- Jun 6, 2007
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Democrat Senate Leadership made the right call in scrapping their pursuit of a comprehensive energy bill, that is, an energy bill which reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a degree that begins to solve this pollution problem. It wasn't the right call because they wouldn't have passed it which they wouldn't have but rather because the bill stinks, it contains bad ideas, it is terrible law! This Democrat climate protection portion of bill that was under consideration was a cap and trade bill (some Democrats when they describe this bill describe it as a carbon tax bill but they are lying when they use this phraseology). Specifically, the Democrat cap and trade bill is called the "American Power Act". This cap and trade bill works like any cap and trade bill, the bill mandates how much of a certain type of pollution an industry can emit at a certain time and a federal regulator sells allowances or permits to industry members allowing the industry members in total the right to emit the mandated level of pollution and the bill allows for the creation of pollution offsets which are permissions to produce a set amount of pollution for the holder of the offset because the set amount of pollution was prevented from being emitted or taken out of the atmosphere through a separate initiative, e.g. would be capturing methane gases from a trash land fill/dump or planting trees which consume CO2 in open space land. It is an awful tragedy that Democrats don't get it that a cap and trade bill will not now and will never pass into law in America, the world will go through another ice age before America will pass a "cap and trade for CO2" bill!
The reason for this is that a legislative scheme for reducing CO2 emissions through a cap and trade regulation system will not be effective and will dramatically and unnecessarily increase the price of products from industries that produce CO2 and will create much financial abuse. Let us look at the power industry for example. The Administrator of the EPA will be auctioning off CO2 allowances for the power industry in amounts set forth by a timetable for cutting CO2 emissions set forth in the enabling legislation. Coal Power generators will need these allowances to operate so when the industry limits tighten the price of these allowances will skyrocket and who will pay for this electricity consumers. The legislative thinking is that requiring the power producers to need allowances to operate will result when the prices of these allowance starts to really escalate the power suppliers will be moved to look at less polluting power generation methods to generate electricity and thus less costly from an allowance standpoint. But this is fools logic, does anyone really think power suppliers are going to shutter power producing plants that cost tens if not hundreds of million of dollars to build! What more likely will happen is that these power plant owners will get the allowances and offsets to operate their plant whatever the cost and just pass that costs off to the consumer! In addition, the offset programs will be rife with abuse and bad policy. Industry members will be using offsets from actions taken to reduce or remove pollution that would have occurred without this cap and trade legislation the offset industry will be ridiculous America will see countless people just gaming the system in this industry; further, this program is terrible public policy what America needs and no one is really talking about is for America to bring an abundance of new farm land on line to produce a plentiful supply of crops for food consumption and ethanol production and at the same time allow American farmers to cut back on the use of costly fertilizers - an offset program would counter this good public policy because it would pay farmers handsomely to turn farm land back into forest land.
Democrats are in LaLa land with their "cap and trade" bill but Republicans are no better with their denial that Carbon Dioxide emissions is a problem in America and long-term it will be politically costly for them. One, because carbon dioxide emissions are dangerous to the climate and the American People are smart enough to see it, a country can't emit the amount of CO2 in the environment as we do without there being a bad effect in nature over it common sense indicates this plus look at the degree that glaciers have and are receding in our life time and the increase in strength and rate of tropical storms and hurricanes in our hemisphere we see. Secondly, even if a person is completely recalcitrant in their belief that global warning has no merit, the rest of the world doesn't think so America has been able to escape international agreements curbing greenhouse gases because China won't agree to those agreements, however China is getting their act together on this issue quick they are aggressively pursuing nuclear energy, etc. when China reaches the point where they can join these agreements without significant harming of their economy they will and then America will be in dire straits because the international community will force America to commit to pollution reduction goals, they can do it through tariffs on U.S. imports to their country, not buying our debt, not allowing certain U.S. companies to do business in their country etc. and then the economic pain from this issue will be severe on the American people. If Republicans care about the country they will help the country reduce its polluting foot print now!
The American people need Washington to generate a new solution to curbing greenhouse gases than this "Cap and Trade" garbage. I don't know what the solution looks like, some of the pro nuclear energy provisions in the American Power Act looks good. One of the problems with expansion of nuclear energy is that nuclear energy plant investors are worried that the cost to build a plant once it is completed will be so high they won't be able to make a profit selling the power the plant produces. Why doesn't Washington enact legislation mandating that for the first dozen or eighteen new nuclear plants built in the U.S. electricity retailers must buy all power from these plants and guarantee these nuclear power plant producers a fair profit, that way these investors will have a strong incentive to develop these plants, a guaranteed profit. The other meaningful way to reduce CO2 emissions is if the CO2 produced from power plants can be sequestered in the ground and not released into the ground. Why doesn't Washington accelerate the development of this sequestration technology and then once it is developed mandate that power plants put like twenty-five percent of their net profits per year in a fund and once that fund reaches the amount where it can purchase a CO2 sequestration system it is mandated to use the money in that fund to do so. One thing Senators Kerry and Lieberman did have right on this issue is let America start with the power industry on this CO2 pollution reduction initiative first, this industry is responsible for a third of America's pollution in this area, let America make headway on this topic for this industry first before Washington starts tinkering with the whole U.S. economy and cause God only knows what harm!
