The Cost of Cap and Trade? Would it even work?

[JBeukema]

You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.

Audio


Today, Obama insisted that (in the future?), this system would cost the taxpayer 'A postage stamp a day'

So... which is it?
Also, if the big polluters can just buy credits, how will that reduce emissions? If they can't afford to retrofit (or don't want to) and credits are cheaper, they'll just buy credits. If credits cost more than retrofitting, then this will effectively put a company out of business if it can't make the cut=- thereby reducing competition and putting greater power in the hands of few, larger companies- the ones who are most likely to find a way around this anyway, while passing costs onto the consumer.

How is this supposed to work, exactly?

 

[Annie]

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You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.

Today, Obama insisted that (in the future?), this system would cost the taxpayer 'A postage stamp a day'

Just post the URL, then we can 'see' what you are talking about.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Cap and Trade is a stupid idea. It'll necessitate all sorts of regulations, it'll make a market out of it, people can cheat it out, bureaucracies need to be expanded, etc. etc.

What we need is a simple, good, old, effective CARBON TAX and be done with it.

 

[JBeukema]

That noone can thing of a rebuttal to these most basic observations or demonstrate any way that this new taxation would benefit America or her People- yet it seems a very real possibility that it will be pushed through to satisfy peronsal and political agendas- causes me to lose another of the last strands of hope I have held out for this nation

 

[editec]

Cap and Trade is a stupid idea. It'll necessitate all sorts of regulations, it'll make a market out of it, people can cheat it out, bureaucracies need to be expanded, etc. etc.

What we need is a simple, good, old, effective CARBON TAX and be done with it.

I actually agree with that.

The CAP and TRADE law appears to me to be a cheat waiting to happen.

 

[Skull Pilot]

The Cap and Tax Fiction - WSJ.com

 

[JBeukema]

So my next question is this: is it stupidity or malevolence that guides these assholes?

 

[oreo]

So my next question is this: is it stupidity or malevolence that guides these assholes?

The audacity & arrogance of man to believe that since he has been on this planet a blink of an eye--in earth terms--to be able to control mother nature is beyond comprehension.

This bill is nothing more than "fear mongering" that is used to tax-tax-tax.

When someone can prove to me that by simply exhaling the air we breath is a cause of Global warming--that will be the day. To date there is absolutely no scientic evidence of that.

In fact, today--temperatures all over this country are below normal. I would consider that global cooling.

Another 300 pages were added to this bill at 3 a.m. last night. WHY? They pulled the "extra" goodies off of the shelf-- to get democrats who would have voted against this insanity to now vote for it.

 

[Skull Pilot]

So my next question is this: is it stupidity or malevolence that guides these assholes?

The audacity & arrogance of man to believe that since he has been on this planet a blink of an eye--in earth terms--to be able to control mother nature is beyond comprehension.

This bill is nothing more than "fear mongering" that is used to tax-tax-tax.

When someone can prove to me that by simply exhaling the air we breath is a cause of Global warming--that will be the day. To date there is absolutely no scientic evidence of that.

In fact, today--temperatures all over this country are below normal. I would consider that global cooling.

Another 300 pages were added to this bill at 3 a.m. last night. WHY? They pulled the "extra" goodies off of the shelf-- to get democrats who would have voted against this insanity to now vote for it.

Strassel: The Climate Change Climate Change - WSJ.com

Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.

If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

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.

Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.

The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed.

Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.

This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the winter.

Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.

 

[Annie]

Cap and Trade is a stupid idea. It'll necessitate all sorts of regulations, it'll make a market out of it, people can cheat it out, bureaucracies need to be expanded, etc. etc.

What we need is a simple, good, old, effective CARBON TAX and be done with it.

I actually agree with that.

The CAP and TRADE law appears to me to be a cheat waiting to happen.

Yep the whole can is thrown into this. From redistribution of income, to lost jobs, to lightbulbs, nothing was left out. It's a mishmash of humongous proportions!

 

[Foxfyre]

If you haven't called and emailed your Congressperson in Washington to register your opinion on this, please do so now. It's really hard to get through--the lines have been jammed for 24 hours now--but apparently the calls are having an effect as the trend is tipping towards 'no'. Pelosi has suspended debate for now but the vote is still scheduled for late this afternoon or early evening.

How Big Is the Tax?

The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis (CDA) found that, after adjusting for inflation, the government would collect $5.7 trillion in tax revenue between 2012 and 2035. CDA's economic analysis found that, by 2035, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation would also:

Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation;
Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 58 percent;
Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent; and
Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,241.[2]
But the $1,241 annual energy bill is just the direct increase in energy prices that consumers face. As energy prices increase, the cost of making products becomes more expensive. Businesses will pass the higher costs of operating onto the consumer, which will be reflected in the higher prices Americans pay for products.

Higher energy prices also result in a slower economy, which means less production, higher unemployment, and reduced income. As the higher production costs ripple through the economy, household pocketbooks get hit again and again. When all the direct and indirect energy tax impacts have been added up, family-of-four costs rise by $2,979 per year on average over the 2012-2035 timeframe. In 2035 alone, the cost is $4,609.[3]

Over the same timeframe, gross domestic product losses--the excess burden or deadweight loss of taxation--totals $9.4 trillion. It is important to note that these higher energy bills come after people have to use much less energy as a result of increased prices.
Cap and Trade: A Handout for Corporations and a Huge Tax on Consumers

 

[Soaring]

http://www.moonbattery.com/obama-bs-doll.jpg

 

[JBeukema]

http://www.moonbattery.com/obama-bs-doll.jpg

I want one...

 

[editec]

So my next question is this: is it stupidity or malevolence that guides these assholes?

Malevolence is the social manifestation of stupidity, amigo.

So the answer is really both.

