We need to get moving now, if anything is going to change their direction.
Posted on 06/27/2009 7:12:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Next Thursday, just in time for the July 4 holiday weekend, America’s unemployment rate is forecast to rise from 9.4 percent to 9.6 percent, well above rates in other industrialized countries.
Yet today the House of Representatives is rushing to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, even though the bill was incomplete yesterday and congressmen have not yet had the opportunity to analyze it. The bill would send America’s unemployment rate even higher.
The 1,200-page bill, cosponsored by Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Edward Markey, Chairman of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, would increase the price of energy by setting allowances for greenhouse gas emissions and mandating new standards for energy production and use. The bill would raise $846.6 billion over 10 years while adding $821.2 billion to federal spending.
The bill requires that greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 do not exceed 97 percent of 2005 emissions, declining to 17 percent of 2005 emissions by 2050. Meeting these standards now is technologically impossible without radically reducing our standards of living, but Congress is hoping that technology will magically appear as needed.
The mechanism for this is a “cap-and-trade” program under which allowances to emit greenhouse gases would be issued by the Environmental Protection Agency at a steadily declining rate through 2050. When emissions exceed a firm’s allowance, or cap, it would have to purchase allowances from the government or other firms, a tax under another name, driving up costs that would be passed on to consumers.
Electric utilities have been given free allowances to encourage them to support the bill. Oil and gas would be particularly hard hit, because they are responsible for 35 percent of emissions yet are allocated only three percent of the free allowances.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
* Oil and gas would be particularly hard hit, because they are responsible for 35 percent of emissions yet are allocated only three percent of the free allowances.
* This will definitely result in the increase of oil and gas prices.
Just as the increases in oil prices in the 1970s brought about an increase in unemployment, the energy provisions in the Waxman-Markey bill could usher in years, perhaps decades, of lower economic growth and higher unemployment than would be the case otherwise.
* Oil price increases resulted in more jobs lost than jobs gained in almost every industry sector of the economy. The largest oil shock, in 1973, caused an estimated eight percent decline in manufacturing employment over the following two years.
* Higher energy prices are more likely to suppress employment than monetary shocks. Many politicians fret over the harmful effects of recent American monetary policy, but overlook the even greater danger to employment from the Waxman-Markey bill.
* Supporters of the bill claim that the new regulations will create jobs, because people will have to be employed to produce the new technology. But the funds for the new expenditures have to come from somewhere, and money spent on new products is money that cannot be spent on other activities, such buying clothes or food, or anything else that Americans would otherwise buy. This would drive down employment in those industries.
* Not only does the bill penalize American firms through higher costs, it gives firms a financial incentive to move abroad through “offsets,” activities that supposedly lower carbon emissions elsewhere. Since Congress knows that firms cannot meet the standards in the bill, legislators are allowing firms to meet 30 percent of their 2012 greenhouse gas reduction obligations, increasing to 60 percent by 2050, by buying offsets. Half of these offsets can take place abroad.
* The offset provisions allow firms to shift economic activity abroad to countries with laxer emissions standards, further damaging U.S. job creation. All for a mere fraction of a percentage decrease in global temperature by 2050. This in an era where there is observed global cooling.
* The American unemployment rate now exceeds those in France (8.9 percent) and Germany (7.7 percent). It will likely continue to exceed them when this cap-and-trade bill is passed.
Probably keep me from finding a job since I am unemployed from the oil and gas industry...
I’ve been working on my “Would you like to super-size that order?” line...
I used to work for a large printer and one of the reasons they stated for closing was too much regulation and govt. controls.
I sent a letter to Gov. Rell before she signed it and she never bothered to answer.
If this bill passes it will turn the U.S. into a "no production" zone of over regulation and government bureaucracy.
Clearly, Rooters doesn’t realize it has a sane journalist on the payroll.
Between now and 2050 we will add 135 million to our population. It will be impossible to meet such standards.
We damn sure better make sure this screw America bill doesn’t pass the Senate. Putting constant pressure on them has never been more important, along with Cap and Trade.
So basically the Marxists are closing down America, and will take the rest of the world with it. What does Soros have to gain from this?
We need to get moving now, if anything is going to change their direction.
I am in the metals industry.....steel, aluminum, etc
Cap and Trade will destroy this industry....foreign supplied metal (that is not subject to cap and trade) will destroy American steel mills that are already hurting due to the economic downturn.
Cap and Trade is Smoot-Hawley of the 21st Century!
What job?
That 135 Million you speak of will make this El Norte Americano, a first-rate, third world banana republic.
When conservatives are removed, there will be absolute population control.
I can think of two ways right off the bat that this will affect the people around me...
1) They’re closing the power station where my brother has worked for 20 years. It’s not going to be profitable to run any more, since it is an older station and it would be very costly to update it. Closed power stations mean fewer jobs.
2) I have a friend who works for a company who installs and maintains environmental equipment for factories (basically, the equipment that brings them into compliance with current clean air regulations). This year, he’s worked like gangbusters and has had very little free time. But he said that there are NO projects scheduled yet for 2010. Everyone has adopted a “wait and see” attitude before doing any new projects of that sort. Businesses not taking on new projects mean fewer jobs.
If money were no object (and it is), green energy still couldn’t supplant fossil fuels for our needs. If the entire world suddenly went nuke for electricity or wind, solar, we’d still be dependent on fossil fuels for our transportation needs.
On the other hand, we could probably make this work if we just regressed technologically.......... say back to the 18th century or earlier.
75% of the 135 million is due to immigration. And if we have an amnesty, add at least another 66 million on top of that.
Our glorious leader and axis of evil (Senate, House and Judiciary) will assure that.
I would like to. My wife has a real good job. I am pretty much raising our two boys and going to school for Electrical Technology.
The idea that over regulating and stifling industry will improve the United States is so frakkin' absurd that I actually woke up in the middle of the night. I couldn't get to sleep for awhile over worry about my boys' future.
I truly hate these people. They have become dangerous to the United States.
Good luck with that. We can’t even get work at the super size place anymore because of the people fighting for every scrap of a job they can find and with the unemployment being so high in our area, no one can afford to eat out, making those jobs even scarcer.
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