can simply pay the Carbon Tax and not pass their increased taxes on to consumers. One small problem here tho is, the US$25 Carbon Tax is just about equal the total income for 2008. The US$50 Tax would represent Taxes of US$12.8 BILLION.
I guess Peabody will have to get into the money-printing business. That appears to be what is happening elsewhere.
All corrections will be appreciated.
Pamela Gray wrote:
“…wondering if airports and the companies who fly planes will be willing to buy carbon credits when their own urban heat island gauges are setting record cold temps…”
Problem is…record cold temps nothwithstanding (and thanks for that info, by the way)…as more and more people get sedentary to conserve the planet’s resources ala the above hilarious cartoon….the FATTER people get (as if that was possible LOL).
Therefore, the POOR AIRLINES CAN’T AFFORD TO PURCHASE ANY CARBON CREDITS because they had to remove some seats on the flights for bigger total butt-area and also they are spending all of their available $$$ (and depleting the world’s fossil fuels at a faster rate!) TRANSPORTING ALL THAT EXCESS WEIGHT THROUGH THE AIR!
Maybe in the next grand minimum when there is less food available means people will eat less I dunno….so it could be good for us.
Well I’m hungry….time to step out for some lunch LOL.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
oops, those numbers could be way too low by a factor of 44/12 if the Tax is applied to potential CO2 emissions.
wow !!
D W
Last time I checked, 0bama’s predecessor was elected in 2004 by a “good majority”. I think we all know how that made him immune to criticism.
JamesG (07:10:32) :
There’s a major dilemma with being eco-friendly. Is it better to a) use disposable items or b) use re-washable items. Option a) uses up more precious resources but option b) uses more energy and dumps more detergent in the sea. What to do?
By the time the greens have finished you will be down to only one option:
Take your laundry down to the nearest river, soak it, and bash it on the rocks.
I don’t live in NYC, but in NYC it takes $250k just to barely survive. That is about like someone in Texas making $80k a year. Six pack of beer is $16 at the store…
REPLY: Having just come from there, I can vouch for that. Basic goods are incredibly expensive. – Anthony
[snip – this is way OT, let us stick to climate and carbon cap and trade please – Anthony]
Steven Goddard (06:18:52) :
Obama has loaded up his cabinet and staff with AGW types. I don’t buy the argument that he is being pushed into this against his will, It is a fantastic way to redistribute wealth and save the planet at the same time.
BINGO! The only way to fund his budget is through Cap and Trade fees. This is about funding social re-organization, nothing more.
I am still trying to figure out how paying tax to government, solves the globa warming crisis and lowers the sea level. Does God get a kickback on the taxes collected? If He plays along?
If they are too many GWrs. in your locality, which would it be an ecological sound policy? To let local predators reproduce in sufficient amounts as to feed from the excess GWrs.( 🙂 ) THIS IS REAL ECOLOGY, not what the majority thinks, or dreams about, a kind of romantic seeing flowers everywhere.
So, ecology is the solution…just wait and see
Let’s see what happens when we start paying off the huge debt that Government is creating. No, it’s not just Obama, it’s both parties, past and present. You prepared for 50%+ taxes, huge utility bills?, more sales tax?, more property tax? Elimination of write offs for gifts to charity?
In my opinion we are heading for a 95% peasant and 5% elite classes. USSR type.
CO2 taxes are just another step in this direction.
Dan,
You have it exactly right. a carbon tax of $26/ton will double the cost of coal. Peabody’s won’t pay it, power utilities who buy and consume the coal will. On a (very) rough basis, generating fuel is about 50% of the cost of electricity, as delivered to the end customer. If you double the cost of fuel, you add 50%, FIFTY PERCENT to the cost of electricity. At $50/ton, electricity DOUBLES!!
In either case, you get massive outsourcing of jobs from manufacturing to high tech, heat deaths in the southern summers and cold deaths in northern winters. This would represent the greatest economic damage ever seen in the US, quite likely leading to civil strife, but on the plus side, cheap condos for Canadians like me.
[snip – this is way OT, let us stick to climate and carbon cap and trade please – Anthony]
Cap and trade creates a new currency which the government owns and fully controls. The government profits initially as the credits are sold to brokers, investors, speculators and business.
This new currency is means to transfer wealth to government, which controls it. It is also a means for the government to control consumption and energy usage. Certain lifestyles will be rewarded and other punished.
