From the U.S. Senate Committe on Environment and Public Works
Democrats Delay Global Warming Bill – Again
Obama Agenda In “Disarray”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee, today said that he was not surprised to learn that Senate Democrats were forced once again to delay introduction of their global warming cap-and-trade bill. Throughout hearing after hearing in the EPW Committee this summer, it became apparent that Democrats were a long way off from reaching the votes necessary in the Senate to pass the largest tax increase in American history.
“The news today-that Sen. Boxer and Sen. Kerry will delay introduction of their cap-and-trade bill-came as no surprise. The delay is emblematic of the division and disarray in the Democratic Party over cap-and-trade and health care legislation-both of which are big government schemes for which the public has expressed overwhelming opposition. With the climate change debate on Capitol Hill, it’s safe to report that bipartisanship is nowhere in evidence. Cap-and-trade has pitted Democrat against Democrat, or, put another way, it centers on those in the party supporting the largest tax increase in American history against those in the party who oppose it. As to just who will win this intra-party squabble, I put money down on those representing the vast majority of the American people, who are clear that cap-and-trade should be rationed out of existence.”
In the last hearing before the EPW Committee before the August recess, Senator Inhofe spoke directly to the mounting concerns raised by Senate Democrats to cap-and-trade legislation:
Full opening statement provided below:
Climate Change and Ensuring that America Leads the Clean Energy Transformation
August 6, 2009
Madame Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing today. This is the last hearing on climate change before the August recess, so I think it’s appropriate to take stock of what we’ve learned.
Madame Chairman, since you assumed the gavel, this committee has held over thirty hearings on climate change. With testimony from numerous experts and officials from all over the country, these hearings explored various issues associated with cap-and-trade-and I’m sure my colleagues learned a great deal from them.
But over the last two years, it was not from these, at times, arcane and abstract policy discussions that we got to the essence of cap-and-trade. No, it was the Democrats who cut right to the chase; it was the Democrats over the last two years who exposed what cap-and-trade really means for the American public.
We learned, for example, from President Obama that under his cap-and-trade plan, “electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.”
We learned from Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) that cap-and-trade is “a tax, and a great big one.”
We learned from Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) that “a cap-and-trade system is prone to market manipulation and speculation without any guarantee of meaningful GHG emission reductions. A cap-and-trade has been operating in Europe for three years and is largely a failure.”
We learned from Sen. Dorgan (D-N.D.) that with cap-and-trade “the Wall Street crowd can’t wait to sink their teeth into a new trillion-dollar trading market in which hedge funds and investment banks would trade and speculate on carbon credits and securities. In no time they’ll create derivatives, swaps and more in that new market. In fact, most of the investment banks have already created carbon trading departments. They are ready to go. I’m not.”
We learned from Sen. Cantwell (D-Wash.) that “a cap-and-trade program might allow Wall Street to distort a carbon market for its own profits.”
We learned from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that unilateral U.S. action to address climate change through cap-and-trade would be futile. She said in response to a question from me that “U.S. action alone will not impact world CO2 levels.”
We learned from Sen. Kerry (D-Mass.) that “there is no way the United States of America acting alone can solve this problem. So we have to have China; we have to have India.”
We learned from Sen. McCaskill (D-Mo.) that if “we go too far with this,” that is, cap-and-trade, then “all we’re going to do is chase more jobs to China and India, where they’ve been putting up coal-fired plants every 10 minutes.”
In sum, after a slew of hearings and three unsuccessful votes on the Senate floor, the Democrats taught us that cap-and-trade is a great big tax that will raise electricity prices on consumers, enrich Wall Street traders, and send jobs to China and India-all without any impact on global temperature.
So off we go into the August recess, secure in the knowledge that cap-and-trade is riddled with flaws, and that Democrats are seriously divided over one of President Obama’s top domestic policy priorities.
And we also know that, according to recent polling, the American public is increasingly unwilling to pay anything to fight global warming.
But all of this does not mean cap-and-trade is dead and gone. It is very much alive, as Democratic leaders, as they did in the House, are eager to distribute pork on unprecedented scales to secure the necessary votes to pass cap-and-trade into law.
So be assured of this: We will markup legislation in this committee, pass it, and then it will be combined with other bills from other committees. And we will have a debate on the Senate floor.