The reason for this is that a legislative scheme for reducing CO2 emissions through a cap and trade regulation system will not be effective and will dramatically and unnecessarily increase the price of products from industries that produce CO2 and will create much financial abuse. Let us look at the power industry for example. The Administrator of the EPA will be auctioning off CO2 allowances for the power industry in amounts set forth by a timetable for cutting CO2 emissions set forth in the enabling legislation. Coal Power generators will need these allowances to operate so when the industry limits tighten the price of these allowances will skyrocket and who will pay for this electricity consumers. The legislative thinking is that requiring the power producers to need allowances to operate will result when the prices of these allowance starts to really escalate the power suppliers will be moved to look at less polluting power generation methods to generate electricity and thus less costly from an allowance standpoint. But this is fools logic, does anyone really think power suppliers are going to shutter power producing plants that cost tens if not hundreds of million of dollars to build! What more likely will happen is that these power plant owners will get the allowances and offsets to operate their plant whatever the cost and just pass that costs off to the consumer! In addition, the offset programs will be rife with abuse and bad policy. Industry members will be using offsets from actions taken to reduce or remove pollution that would have occurred without this cap and trade legislation the offset industry will be ridiculous America will see countless people just gaming the system in this industry; further, this program is terrible public policy what America needs and no one is really talking about is for America to bring an abundance of new farm land on line to produce a plentiful supply of crops for food consumption and ethanol production and at the same time allow American farmers to cut back on the use of costly fertilizers - an offset program would counter this good public policy because it would pay farmers handsomely to turn farm land back into forest land.
Democrats are in LaLa land with their "cap and trade" bill but Republicans are no better with their denial that Carbon Dioxide emissions is a problem in America and long-term it will be politically costly for them. One, because carbon dioxide emissions are dangerous to the climate and the American People are smart enough to see it, a country can't emit the amount of CO2 in the environment as we do without there being a bad effect in nature over it common sense indicates this plus look at the degree that glaciers have and are receding in our life time and the increase in strength and rate of tropical storms and hurricanes in our hemisphere we see. Secondly, even if a person is completely recalcitrant in their belief that global warning has no merit, the rest of the world doesn't think so America has been able to escape international agreements curbing greenhouse gases because China won't agree to those agreements, however China is getting their act together on this issue quick they are aggressively pursuing nuclear energy, etc. when China reaches the point where they can join these agreements without significant harming of their economy they will and then America will be in dire straits because the international community will force America to commit to pollution reduction goals, they can do it through tariffs on U.S. imports to their country, not buying our debt, not allowing certain U.S. companies to do business in their country etc. and then the economic pain from this issue will be severe on the American people. If Republicans care about the country they will help the country reduce its polluting foot print now!
The American people need Washington to generate a new solution to curbing greenhouse gases than this "Cap and Trade" garbage. I don't know what the solution looks like, some of the pro nuclear energy provisions in the American Power Act looks good. One of the problems with expansion of nuclear energy is that nuclear energy plant investors are worried that the cost to build a plant once it is completed will be so high they won't be able to make a profit selling the power the plant produces. Why doesn't Washington enact legislation mandating that for the first dozen or eighteen new nuclear plants built in the U.S. electricity retailers must buy all power from these plants and guarantee these nuclear power plant producers a fair profit, that way these investors will have a strong incentive to develop these plants, a guaranteed profit. The other meaningful way to reduce CO2 emissions is if the CO2 produced from power plants can be sequestered in the ground and not released into the ground. Why doesn't Washington accelerate the development of this sequestration technology and then once it is developed mandate that power plants put like twenty-five percent of their net profits per year in a fund and once that fund reaches the amount where it can purchase a CO2 sequestration system it is mandated to use the money in that fund to do so. One thing Senators Kerry and Lieberman did have right on this issue is let America start with the power industry on this CO2 pollution reduction initiative first, this industry is responsible for a third of America's pollution in this area, let America make headway on this topic for this industry first before Washington starts tinkering with the whole U.S. economy and cause God only knows what harm!
