Not familiar with the new NET? Maybe you’ve heard of “Cap and Trade” or it’s official name: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. Remember when Obama pledged to ruin the US coal industry by making coal-fired electricity so expensive it would bankrupt the utilities providing the power? Cap and Trade is the bomb that will take out what’s left of our economy.
This bill, which recently passed in the House and is now being debated in the Senate, regulates CO2 emissions by means of legislated caps or limits. Energy consumers that exceed these limits must trade on the open market for credits that other more efficient consumers don’t need. Government regulation of the utility industry is what Cap and Trade boils down to and it has failed miserably in Europe.
If the Senate follows the House and passes this bill the legislative branch will effectively control US energy consumption (remember the nut Minnesota just elected – Al Franken?). The largest producers of CO2 are coal-fired power plants, oil refineries, and natural gas refineries – energy producers. Cap and Trade will make energy more expensive to produce and that increased cost will be passed on to consumers: credits purchased in order to permit CO2 releases in excess of regulatory caps are basically a consumer tax.
Energy is used to produce raw materials and products that touch every aspect of our daily lives. An increase in the cost of energy will immediately translate into more expensive raw materials and finished goods. Passing Cap and Trade now, while we stumble toward a recovery that still eludes us, will at the very least prolong that recovery if not outright kill it.
Cap and Trade will increase unemployment, make US products even less competitive, and shift production overseas to developing countries who could care less about their carbon footprint. The bill is over 1200 pages – how many of our Representatives actually read it and understood it before voting on it? I’ll wager most of them thought they understood the general intent and all of them thought the name sounded good. Who in their right mind would vote against something called the American Clean Energy and Security Act? Probably the same number that would vote for anything that included the word “Tax” in its title. 1200 pages of loopholes and obtuse language that lawyers will be drooling over for decades to come.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 is not the warm, fuzzy, cute, green entity that its title implies – it is the National Energy Tax. It is change you can believe in: everything you do in this world will become more expensive. We’re supposed to feel better about ourselves because we’re forcing our energy providers to “go green” right? While some producers may change the way they operate most will simply continue to pump out CO2 and pass the cost increase of doing so to the consumer.
Write your senator before it’s too late and practice good environmental stewardship because it’s the right thing to do for our future.
**Update: validation.
{ 1 comment }
It makes me mad about the title of the thing, too. Like that wasn’t completely — COMPLETELY — on purpose. Because exactly what you said, who would say that was a bad thing?
I can’t even talk about my basic elec. bill or water bill. They are both ridiculous.
Comments on this entry are closed.