Posted on 07/08/2009 11:23:26 AM PDT by RicocheT
"I bet you thought that if you bought a house, you actually own it and can, with reasonable exceptions, do with it what you want. You probably think that if you want to live in a log cabin, with wood stoves that belch smoke into the air for heat, and an old washer and dryer that don't have those little EnergyStar stickers on them you can because it's your life and your property. You paid for it with money you earned with the sweat of your brow and what the heck is America anyhow if a body can't live in the home they want furnished with the appliances they want?"
Ah, silly you. You didn't reckon on the Democratic Party's desire to control every miniscule aspect of your life.
Let me introduce you to a little section of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill called the "Building Energy Performance Labeling Program". It's section 304 of the bill and it says, basically, that your house belongs to the state. See, the Federal Government really wants a country full of energy-efficient homes, so much so that the bill mandates that new homes be 30 percent more energy efficient than the current building code on the very day the law is signed. That efficiency goes up to 50 percent by 2014 and only goes higher from there, all the way to 2030. That, by the way, is not merely a target but a requirement of the law. New homes must reach those efficiency targets no matter what.
But what does that have to do with current homeowners like you? Well, I'm glad you asked. You're certainly not off the hook, no way, no how. Here's what the Democrats have planned for you."
(Excerpt) Read more at americanissuesproject.org ...
I was just going to say, the only thing this will stimulate is arson. Better to destroy it than to let the left have it. Scorched earth, and all that...
The Fox show ‘Cashing In’ reported this part of the bill on Saturday. All the pundits were freaked out by it.It freaked me out!
And libs, being unable to understand that people react rationally when presented with an incentive,
will be unable to make the connection between this green smileyfaced fascism of theirs and the increase in total fire loss of old houses.
There are sure gonna be a lot of houses burning down.
Quite right. Jewish lightning will be at an all time high!
I see a lot of “Jewish lightning” in this country’s future.....
I figure when the dems/libs finally figure out what the fools in congress are subjecting us to, even THEY will be ready to hang the bass turds.
The ones I know would simply make excuses for the policy,
because they believe that the elites know best.
Actually, quite the opposite - or did you forget your /sarcasm tag?
Unless they have some sort of loop hole for historic homes I doubt if the one we boughtto resale could ever be made that efficient? It has new windows and insulation but home built in the early 1900’s were not built to be efficient. I predict that this will create a lot of homeless people when people start tearing down their rentals because it is cheaper than retrofitting them!
bump
insane
Psalm 141:9-10
9 Keep me from the snares they have laid for me,
from the traps set by evildoers.
10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
while I pass by in safety.
I bet ACORN (or whatever they call themselves now) is ready and waiting to train all those “inspectors” and send them out to knock on our doors. Can’t you just imagine some punk, reeking with attitude, coming into your house and telling you what you need to change in the name of going “green”! No thanks!
No kidding! Gasoline (even at last summer's prices) is a lot cheaper than getting ready to sell!
Oh Lordy! Have you ever considered moving out of Seattle? We need more conservative voters on the east side of the lake.
"Kevin T. Keith wrote re: If You Don't Hate the Cap and Trade Bill, Let Me Show You Section 304. on 07-08-2009 12:16 PM
You may have a point. But you're incompetent, wrong, alarmist, and tedious, so I doubt it, and I can't be bothered to do your homework for you.
To begin with, you haven't even read the bill correctly. Section (A)(vi) is not triggered by simply changing the name on a utility bill; it involves selling the building to a new owner, or, for commercial buildings, leasing it to a new operator. Nobody is going to inspect your home if your spouse starts paying the monthly bills.
("Dr." Melissa Clouthier seems to have the same problem. Since the bill mandates energy standards for new homes, it doesn't apply to existing homes. Problem solved, with the careful application of a new technology known as . . . reading comprehension! And as to how new homes can be made more energy-efficient than current ones, let me simply note that her failure of imagination is not an argument against the regulations. It's essentially equivalent to the creationist argument against evolution: she can't think of a way it could work, therefore it's impossible. For her enlightenment, I'll merely mention a few things other than "windows" that aren't currently widely used, but could be: passive solar; active solar and wind, 12-volt lighting, smaller total volumes, multi-generation homes . . .)
As for inspections, the energy assessment is coincident with things that already require inspection and permitting: new construction, renovations, sales, and the like. This just adds another dimension to the assessments already needed, which is something for the inspectors to worry about, not you. As you yourself note, you are not required to do anything in response to the inspection. It's hard to see how this is any burden at all.
As for your suggestion that the government providing subsidies to make energy-efficiency improvements is "like a couple mob heavies leaning on a witness in a Rico trial", I can only surmise that either your local mob heavies are unusually altruistic, or you're full of ***.
Regarding your boo-hooing that the state will only pay you half the cost of renovating your own house, were you intending to pay back the energy-cost savings to the state if they pick up the whole tab? Naturally you'll accept a tax on the difference between current and future energy bills after the system pays for itself - since, after all, you're all about cost equity, right?
Finally, the real problem here is the fundamentally childish viewpoint that motivates the whole post. What made you think you could live in any civilized community and simply "do what you want" with your property simply because "you paid for it with money"? The whole point to civilization is that we have rules that mediate the way people act, insofar as it affects the rest of the community. No, you can't "belch smoke" into the air and use twice as much energy as everyone else doing the same things, because the smoke pollutes the air other people breathe, and the energy you waste uses up resources that can't be replaced, and which also cause pollution. (In economic terms, you're generating negative externalities. In simpler terms, you're screwing up the place other people have to live.) When nobody knew how much damage that caused, and energy was plentiful, being fat, dumb and happy seemed like a workable strategy. Now that it's obvious what a cost energy waste and pollution impose, it's reasonable to ask people to limit the damage they do to everyone else's environment.
You want to waste energy? Fine. Just do so in a way that doesn't ruin the environment or harm the health or lifestyle of the people around you. Oh - there's no way to be an oblivious self-centered pig that doesn't harm other people? Then knock it off.
If you want civilization, then be civilized. You have obligations to the rest of the community. Being selfish, wasteful, polluting, and indifferent isn't workable anymore. You have an obligation not to do it, just like there are obligations to get your car smog-checked, and to use carbon-recovery devices on industrial smokestacks. Home energy is another big chunk of the puzzle - it's one we have to address. The fact that it inconveniences you to live as if your neighbors and the environment actually matter is an observation about you, not about the regulations needed to preserve what little resources we have left."
Super Snoopscold, that.
Well, look at it this way. For many years us rich folks who own homes have had it easy. It’s now payback time.
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