Cap and trade
is really cap and tax
By SHEILAH PEPPER
The Gazette Staff
A costly bill is set to slide rather quickly through the U.S. Senate, partly because most people don't understand what it is. (Nor, I suspect, do some lawmakers!)
It is the American Climate Security Act (S. 2191) also known as cap-and-trade. The cap and trade system is made up of measures that would set a limit on carbon dioxide emissions from the use of fossil fuel.
The effect of such a cap would be to impose rationing of coal, oil and natural gas on the American economy. Each covered utility company and manufacturing facility would be given allowances based on past emissions or some other formula.
Those companies that emit less carbon dioxide than permitted by their allowances could SELL the excess to those that do not - this is the "trade" part of cap and trade. Over time, the cap would be ratcheted down, requiring greater cuts in emissions.
S2191 would require that emissions decline to 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, a very difficult target to meet, especially in the face of an increasing population and rising energy demands.
This would greatly increase the cost of your household electricity bills and gasoline for your car. Europe has had an ongoing effort to impose cap and trade and has racked up significant energy costs while failing to reduce emissions. Oddly enough, nations that signed on to the flawed Kyoto Treaty have their emissions increasing at a faster rate than the U.S, which did not sign on. Cap and trade also present enormous opportunities for financial fraud.
The system really amounts to a regressive tax on energy consumers, as well as lost jobs. Manufacturers will move to those nations with lower energy costs. The Chinese, for example, are investing heavily in clean coal production as their need for electricity rises. They are also investing heavily in oil-rich countries.
The cap and trade scheme is just one more aspect of the global warming scam and really is simply an effort by the government to re-engineer the American economy. Our lawmakers apparently want to be seen by the holier-than-thou nations in Europe as being in step with the green program, but that program is losing credibility with the general public with each day that goes by.
Currently, trees and green plants pump 15 to 20 times as much carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as we put into it. Remember science class? Trees and shrubs breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. Humans and other critters breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. It's a natural part of the natural world. Volcanoes also emit carbon dioxide.
Eventually, manufacturing facilities and large utilities will be able, scientists say, to figure out how to put their CO2 emissions underground, returning them to the earth from whence they came.
What really sticks in my craw about the whole global climate control discussion is the huge amount of hubris inherent in it. When did we become God? Maybe someday, we will obtain a measure of control over some of the more catastrophic climate events, such as hurricanes, fires, etc. But I don't believe we will ever be given full control of the natural universe, other than receiving some ability to protect ourselves from it.
Cap and trade really is cap and tax.
Copyright©2009SheilahPepper
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