While public attention has been grabbed by Euro-Style “ObamaCare”, few seem to realize that another power grab in underway, The ‘Energy Bill’ being ‘Rahmed through by a greasy Chi-Town pol is a consumer rip-off that will force up the cost of energy and food all in the name of a faux- environmentalism and ‘energy independence’. To the modern aristocracy of Hollywood and those Wall-Street paper shufflers whose disposable yearly incomes are in the seven or more digit range, such an increase in energy costs would hardly be noticed. These are the types who do not have to ask the price of a yacht or care about the fuel costs for their private jets. Your limousine Liberals would like to see drastic increases in gasoline taxes since traffic would be lighter with fewer peasants clogging the highways.
If you are Al Gore, you would be even more delighted as you peddle your ‘environmental indulgences’ with a smirk that might have graced the visage of a pre-Reformation Pope.
The opinion molders are packaging the fiasco with an intensity not seen since the introduction of the Edsel.
E-mail or call your Representative now and express your concern. This is especially true if you have a district that is currently misrepresented by a so-called moderate who has round legislative heels whenever a ‘progressive’ cause is being promoted.
I do love how when a Democrat’s in power it’s suddenly de rigeur for Republicans to hate the rich
That wasn’t his point. Rather that, if you’re Al Gore and have a net worth of $100 million, then an energy tax doesn’t make that much difference when you fuel up the Gulfstream. The guy who pays is the small contractor who needs a full sized pickup or else the soccer mom who needs a full size vehicle to haul the local Cub Scout pack around in.
We Repubs have nothing against wealth honestly earned. But phonies like Al Gore, who are getting filthy rich peddling their Globaloney, are another matter.
What Art is trying to talk about has nothing to do with Al Gore, but everything to do with science and our future, since energy is a core dependence that we have right now.
Obviously, if our choice of energy planning and use starting now is not made judiciously, we will be passing on an even larger burden on future generations, for two reasons: The supply of oil has passed a tipping point where demand exceeds supply. Coal as a substitute makes matters worse re pollution and global warming.
Note that Art does not mention even one word about global warming science. That should tell you something about his foolishness, as he attempts to stir the base.
This Cap and Trade is nothing more than a tax on all the people. Where is the BO Promise of no new taxes on those under $250K? Like BO had any intention of keeping any promise. As some of us knew, he’s not a messiah, just a power hungry politician.
Where’s the science in Glow-Bull Warming? Seems more like a religion to me. You’ve got sin (driving an SUV), you’ve got prophesy (i.e., it attempts to predict the future), you’ve got an Apocalypse, you even have indulgences, as in Carbon Credits. Basically, just as with any other religion, it comes down to faith. You either believe it, or you don’t.
There us a difference between ‘hating the rich’ and feeling a contempt for Limousines Liberals.
The latter are often people living off trust funds, fast-buck paper shufflers, and entertainers.
Perhaps this difference is too subtle for some to comprehend.
Note that in not too Olde England, the Liberal party was the party of entrepreneurs and free marketeers who resented the hereditary power of the landed gentry. “Liberal” does not have the nasty connotation on the other side of the pond as it does when we use it to define lovers of Big Brother.
“Global Warming Science” appears to be a hoax that convinces the gullible that climate change is wholly anthropogenic.
The true believers are curve-fitters who ignore a lot of science and their misguided zeal is akin to those ‘creationists’ who believe in the seven-day wonder.
The same mindset that ignores carbon 14 dating can ignore insolation variations and such historical facts as the coming and going of various ice ages. Some popes once made a fast ducat or florin selling indulgences and Al Gore is using their playbook to feather his own nest.
So, let’s see. Wholly anthropogenic, global warming is supposedly an indubitable fact.
The time for democratic discussion and scientific examination is declared over.
The time for generalized social controls and planning is proclaimed as having universally arrived.
However, Algore, one of the most prominent prophets of climate doom, and the person who snatched the “triple crown” is to be ignored. Because, he is not an expert, just an authority?:
So, if Algore is wrong, to whom do we go in order to get our money and our freedoms back when the predictions don’t turn out precisely as authoritatively advertised?