Throughout the debate on cap-and-trade, we will be there to say that:
According to the American Farm Bureau, the vast majority of agriculture groups oppose it;
According to GAO, it will send our jobs to China and India;
According to the National Black Chamber of Commerce, it will destroy over 2 million jobs;
According to EPA and EIA, it will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil;
According to EPA, it will do nothing to reduce global temperature;
And when all is said and done, the American people will reject it and we will defeat it.
Thank you, Madame Chairman.
# # #
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@ur momisugly Nogw (13:27:18)
The French and Germans already own almost all of the UK’s generating capacity! Trying to get THEM to reach a ‘consensus’ about the rolling brown-outs coming soon is going to be fun to watch, but not to experience!
Dan (07:56:46) :
So seeing how Climate Change has morphed to Health Care change, and the dreaded socialistic takeover of the world, I take it those opposed to “socialized medicine” are
1. Too young for Medicare or
2. Too rich for Medicaid or
3. Have rejected participation in Medicare and Medicaid (and their pinko counterparts everywhere) on matters of principal and in efort to save the world.
A show of hands please-who posting has rejected their eligibility
Uhh, how about 4. Experience has taught me that government doesn’t solve problems, it creates them.
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine
A search on the BBC website for “Senate cap and trade” produced virtually nothing relevant to the above article. There’s the good old BBC for you: unbiased to the very core, except when it might involve reporting something that it not exactly going swimmingly for President Obama. Just before Obama’s inauguration the BBC had an edition of its programme “Any Questions” produced in Washington. The panel for this programme is supposed to be balanced but every single person on the panel (all US citizens) was anti-Bush and pro-Obama.
In that other BBC no-go area for balanced reporting it has a page called “Climate Scepticism: The Top Ten”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/629/629/7074601.stm
This has a list of ten sceptical arguments and a (usually) longer ‘reply’ from a global warming perspective. At the bottom it says that the page was compiled with advice from Fred Singer and Gavin Schmidt. Could someone produce a list of replies to the ‘replies’?
Nogw (13:27:18) — Exactly.
I had (on another site) a writer from Czech Republic tell me that his country sells nuclear power for 1.5 cents per kWh.
I invited him to replicate those plants by the hundreds, and solve the world’s energy problems by exporting power across Europe and Asia — but only at a price of 1.5 cents per kWh.
Never heard back from him…I wonder why…
Re: Pamela Gray (06:43:17) :
“Lets be clear, it is a cartel just as bent on destruction as the drug cartels are that continues to be the central issue….. If Obama truly wants prosperity for his country and the world, he needs to take it to the oil cartel.”
I’m afraid you have bought into a popular myth. The only power the “oil cartels” have to control the price of oil is through the manipulation of supply. The history of their performance in that regard is pretty shaky. Some 80% of all proven oil reserves in the world are owned and controlled by governments. Although those producers periodically get together to “set” the desired price of oil, the only producer that typically actually follows through to restrict production is the Saudis. The agreed upon restrictions are generally ineffective because the other producers such as Venezuela typically open up the spigots as soon as oil prices increase.
The thing that has dominated oil prices for the past ten years is commodity speculation. Most oil is sold into the futures market in advance of actual delivery. Since 1998, we have seen a total disconnect between the fundamentals of supply-and-demand and actual oil pricing. A year or so back, we saw $150 oil at a time fundamentals pointed to no more than $70. After the recession drove the price down to $35, which was a fundamentally sound price, oil marched back up to $70 while tankers circled the consuming world’s ports because there was no storage capacity left on land to dump the stuff and consumption continued to plummet.
How did that happen? It certainly was not the cartels restricting production. It happened because the U.S. Congress had, in 1998, deleted a restriction that had been in place since 1939 which limited the participation of “price insensitive” players in the oil futures market. “Price insensitive” players are those who never touch the oil. They are neither producers not consumers. They are purely speculators. Let too many of them into the market and they gain the ability to “move” the market. When Goldman Sacks and the big U.S. hedge funds advise their clients to “go long” on oil, the price increase becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because those investors proceed to bid up the price with wild abandon.
The solution to volatile oil prices is very simple and Congress knows it; simply re-institute the trading restriction in effect from 1939 to 1998.
Claude Harvey
Roger Knights (13:03:17) :
“EPA to declare CO2 a dangerous pollutant, regulate ghg emissions”
“If that occurs, it would take the heat off the Senate to pass Waxman-Markey, allow Obama a graceful way to back down on passing W-M, allow Obama to go to Copenhagen with something to show the US is taking action, and give more time before something irrevocable happens (because the EPA’s regulation would be tied up in the courts for years)”.
