Sen. Heinrich pushes for bill on carbon pollution fee (NM-Yeah,let's kill US energy)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | July 10, 2019 | Theresa Davis

[CedarDave]

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich testified before the Senate on Monday about what he called the global “climate crisis,” advocating for carbon pollution pricing legislation to reduce harmful emissions.

Heinrich is a co-sponsor of the American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act, a bill that would charge coal, oil and natural gas companies a fee for every ton of carbon dioxide pollution they produce.

“Our climate crisis often feels too big, too complex, too hard to fix,” the New Mexico Democrat said. “However, the scientific fact is, we have created this problem, and we possess the creativity and the tools and the technology to fix it.”

The legislation was re-introduced in April and referred to the Senate Finance Committee. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., was the original bill sponsor, and Sens. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., are also co-sponsors. Schatz and Whitehouse also spoke about the bill on Monday.

Heinrich called the bill a “real and pragmatic solution” that would encourage companies to reduce their pollution.

The carbon pollution fee would start at $52 a ton and increase 6% each year.

The legislation would raise an estimated $2.3 trillion over 10 years. That money would be returned to states in the form of tax credits to help pay for a transition toward clean energy. Heinrich said the funds could also be used to train workers for new clean-energy jobs.

“A new generation of young leaders in my home state of New Mexico and all around the world recognize that the climate crisis is not just urgent; it’s literally existential,” Heinrich said Monday on the Senate floor. “These young students and activists are demanding that their elected leaders get to work on implementing solutions to limit its devastating impacts.”

[CedarDave]

New Mexico is #3 in the US in energy production. The all-left wing radicals in state government and our Congressional delegation happily take in the industry profits (more than a billion this year) while trying to shut down the industry. And the young are being taught that CO2 is bad and we who support energy development are helping destroy the planet.

See my two recent threads on impacts of wind energy (The Appalling Environmental Cost Of Wind Energy ) and coming world-wide global cooling (Oscillations of the baseline of solar magnetic field and solar irradiance on a millennial timescale (global cooling)).

[CedarDave]

NM list PING!

I may not PING for all New Mexico articles. To see New Mexico articles by topic click here: New Mexico Topics

To see NM articles by keyword, click here: New Mexico Keywords

To see the NM Message Page, click here: New Mexico Messages

(The NM list is available on my FR homepage for FR member use; its use in the News Forum should not be for trivial or inconsequential posts. Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
(For ABQ Journal articles requiring a subscription, scroll down to the bottom of the page to view the article for free after answering a question or watching a short video commercial.)

[Lurkinanloomin]

Everyone who believes CO2 is a dangerous pollutant should cease exhaling.

[dp0622]

about what he called the global “climate crisis,” ..

I wonder if they really believe this ####? :)

And the 2 trillion dollars would go towards ANYTHING ELSE, most likely :)

[PGR88]

Just read an interesting opinion piece about how our special-interest and crony-capitalist captured government is setting about financializing everything. Making everyone pay, to benefit a few.

The biggest free thing we had was, literally, air. There is now a push to have that commoditized, taxed and financialized. Everyone will pay for “CO2,” and those vast funds will go to benefit those very few in finance and government who will trade in, and distribute, those credits.

Its really a fantastic, but evil, money-making scheme.

[Berosus]

New Mexico is one of the hottest states in the US. Is this guy willing to go without air conditioning?

[LegendHasIt]

I never thought I’d miss Bill Richardson and Jeff Bingaman .

Lujan-Grisham and Heinrich make them look like paragons of conservatism.

[antidemoncrat]

Living in a state that has many sun filled days per year is great for solar energy, but in the northern states where some only get 60 or so days of sunshine a year, solar energy sucks. They need a way to generate electricity from snow.

[Carriage Hill]

Carbon is Plant Food!

[Diogenesis]

CO2 is so bad, that
the idiot democrats are pushing for inventions
that convert CO2 to carbon monoxide. /s

[Innovative]

” New Mexico Democrat”

More evidence that the real goal of the Democrats is indeed the total destruction of the US.

[Da Coyote]

One needs not technical “proof” that climate change is true.
Just ask the question, “Will everyone be restricted in cars, travel, air conditioning, swimming pools, etc., or will just the those unfortunate enough to be not rich or corrupt members of congress?”

[napscoordinator]

Just last week they said planting trees could solve most problems. Is it not profitable enough for liberals? Hmmmm.

[abclily]

OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a giant nuclear furnace that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?

[monkeyshine]

It is a little ironic that they are advocating for a market solution to the problem they claim that exists. They seem to understand that taxing a thing will cause less of that thing to occur. But they cannot make the leap that taxing economic activity stifles economic activity?

Furthermore, the fact that they are choosing an economic solution to what they call a grave mortal danger to humankind undermines their credibility on the central premise. If manmade CO2 is really as critically dangerous to life on earth as they claim they would be advocating a much more radical approach to stop it rather than a gradually escalating tax. They wouldn’t fly into Switzerland on 300 private jets and ride around in SUVs and limos to figure out how to address the problem of excessive CO2 emissions.

If you look under the cover I think you’ll find many interests at play here. And one of them, like Obamacare was, is a boondgoggle to the entrenched interests. They promised us health care but gave us a mandate to buy insurance - creating a cartel and economic boon for those entrenched industries. The same thing is happening here. I read that Tesla very recently raised $2 billion by selling “carbon credits” to other auto makers. They literally created a new asset to market; another means to transfer wealth.

[Fred Hayek]

It’s never about solving the problem. It is always about control.

[monkeyshine]

Meant to add:

The carbon tax will raise the cost of innovation and competition from upstarts in the future, which thereby serves to protect the entrenched interests who are subsidizing the effort to pass the tax today.

[bert]

Since there is no such phenomena a carbon pollution, no fees or tax can be chargerd or levied

[G Larry]

CO2 is NOT a pollutant!!!

The court case judging otherwise is a crock.

[Zathras]

This is why Energy companies were going along with these wacko ideas.
The threat was “Do what we want or we will tax you to death”