Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 06/27/2009 11:29:01 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
Despite indications that much of President Obama’s agenda is meeting intra-party skepticism all over Capitol Hill, there is one policy nexus where congressional leaders are still doggedly determined to move the country left: energy and the environment. Speaker Pelosi will reportedly allow a vote on the controversial Waxman-Markey “cap-and-trade” legislation at the end of this week.
And it gets even better. Not content to tempt political fate by imposing huge carbon taxes on the American middle class, Democrats have added a provision which imposes stiff tariffs on our trading partners if they don’t adopt aggressive carbon restrictions of their own.
You heard correctly: progressives have authored a bill that earns the mortal enmity of domestic energy consumers and our most crucial trading partners at the same time. Economy-killing climate policies and a trade war — together at last!
What happened is this: An early draft of Waxman-Markey already contained triggers that gave the president the choice to introduce carbon tariffs if jobs and industry “leak” overseas to countries that don’t constrain emissions so dramatically. (China and India come to mind.) The original version empowered the president to impose the carbon-linked tariffs beginning in 2025.
But though the language is not public yet, the House Ways and Means Committee is reportedly considering provisions that will give extra comfort to protectionists. Leaks from Hill offices indicate that the president would now be forced to impose the carbon tariffs — and could only opt out of doing so with permission from both chambers of Congress. Carbon-intensive imports would be subject to penalties at the border unless the country of origin requires emission reduction measures at least 80 percent as costly as ours. (The original Waxman-Markey bill had a threshold of 60 percent.)
(Excerpt) Read more at planetgore.nationalreview.com ...
Secession now! We already have a Constitution. Check that off the list.
ping!
America is falling apart.
America is falling apart.
Waxman Markey = Smoot Hawley. Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
EXACTLY!
Smoot-Hawley on steroids!!!
Barack the Kenyan’s “Spread the Wealth” gig is going send America’s economy and wealth into the toilet.
Yep, Hawley-Smoot all over again..
Actually America is being disassembled. And no great leader is jumping out to say stop. We, the People, are trying, but we need some leaders to jump in, too.
Too bad we don’t really use it, or do so mostly in the breach.
bfl
Our government is being disassembled and reassembled in a powerful executive branch, where the secretary of state and secretary of energy have more power than the Congress and are authorized to submit to the United Nations and United Nations subsidiary agencies in the name of Energy and the Environment.
When they are done, the government structure will be the Soviet Union reincarnated. Why do you think all the old soviets came here to retire?
We are so screwed.
Please follow the link http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2280661/posts.
This is a whole chapter out of “Atlas Shrugged.”
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