Robert, you are wrong.
Obama uses EPA to blackmail the Senate into the Waxman Bill.
The climate bill has to be defeated in the Senate and the EPA plans must be fought in US Court.
janama (14:06:03) :
“Jimmy Haigh – sorry you missed the sarcasm.”
Oh dear! You got me there! (Have you been talking to them?…)
This video is 1 hr 22 min long, but if you watch the entire thing everything will be clear. http://www.guba.com/watch/3000098856
So Obama’s switching to health care? Just saw an interesting little U-tube on the US autism epidemic and the Thimerosal cover-up, where the state of medical science was likened to the state of global warming science (so it’s common knowledge – good!) I also hear someone is pressing for compulsory vaccination somewhere.
Put all those together and IMO we have another scandal the size of the Climate Cult scandal. One in about 150 American children are autistic since the quantity of Thimerosal-spiked vaccinations went up; one in about 6 have related disorders like ADHD, Asperger Syndrome, etc. All for the sake of a few rich folk marketing the mercury compound that should have rung warning bells right from the start, what with Mad Hatter syndrome and the effects around gold mining towns.
I know because I used to be Asperger’s and like all good Aspies, I did my research thoroughly.
I was in Switzerland about 20 years ago and it was the law back then that you had to turn off your car engine at all stop lights. A bureaucrat had “modeled?” that you used less gas to restart the engine than you would if you idled for even short stops of at least 10 seconds. It got me thinking that we should get that implemented in the USA right away and in fact all cars should have an automatic shutoff whenever they come to a stop.
How else can we imagine how the Waxman Markey legislation can be used to make our world a truly greener place.The use of any incandescent or halogen light source will already soon be outlawed, but let’s go further. The feds should commission studies to demonstrate that the hot cycle on your washer is unnecessary and that the max temperature setting on your hot water heater only needs to be 90 degrees.
Anything but hand lawn mowers would be banned. Think of the new landscaping job opportunities that would create for all the ex employees of the steel, auto and energy industries.
Log and gas fireplaces would be banned and replaced with red and orange painted plastic logs. Thermostats in houses would be required to cycle down to 65 degrees during the evening and air conditioning units would be controlled via wireless commands under control of the local authorities. In order to manage peak energy loads, authorities would schedule the production at energy intensive industries for off peak periods giving millions of people the opportunity to work “graveyard shifts”.
The local carbon fee for a backyard barbeque permit would be minimal but the rental of the government licensed cooking device and operator would be excessive.
Roots American music and folk street performers would experience a huge resurgence as the carbon costs to operate electronic music devices end up bankrupting the music industry and finally resolves the issue of payment for downloading music for free on the internet.
The winner of the battle for who controls the internet does not turn out to be Microsoft, Google or Yahoo but rather its original inventor Al Gore. Everyone that has a sufficient carbon budget is guaranteed some time on the Government owned internet using the Algore designed “hockey stick” interface. Web surfing terminology gets replaced with “web skating” terms.
Roads would all convert to toll ways with automatic fees deducted from your bank account. Rates would be higher during rush hours and anyone driving solo would be charged double the rate of those that car pool. After an initial surge in people sized cardboard cut-out sales, government authorities will just require that anyone owning or operating a car must obtain an implanted RFID chip to verify car occupancy rates.
There would be a new renaissance in American boat building as all but biodegradable canoes and kayaks would be prohibited. General Motors would be forced to sell electric cars and any person that receives any Federal benefit whatsoever, including the permission to use a car would be required to buy one.
Those that require air travel would be required to demonstrate that they will not exceed their annual carbon budget as a result of the flight. The government would of course be able to transfer carbon credits (at a huge additional cost) from those individuals that do not fly or who are home bound.
Over fishing in the oceans surrounding the USA would resolved and fish populations would rebound as fishing vessels rust at the docks with captains and crews unable to afford the carbon credits required to run their engines.
NASCAR would finally lose it’s appeal as tail-gating behind your electric powered go-cart in the infield and watching solar powered race cars speed around the track at impossible speeds of over 40mph would be replaced with visits to the velodrome to watch bikers circle the track at 40mph.
Ice skating and cross country skiing would become huge recreational activities as well as one of the primary means of commuting to work as areas of the country experience much colder climates and much shorter growing seasons.
It will continue to be illegal for any police agency to inquire about a person’s immigration status or require any person to have a form of picture ID, however, the DOE will have zero tolerance for individuals that do not have the proper carbon allowances to live or do business in the USA. Attempts to enter the US illegally will fall to zero and those still living in the USA illegally will eventually return to their more carbon friendly countries of origin.