Simple greed, on the other hand, is merely unenlightened self-interest.

 

[Terral]

Hi JB:

[FONT=&quot]The Cost of Cap and Trade? Would it even work? [/FONT]

Yes! This &#8216;fascist piece of legislation based on the unscientific assertions of Al Gore among others, if it passes into law, would destroy the United Sttes by legislating the elimination of high energy flux density types of energy production necessary for maintaining a growing population and replacing them with Dark Age technologies like wind, solar power and plant-based fuels which are incapable of sustaining human life on this planet.&#8217; Lyndon LaRouche (story and video links).

Lyndon LaRouche can show you 25 ways that this Cap And Trade Fiasco will destroy the USA and reduce the Global Population by billions of people. I am here to show you that the Obama Administration is using the same trickery as the Bushie Administration by pushing Trillion-dollar Legislation through Congress using Crisis after Crisis after Crisis. Everyone should remember when Bernanke and Paulson ran to Congress (Sept. 18, 2008) with a three-page outline for new legislation to begin this Bailout Stupidity last fall, because the sky was falling and this was the only way out. In both cases, the out-of-control Administrative Branch deliberately violated the three-branch checks and balances of our Federal Government to force the House of Representatives into passing legislation that is destructive to the United States of America and U.S. Citizens. Listen to Peter Schiff (June 26, 2009 video blog).

In all of these cases, Lobby Group Representatives are working inside the Administrative and Congressional branches to create all of these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of legislation that nobody in Congress even takes the time to read.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoCsFsU_irY"]Warren Buffett Slams &#8216;Cap and Trade&#8217;[/ame]

Warren Buffet knows full well that all of this Cap and Trade nonsense is another tax on Americans that nobody can afford. Everyone to see higher costs from this legislation will pass that on to American Consumers now going into foreclosure at a rate of 10,000 every day.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_VqTQiQsp4"]Rep. Dingell Knows Cap & Trade Is A BIG Tax[/ame]

Everything the out-of-control Obama Administration is pushing (Bailouts, Stimulus, Banking Reform, Healthcare Reform, Cap and Trade, etc.) deliberately places a heavy burden on U.S. Citizens, the Imploding U.S. Economy &#8216;and&#8217; works to destroy this once-great nation.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dOaHgkAHP4"]YouTube - LaRouche: April 28, 2009 - What is Empire? 1/6[/ame]

Lyndon LaRouche explains how Cap and Trade is just one nail in the coffin of the USA as we know it by deliberately using a Nazi Model. &#8220;Cap and Trade is Hitler Policy. It&#8217;s mass murder.&#8221; So, Yes! The Cap and Trade Policy of the out-of-control Obama Administration will help to destroy the USA, which is primary objective of the Obama Puppeteers bringing in their New World Order.


GL,

Terral

 

[Midnight Marauder]

What we need is a simple, good, old, effective CARBON TAX and be done with it.

Why? What exactly for?

You do realize of course, that if the enviro movement gets its stated goal -- greatly reduced greenhouse gases -- that we won't have a green planet, we will have a brown, cold one?

Why do you hate trees?

 

[Navy1960]

I'm going to anwer the thread question because I have posted a lot of data in other threads.

Answer:

THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA

 

[cmaddog111]

We need to scrap this cap and trade system and go for a luxury tax system.

For my example, assume 1 ton of coal emits 5700 lbs of CO2 and 20 million BTU (numbers readily available through basic chemistry calculations).

Now i dont have numbers for how much carbon is sequestered from power plants, so my estimate could be way too high or already accomplished, but for the sake of argument, what if we set the goal for half or the emissions?

So for every 20 mil BTU, there is a small tax on 2850 lbs CO2, and then a huge tax after that. It would pose a solution to the market that is going to form for carbon credits.

Of course, a scale would have to be made based on the ability of larger plants to capture more carbon and the smaller plants being unable to do it as efficiently to keep the competition between plants, but I think it could be plausible.

 

[cmaddog111]

Also, here is a study on how much Cap 'n Trade will cost you prepared for a senator:

cbo.gov/ftpdocs/103xx/doc10327/06-19-CapAndTradeCosts.pdf

I'm not allowed to post links so add the w's!

 

[Navy1960]

We need to scrap this cap and trade system and go for a luxury tax system.

For my example, assume 1 ton of coal emits 5700 lbs of CO2 and 20 million BTU (numbers readily available through basic chemistry calculations).

Now i dont have numbers for how much carbon is sequestered from power plants, so my estimate could be way too high or already accomplished, but for the sake of argument, what if we set the goal for half or the emissions?

So for every 20 mil BTU, there is a small tax on 2850 lbs CO2, and then a huge tax after that. It would pose a solution to the market that is going to form for carbon credits.

Of course, a scale would have to be made based on the ability of larger plants to capture more carbon and the smaller plants being unable to do it as efficiently to keep the competition between plants, but I think it could be plausible.

What your proposing has already been suggested in 1993 with Clinton's BTU tax, and thats basically the same as taxing carbon emissions. They end up with the same result and thats causing an undue burden on anything that uses energy, therefor leading to rise in prices in everything from gas to home utilities. We absolutly do not need a rise in prices in a time when the economy is in massive downturn and the resulting job losses that will happen when programs that tax energy are instituted in order to fix a problem that may or may not exist.

On the chopping block is Mr. Clinton's proposal to tax the heat content of fuels - the so-called Btu tax. Democratic leaders have indicated that it may be scaled back by one-quarter to one-third from its current level of $72 billion. In addition, congressional leaders and the president himself signaled Tuesday that the tax would be shifted away from a heat-content tax. An value-added tax or a similar variant of a sales tax appears more likely, according to one Republican who met with the president.

Clinton Retreats on Energy Tax in Fight Over Budget - The New York Times