Cap-And-Trade Will Hammer Consumers
At a time when proposals for higher taxes are politically unpopular, Congress is coming up with other strategies to raise revenues at the expense of the American public.
Key congressional committees are expected to begin debating legislation that would impose mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. If Congress is successful, the average American will not be victimized as a taxpayer, but as a consumer.
The proposed legislation would create a European-style, market-based system that caps the maximum allowable amounts of carbon dioxide from power plants, manufacturers and vehicles.
If companies emit more than their cap allows, they must buy "carbon permits" on the market from companies that have extra ones. This cap-and-trade system is designed to give companies an incentive to reduce emissions, but unknowing consumers would be taxed through higher home energy bills and the rising cost of fuel, food and consumer products.
When Europe launched its system in 2005 as a way to meet its targets under the Kyoto Protocol, it cast itself as a leader in the fight against global warming. But Europe's first three years of cap and trade have not worked as intended. Emissions have risen.
With cap and trade, a significant cost has fallen on their economies from lost competitiveness, lost jobs and lost investment. If we're not careful, carbon cap and trade in the U.S. could be disastrous, especially if it is linked to Europe's system.
~From my commentary in today's Investor's Business Daily
3 Comments:
Save the planet, kill an environmentalist a day.
They are such hypocrites they even tax means of **mass** transportation like planes and ships.
They find pollutant a plane, sth that carries 300 humans in straight lines. Imagine all those people moving such distances with their cars or even on their feet, which case would be more "pollutant" in terms of CO2??(=say we bite their CO2 is evil propaganda).
They find ships pollutant, means that are capable of moving like 100.000 tonnes of goods!!! Imagine moving all these goods with environment friendly cows and donkeys.
If they care so much about the envirnoment they should had impose a targeted taxation system. If planes and ships are such hazards for the planet they should ban cars altogether or impose taxes equivalent of buying a house for the ones that use a car.
But of course the truth is cap'n'trade is just a plain taxation system with a superior marketing cover. They speak about tax-punishing the 'bad' ones, they never spoke about the alternative path of helping the 'good' ones with taxcuts. The dont know the later option. What they know is just stigmatizing everyone who dissagrees with them and their 'good' intentions.
Missing from the energy debate in this country is the potential windfall to American taxpayers in the form of royalties. According to the Minerals Management Service and the Energy Information Agency the average royalty rate paid on offshore oil and gas extraction between 2001-2005 was 15.17 percent. The royalty rates on land based extraction can be much higher. There are trillions of dollars in potential royalties involved with extracting and using our own natural resources. How much? Depending on the market price of oil and gas between 2.5 to 6.5 TRILLION!
As long as we subscribe to this global warming sham, we will become poorer. The left has made us dependent on foreign oil by making domestic production nearly impossible. They have put the global environment at risk by insisting that we transport oil halfway across the globe rather than exploit our own offshore resources. The oil companies have spent billions of dollars developing environmentally sensitive methods of extraction and reclamation. Now, they are being told that despite that investment they will not be allowed access to the nations resources. Pathetic.
Thanks, Mark, for the article which might help a few more folks see the pitfalls of cap/trade - often offered as a panacea for carbon reduction. If (a big if) one believes that we need policy to work this problem, a tax close to the user would at least be transparent - potentially transparent enough that it would force voters to consider if this policy is really something they want to do.
On the "clean" energy front, it will be sad (or amusing, based on your perspective) if the new administration manages to incent new technologies which actually use more energy than they produce - thus actually increasing our use of traditional sources. My suspicion is that technologies which are not economic are marginal or negative energy providers.
In any event, taxes and inefficient processes sure don't help us compete in this world.
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