Problems with our health care system will cease to exist as all services will have a “carbon equivalent” that can be deducted from your yearly carbon allowance. Of course serious medical problems will require exponentially large sums of carbon credits that the government is happy to sell those in need….. up to a point. Eventually the old or sickly will “max out” their lifetime carbon allowances. Not to worry, there are no carbon credits required to visit the government owned “final pain resolution” centers.
Of course any employee of the Federal Government would be exempted from these requirements. In fact agencies and elected officials would have the authority to grant all types of exemptions to any or all of the above for individuals, companies and organizations that demonstrate the proper attitude for the environment and a minimal campaign donation to the correct political party.
One side benefit to the passage of the bill would be that the USA would be forever incapable of starting or fighting another war. The DOE would simply never allocate the Defense Department enough carbon credits to be capable of transporting troops overseas or operating ships or planes any distance from our shores. The world would finally be safe from Team USA. Of course terrorism on our shores would become impossible too. Those that mean to do us harm would never be issued the carbon credits necessary to enter the USA much less live here or attempt to do business.
I cannot wait for the passage and implementation of the Waxman Markey energy bill. There is so much to look forward to and Polar Bears will finally be saved from drowning.
Thanks
William
Nogw and Aron might be accurate, but Roger wins because his is funnier.
/Mr Lynn
The bureaucrat forgot to include the extra wear on the engine from repeated starts (wait for a long light, and the oil will drain back to the sump). Funny thing about models: it’s easy to leave stuff out.
William, I hope the chilling picture you paint in the rest of your post remains science-fiction. If not, I’m moving. . . to Mars, I guess.
/Mr Lynn
Very interesting, if mostly OT, posts. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Obama and his dear friend William Ayers are fans of Hugo Chavez, Jose Ortega, et al. His consolidation of power in the hands of unconstitutional ‘czars’, most radicals of the left, is particularly worrisome, especially the extremist ideologues he has put in science positions. Now everything, even science, is politicized. Where have we seen that before? Could it have been in the land of the real Czars, later Commissars?
/Mr Lynn
@ur momisugly William (16:28:08) : Scary funny story/scenario and perhaps not that farfetched, except for one thing. The part about the Defense Dept. Believe it or not there are serving and retired members (including high ranking officers ) who remain true to their oath of office. In case you aren’t familiar with it, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Services_Oath_of_Office ( Section 3331, Title 5, United States Code) .
Note that this is not an oath to defend any specific territory or persons or property. This is an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States – Period.
I will concede that a military solution to your scenario would be unpleasant, but it is not unthinkable. In the event it becomes necessary to defend the Constitution, there are those who will do so. That line has not been crossed yet.
Via Icecap.us:
Moreno repsonds to an Washington Post Article that calls for Obama to make a speech on Climate Change.
Moreno makes the case for postponing any decision so the latest science can be part of the process and kill the bill.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2717/Shock-Wash-Post-Blames-Obama-For-Failure-of-Global-Warming-Movement-Presidents-mistakes-may-cost-the-planet-dearly
First of all I regard vaccination as one the greatest advances in medicine ever made and moreover one which still offers the potential of further enormous benefits for mankind. Vaccination eventually wiped out smallpox and the prospect is that we can wipe out many other great killers of mankind too.
I think that a great good.
And did you know there is a statue to Betsy the Cow from whom the cowpox vaccine was first cultured and bred by infecting other cows.
All vaccines confer a degree, not necessarily perfect, of protection for a lifetime. Some need to be renewed regularly for maximum protection for the individual but as aforesaid a certain degree of immunity remains for life.
And the younger the recipient the better, infants have incredibly strong immune systems so get as many vaccines in as early as possible and however their life may turn out they will always have some degree of immunity.
True mercury is poisonous but not very, many people have it in their dental fillings. I am no fan of using it to preserve vaccines but there is not one single shred of evidence that connects the tiny dosage involved with any complications whatsoever.
Very careful studies of the apparent rise in Autism and associated less severe conditions such as Aspergers show that this nothing to do wth any increased incidence in the population. Rather it has everything to do with improved diagnosis so that what would have been dismissed as mere behavioural problems thirty years ago now has a name.
Again careful and extensive studies support this. There is no sudden increase in these problems in the general population, it is simply that it is better recognised than it was before. In short in this type of thing if you go looking for a problem you tend to find it: when previously it was largely ignored. And if you give a name then everybody can suffer from it if they choose.