What punishment is appropriate for those discovered to be engaging in costly political huckstering and frauds of the kind Perry insinuates Algore is involved in?
Is there some kind of tort law that covers this?
Or, will these people be allowed to slink away, their subversive bill sold, their gains intact, their damage done, and their message and aims changed, just like Paul Ehrlich and company have?
Will: “Well, we didn’t really mean there were too many people in the U.S. Another 100 million are just fine, as long as they are illegal aliens seeking a better life”,
be paralleled by,
“Well, another 3 degrees centigrade rise in average global temperature isn’t really quite as important as ensuring that by reducing the carbon budget of western man, China, India, and other nations around the world have the ability to grow their economies.” ?
Take a guess …
this could be called the Taxman-Malarky bill
It would be most unwise politically for any American leader/citizen to accept anthropogenic global warming because of the momentous change involved in combating it. Therefore, it is much easier to deny, then pass it off as a “hoax”.
However, it is only the unwise who would opt to ignore the scientific consensus that exists on the subject. Also, we must include the morally bereft, who have concluded that global warming will not impact THEM in THEIR lifetime. What about your grandchildren, Art?
DNW: “So, let’s see. Wholly anthropogenic, global warming is supposedly an indubitable fact.”
That’s right, DNW, and we are the largest emitter of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, 25% of the total, so it is incumbent for us to reduce it, while simultaneously setting example for others.
And a big point you overlook: By developing the technologies and capacity required to switch to non-fossil fuels, our economy will expand, not contract, at the expense of the Middle East, South American, and other sources of crude oil.
I don’t see any long-term downside for America, only upside, if we get started now.
I wonder why GreenPeace isn’t supporting Waxman-Markey? Oh, maybe because it won’t work? W-M creates a whole new level of Gummint that will control every bit of energy you use. There will be no free market, just Central Planning on what and where energy is used. Hmmm, Central Planning, how soviet is that? While Australia and other countries are figuring out this Doesn’t work, the Socialists here are speeding up to tell us what we can and can’t do.
Is there anything we aren’t regulating in this bill?” Boehner asked, leafing through the pages. He wondered if the community group ACORN qualified for certain grants. He asked why an energy and climate bill was “trying to solve the problems with Fannie (Mae) and Freddie (Mac).”
From Rep Boehner from Drudge. Why is Freddie and Fannie in an energy bill?
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-center/releases2/greenpeace-opposes-waxman-mark
Washington, D.C., United States — In advance of tomorrow’s vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act in the House of Representatives, Greenpeace USA Deputy Campaigns Director Carroll Muffett issued the following statement:
“Since the Waxman-Markey bill left the Energy and Commerce committee, yet another fleet of industry lobbysists has weakened the bill even more, and further widened the gap between what Waxman-Markey does and what science demands. As a result, Greenpeace opposes this bill in its current form. We are calling upon Congress to vote against this bill unless substantial measures are taken to strengthen it. Despite President Obama’s assurance that he would enact strong, science-based legislation, we are now watching him put his full support behind a bill that chooses politics over science, elevates industry interests over national interest, and shows the significant limitations of what this Congress believes is possible
Will Congress switch off the lights?
Iain Murray
When running for president, then-Sen. Barack Obama promised that his election would be “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” That’s the sort of offer you can’t turn down, but translating it into law has proved difficult.
The result is the 1,000-plus-page American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) — more commonly known as Waxman-Markey after its sponsors, Democratic Reps. Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts. In an attempt to fulfill the president’s promise, the bill’s sponsors have come up with the largest tax increase in history. It is up for a vote Friday.
The bill’s supporters argue passionately that there is no tax increase anywhere in the bill, but that’s because they have ingeniously disguised it. They refer to renewable electricity standards, cap-and-trade programs and green job creation, but all these components of the bill amount to one thing: a massive increase in the cost of energy at the behest of government to meet government’s desired ends. That’s a tax in most people’s books.