Notice that cap-and-trade doesn’t redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. It does make the poor and the middle class more dependent upon government and does provide Congress a means to sell more favors to campaign contributors and other constituents.
Cap and trade will result in higher costs for everything, but it helps to disguise the reason for the increased costs. Hear that giant sucking sound? It’s our jobs being moved to China, India and South America.
The Guardian has posted its 7th alarmist article of the day.
We all remember the Met Office’s Vicky Pope. Just a couple of weeks ago she warned against alarmist language, but here she is today using it herself
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/11/amazon-global-warming-trees
She is saying that 85% of the Amazon is going to disappear because of climate change and that even severe cuts in deforestation and carbon emissions (huh?) will fail to save it. Oh well, that really makes people take action doesn’t it? Of course, it is all theoretical but published as fact.
Brazilians just need to follow the American model of planting more quick growth trees than they use.
And in the future, genetic science will enable the planting of rapid growth trees that could intelligently monitor the atmosphere and automatically take steps to control greenhouse gases to any level we like. As long as Greens don’t get in the way of geneticists the way they have done so far.
[snip – this is way OT, let us stick to climate and carbon cap and trade please – Anthony]
One other point…did you see the effect of $4 a gallon gas? Imagine higher cost for gasoline, ng and electricity. Talk about inflation!
savethesharks ,
Thanks. The cartoon was actually Anthony’s contribution. It is brilliant.
I don’t live in NYC, but in NYC it takes $250k just to barely survive. That is about like someone in Texas making $80k a year. Six pack of beer is $16 at the store…
There was an interesting article in the NY Times about that
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/fashion/08halfmill.html?em
If you look at the grocery list of expenses a typical Wall Street banker or stockbroker has, you can see how many jobs rely on the income of just one man.
By limiting their pay to 500K, Obama is basically hurting the incomes of many people. What happened to redistributing wealth?
This is what socialists don’t understand. They don’t understand the concept of a free society in which productive people are putting money into each others pockets in a very natural way.
They can’t understand how a society can function without a Nanny State.
@ur momisugly Jon H (07:23:36) :
“Six pack of beer is $16 at the store…”
Roughly double (or more) anywhere else?
______________________________________________________________
@ur momisugly CodeTech (07:23:16) :
“D W — Last I checked, Obama was elected by a good majority.”
Yeah, right, …”good” majority…
http://chicagoagainstobama.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/polling-update-dead-not-moved-by-palins-stellar-debate-performancecontinue-to-move-in-big-numbers-towards-obama/
….good laugh, but the joke is on us.
Democrats, SHEEESH!
[snip – this is way OT, let us stick to climate and carbon cap and trade please – Anthony]
This thread is really going places…
This “Cap & Trade” has all the potential for massive fraud, that the EU’s various subsidies of agriculture & fisheries have produced.
@John Galt
LOL
I just found this
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/3930/hadcrut3scattervj2.png
It’s the first I’ve heard of it, and it appears to blow the models right out of the water.
Move along, AGW warmmongers, nothing to mitigate here, nothing to mitigate. And get your #$%&* hands out of my wallet!
REPLY: Assuming you trust the magnitude of the HadCRUT record, the graph is true. But as we’ve seen, the anomaly may be lower due to weather station siting and urbanization issues. – Anthony
Adolfo Giurfa wrote:
“…So, ecology is the solution…just wait and see….”
No sane person would disagree with that, Adolfo (please note my handle on this site).
The saddest part about the whole AGW thing, is that the REAL environmental and ecological problems we face today…such as the strip-mining of the oceans of biological systems…all of that is being THROWN UNDER THE BUS. What bus?
The old rickety, tie-dyed Volkswagen bus of the AGW agenda.
In other words….if they were just honest, and did not use SCAM SCIENCE as a front…there would be a lot more people protesting the extreme coal pollution of China and every other environmental problem.
They (Hansen, Holdren, Gore, et al.) are truly GUTTING THE PUBLIC SCIENTIFIC TRUST to historic levels….not to mention making a laughing stock of the scientific method….AND not to mention, ironically DIVERTING ATTENTION FROM THE REAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL TIME BOMBS WE FACE!
Check out http://www.sharkwater.com to tackle a REAL and solvable problem.
And sharks have survived through FIVE mass extinctions on this planet (only to be threatened by man now). Hopefully and somehow they will survive this.
But I can assure you the Kings & Queens of the Ocean, never enacted CAP and TRADE policies for the 450 million years they have been on this planet!!
Chris
Norfolk, VA