U.S. energy study finds greenhouse gas limits affordable

The Globe and Mail ^ | 4/15/05 | AP

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Washington — Mandatory limits on all U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases would not significantly affect average economic growth rates across the country through 2025, the government said.

That finding by the Energy Information Administration, an independent arm of the Energy Department, runs counter to President George W. Bush's repeated pronouncements that limits on carbon dioxide and other gases that warm the atmosphere like a greenhouse would seriously harm the U.S. economy.

Mr. Bush has proposed ways of slowing the growth rate in U.S.-produced greenhouse gases and methods to reduce emissions of methane internationally. But he rejected U.S. participation in the Kyoto international treaty negotiated by former president Bill Clinton's administration — a pact which seeks to mandate reductions in emissions.

U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman a New Mexico Democrat, asked the EIA to study the possible effects of a proposal from the National Commission on Energy Policy. The commission's proposed cap would affect energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide, methane emissions from coal mines and several other gases related to global warming.

William Reilly, the commission co-chairman and former head of the Environmental Protection Agency under former president George Bush, said it is an old argument that the economy could not withstand greenhouse gas reductions. He said both his commission and the EIA have now shown otherwise.

"This is a reassuring set of conclusions," he said.

EIA estimated the cost to each U.S. household of using a market-based approach to limit greenhouse gases would be $78 a year, from 2006 to 2025. That would reduce the gross domestic product in 2025 by about one-tenth of one per cent, it said.

The commission also had recommended a 36-per-cent increase in the average fuel economy for cars and light-duty trucks between 2010 and 2015 and doubling to $3 billion a year the budget for federal energy research and development. In addition, it called for new tax incentives for gasifying coal and building nuclear plants.

Adding those measures to the greenhouse gas plan, EIA estimated, would reduce the U.S. gross domestic product in 2025 by about four-tenths of one per cent.

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This is so stinking full of BS. This was printed in a Canadian newspaper after it was revealed Kyoto would cost Canada about $10-billion just to implement at a bare minimum and that's mainly to purchase carbon credits (a.k.a. third world welfare). Since the U.S. is roughly 10 fold larger than Canada in population and even larger economically, it is going to cost the U.S. a heck of a lot more. Thank goodness the Senate (not Dubya, who is obviously against it, too) voted AGAINST implementing it virtually unanimously!

[mountn man]

Yeah but what happens when the Yellowstone super volcano erupts? That will happen before 2025 ( I know, because the Discovery channel just had a movie about it). Won't that throw out all their estimates of green house gas emissions?

If George Bush doesn't do something right now, we're all doomed. The earth could never survive this type of tragedy.

Oh wait!!!! It already has.

Never mind.

(sarcasm off)