The bill’s centerpiece is its cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions. The idea behind this provision is that greenhouse gases are bad for the planet because they cause the global warming (which appears to have stopped 10 years ago), and therefore, America should emit less of them. To achieve that, the bill sets a cap on the amount of emissions that companies such as electric power utilities can put out each year. They will receive permits for a certain amount. If they can emit less than their amount, they can sell them to companies that are having trouble meeting the targets.
This sounds good on paper, but it has not worked in practice. In Europe, where such a scheme has been in effect for several years, utilities simply have passed the extra costs on to consumers. This has resulted in significantly higher power bills. Companies have also gamed the system in order to avoid having to reduce emissions significantly, so the program’s promised emissions reductions have not materialized. It is a lose-lose proposition: all economic pain for no climate gain.
Under Waxman-Markey, the economic pain would be severe, indeed. President Obama’s own aides have admitted that it could cost hardworking Americans up to $2 trillion. The burden, moreover, would fall disproportionately on the poor, who spend a greater proportion of their income on energy – 26 percent compared to a median-income family that spends 4 percent of its earnings on energy. It would also affect the South and Midwest much more than the West Coast and Northeast. In fact, the effect would be a wealth transfer from the South and Midwest to the West Coast and Northeast. Overall, the bill would cost the average American family $1,500 in increased energy costs.
Those increased energy costs would hit businesses hard, resulting in an average loss of 1.1 million jobs a year. And that is after counting the effect of so-called “green jobs,” which would largely be temporary and, according to a recent study, pretty low-paying – most green jobs that have been created to date pay below the average wage.
At a time when America’s economy has taken a severe beating, this bill would deal yet another kick to the head. The lights would go out. Jobs would flee overseas to countries like China, which have consistently refused to accept any restrictions on emissions, because they know the harm that they can do to an economy. Meanwhile, studies using accepted climatological methodology have concluded that the bill, even if it works, will have no distinguishable effect on the climate.
This bill will do nothing to slow the rise of the oceans, but it will certainly slow the much-needed rise of the economy. Members of Congress must decide: Do they want to be remembered for raising household energy bills and putting millions out of work while achieving no environmental benefit? Their constituents will surely remember.
Iain Murray is director of projects and analysis and senior fellow in energy, science and technology at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Strassel: The Climate Change Climate Change – WSJ.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html#printMode
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)
The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
Yeah. It will be a boon to candle makers, and will no doubt revive the horse & buggy industry, too.
Drudge Reports:
‘BILL OF THE CENTURY’ VOTED ON UNREAD…
And the Anti-Stimulus Bill was voted on unread.
I wish there was a way to impeach Congress. With the tax on energy to come, why do they hate the common man so much?
We should all meet as many as our elected representatives at all levels and talk with them.
Regrettably, you may often be disgusted by what you hear.
I had conversations with several Maryland Representatives. These included Newton Steers, Clarence Long, Helen Bentley, Wayne Gilchrest, Roscoe Bartlett.
Steers was your typical Monkey County RINO and a socialite married to the half sister of Jackie K. A nice guy who was brilliant in his field but with a voting record that reflected his district.
Long was a Hopkins PhD who was shunned by his fellow Representatives for being ineffective. He always voted at his party’s call and never had an original thought at all. He was the ultimate service congressman and he seemed unbeatable and more than a few silk-stocking Republicans got their nose bloodied trying and quit politics after the first try.
Helen Bentley was a rather crusty waterfront reporter who took on Long three times and got rid of a man who was helping to kill the port of Baltimore. The last words I remember from her lips were: “Art. Get me a beer!”
Wayne (the worm) Gilchrest was a RINO from a conservative district whose lack of frontal lobe development was rather obvious from a profile glance. He let a left-leaning aide do his thinking for him. Talking with him revealed his utter shallowness. When he faced a serious primary challenge he resorted to the lowest form of intellectual dishonesty. After losing the primary, he sold out to the opposition.
Roscoe Bartlett was elected on a fluke when a really good incumbent Democrat lost her primary. Roscoe calls himself a farmer but he is a scientist and inventor who also taught at Howard University. He is a straight talker who does not boast of his accomplishments.
You cannot make such assessments second or third hand when biased media distorts the picture. You really have do do it yourself.
It should encourage you to get involved. Maybe even run yourself.