Friday, the United States House of Representatives approved president Barack Obama’s, Rep.Waxman’s and Rep. Markey’s climate change bill. With the bill, Obama delivers on his promise to radical leftists last year to ‘fight global warming’ by driving entire businesses into bankruptcy.
The 1,200 page bill — formally known as the “American Clean Energy and Security Act” — will reach into almost every corner of the U.S. economy. By putting a price on emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, the bill would affect the way electricity is generated, how homes and offices are designed, how foreign trade is conducted and how much Americans pay to drive cars or to heat their homes.
The House climate bill, approved by a 219-212 vote Friday evening, would mandate that 15% of the nation’s electricity come from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020, potentially expanding the market and profit potential for companies in those sectors. Towards that goal, it seeks to boost nascent industries such as wind-generated electricity and solar power.
Which means that Al Gore will make even more money.
The bill is absolutely horrendous. As Heritage explains:
The 1,200-plus page Waxman-Markey climate change legislation is nothing more than an energy tax in disguise that by 2035 will raise:
Gasoline prices by 58 percent Natural gas prices by 55 percent Home heating oil by 56 percent Worst of all, electricity prices by 90 percent
Think that’s bad? Fear not, there is more:
In the year 2035 alone, the cost is $4,609. And the costs per family for the whole energy tax aggregated from 2012 to 2035 are $71,493.
But on second thought, cap and trade is much more than that.
It Kills Jobs: Over the 2012-2035 timeline, job losses average over 1.1 million. By 2035, a projected 2.5 million jobs are lost below the baseline (without a cap and trade bill). Particularly hard-hit are sectors of the economy that are very energy-intensive: Manufacturers, farmers, construction, machinery, electrical equipment and appliances, transportation, textiles, paper products, chemicals, plastics and rubbers, and retail trade would face staggering employment losses as a result of Waxman-Markey. It’s worth noting the job losses come after accounting for the green jobs policymakers are so adamant about creating. But don’t worry, because the architects of the bill built in unemployment insurance; too bad it will only help 1.5% of those losing their jobs from the bill.
It Destroys Our Economy: Just about everything we do and produce uses energy… The average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) lost is $393 billion, hitting a high of $662 billion in 2035. From 2012-2035, the accumulated GDP lost is $9.4 trillion. The negative economic impacts accumulate, and the national debt is no exception. The increase in family-of-four debt, solely because of Waxman-Markey, hits an almost unbelievable $114,915 by 2035.
It Provides Red Meat for Lobbyists: Businesses, knowing very well this would impose a severe cost on their bottom line, sent their lobbyists to Washington to protect them. And it worked. Most of the allowances (the right to emit carbon dioxide) have been promised to industry, meaning less money will be rebated back to the consumer. Free allowances do not lower the costs of Waxman-Markey; they just shift them around…
There’s one thing the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill doesn’t do: Work. All of the above-mentioned costs accrue in the first 25 years of a 90-year program that, as calculated by climatologists, will lower temperatures by only hundredths of a degree Celsius in 2050 and no more than two-tenths of a degree Celsius at the end of the century. In the name of saving the planet for future generations, Waxman-Markey does not sound like a great deal: millions of lost jobs, trillions of lost income, 50-90 percent higher energy prices, and stunning increases in the national debt, all for undetectable changes in world temperature.
To summarize: this is one terrible bill.
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