Just as they can suffer from Hysteria, Witchcraft or whatever may be fashionable at the moment. And given the American legal system that an be very profitable too, especially for the lawyers who are not above inventing diseases and winning huge damages for themselves and their clients, but chiefly for themselves. Remember the case against silicone breast implants?
Which turned out to be harmless but not until vast damages had been obtained and Dow Corning bankrupted: and worst of all many women ended up having much more dangerous implants which probably did cause many serious problems until the scare was over. No damages for them though, not enough money in it.
Kindest Regards.
“William (16:28:08) :
Thermostats in houses would be required to cycle down to 65 degrees during the evening and air conditioning units would be controlled via wireless commands under control of the local authorities.”
Power companies in New Zealand can already do something similar with a special kind of meter, I don’t recall what they were called, but basically they can turn off, or reduce, your consumption for high drain items like ovens, cookers, water heaters and the like. All at a cost of course, bundled in your line charges.
William (16:28:08) :
I was in Switzerland about 20 years ago and it was the law back then that you had to turn off your car engine at all stop lights. A bureaucrat had “modeled?” that you used less gas to restart the engine than you would if you idled for even short stops of at least 10 seconds. It got me thinking that we should get that implemented in the USA right away and in fact all cars should have an automatic shutoff whenever they come to a stop.
….
I cannot wait for the passage and implementation of the Waxman Markey energy bill. There is so much to look forward to and Polar Bears will finally be saved from drowning.
Thanks
William
Inspiring – I wanted to capture all the many wonderful “Requirements” in your suggestion and to do it in a carbon free way. So I decided not to use an electricity gobbling computer and reverted to Pencil and Paper.
I was than shocked and horrified to discover that both Pencil and Paper where largely composed of carbon and trace amounts of water.
So with much regret I have abandoned the effort and now endeavour to “do nothing” to accumulate enough carbon credits to buy lunch…
Mr Lynn (17:41:12) :
“Nogw and Aron might be accurate, but Roger wins because his is funnier.”
Thank you, sir. “I’ll be here all week.” (quote from a wonderful movie, A Knight’s Tale (2001) – Geoff Chaucer (played by Paul Bettany) after introducing his Knight (played by Heath Ledger) at a jousting tournament. )
And, quoting Garrison Keillor, “Poke those sacred cows. Make them moo.” (for the foreign readers, Garrison Keillor is an American radio actor/producer/writer with a phenomenally popular show called A Prairie Home Companion, also writer of the Lake Wobegone series of books.)
Let’s not forget Elsie the Cow and Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow.
Most recently, Janice, the sarcastic California Happy Cow.
That is as may be. Just remember Betsy the Cow has probably saved somewhere between 300 and 600 million human lives in the last 200 hundred years.
Not bad for a cow.
And how many are projected to die from AGW? In that mythical fantasy computer world of the IPCC.
As against how many murdered from war, political ambition and social engineering? In the real world.
I wonder.
Kindest Regards
Stephen Brown (13:18:05) :
Sorry to hear that 100W and frosted bulbs are now illegal in Europe. I expect that the street lights will go next and the only people cheering will be the astronomers. Perhaps they are getting ready for the power cuts that will come with all that green energy.
Przemysław Pawełczyk (01:55:39) :,
The USA should begin selling oil and gas for dollars.
So seeing how Climate Change has morphed to Health Care change, and the dreaded socialistic takeover of the world, I take it those opposed to “socialized medicine” are
1. Too young for Medicare or
2. Too rich for Medicaid or
3. Have rejected participation in Medicare and Medicaid (and their pinko counterparts everywhere) on matters of principal and in efort to save the world.
A show of hands please-who posting has rejected their eligibility ?
How about “don’t want to join a scheme that is going broke”?
In other words: we guarantee your eligibility to a plan that will not be able to pay for your health care. Sign up at once before this golden opportunity passes you by. For a limited time only – no one will be refused.
The Senate is wiselyrunning for cover on Wackman-Malarky, but the unelected bureaucrats in the EPA are still intent upon regulating carbon.
True. But they have to hold hearings. Sometimes lots of hearings. Then they propose regulations. Then lots more hearings. Then it is Feb 2011 and the budget numbers for the EPA are not looking so hot.
You don’t have to vote a bureaucracy out of business. You can just strangle it for funds. Keep approving last year’s budget while letting inflation take its toll.