Free Republic

Skyrocketing gas prices are sparking major concerns in the UK, with households bracing for higher bills and food prices. The energy crisis has already hit millions of Brits, but is set to hit more still. The UK is highly dependent on consumer spending to generate output, indicating the economy could still be in the mire heading into the spring. A wave of concern over the swelling cost of living is sweeping across Britain. While households are bracing for higher tax bills and are already being stung by food prices leaping, it is swelling energy costs that will hit hardest in...

In the 1970s, Americans were told we were in a global cooling crisis and if something wasn’t done, we’d enter a new ice age. When that didn’t happen, a few decades later we were told that entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend was not reversed by the year 2000. Despite the consistent failure of these apocalyptic warnings, that hasn’t stopped climate change alarmism. We’re now being told we only have 12 years to combat climate change, and the solution is to fundamentally dismantle the system of...

President Obama’s Energy secretary nominee regards a carbon tax as one of the simplest ways to move the energy industry towards clean technologies, though he notes that government would have to come up with a plan to mitigate the burden this tax places on poor people, who would pay the most. “Ultimately, it has to be cheaper to capture and store it than to release it and pay a price,” MIT professor and Energy nominee Ernest Moniz told the Switch Energy Project in an interview last year. “If we start really squeezing down on carbon dioxide over the next few...

Unlike its foolish neighbors to the north in New York, Pennsylvania has been enjoying the fruits of the energy boom for several years now. Natural gas drilling in particular has been paying benefits to the government and the citizens, with thousands of new jobs and all of the secondary growth which is associated with higher employment levels. In November of last year, however, the citizens of the Keystone State decided to oust incumbent Republican Governor Tom Corbett and replace him with Democrat Tom Wolf. Would anyone care to hazard a guess as to what one of the new guy’s...

“President Obama’s call for a $95 billion energy tax hike would thwart the very goals expressed in his State of the Union address,” American Petroleum Institute (API) Pres. Jack Gerard said today. “America’s oil and natural gas renaïssance has done everything on the president’s State of the Union wish list for the middle class,” Gerard said, responding to Obama’s proposed budget. “Opposition to President Obama’s proposals is strong and bipartisan. The president’s annual call to raise taxes on U.S. oil and natural gas development would hurt job creation, infrastructure investment, the federal deficit, seniors on fixed incomes and domestic manufacturing.”...

GOP consultant Karl Rove got directly involved Friday in Hawaii's hotly contested Congressional race between Republican incumbent Rep. Charles Djou and Democrat Colleen Hanabusa. Rove's group American Crossroads started running an ad on Hawaii television stations Friday critical of Hanabusa. The TV commercial says, "There are problems in paradise, and Colleen Hanabusa would make things worse. Hanabusa supports Nancy Pelosi's tsunami of spending. She defends the trillion dollar health care takeover that raises our costs and cuts Medicare by over $500 billion. She has said she will support the cap and trade energy tax that will raise the cost of...

Because of overstaffing, the U.S. Postal Service selects 1,125 employees daily to sit in empty “standby rooms.” They are not allowed to work, read, play cards, watch television, or do anything. This $50 million annual cost may be dumped in the taxpayers’ laps if the debt-ridden Postal Service receives a federal bailout. Stimulus dollars are being spent on mascot costumes, electric golf carts, and a university study examining how much alcohol college freshmen women require before agreeing to casual sex. Washington is spending $2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job. This is the kind of...

The maneuvering behind a Harry Reid-backed sweeping new energy tax that will hit small business and the middle-class in a down economy ... " Late yesterday Majority Leader Reid re-filed a substitute to the small business jobs bill. In addition to the substitute, there is a first degree amendment relating to the modification of the expanded 1099 reporting provision enacted as part of the health reform bill. The modification is an alternative to the Republican amendment to repeal the provision. The Republican provision is offset with spending cuts. The Democratic alternative introduced by Baucus is proposed to be paid for...

The Senate sponsors of a sweeping climate change bill are drafting a scaled-back version focused on electric power plants in a bid to salvage a role for greenhouse gas curbs in the Senate energy debate. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) this week will start circulating a draft of their narrowed plan as they try to convince Democratic leaders to include a carbon pricing component in a broad energy package that may hit the Senate floor next week. “I am very optimistic that we can pass something here that deals with energy and gets us started in the...

Democrats in Congress haven’t made any moves to extend the Bush tax cuts of 2006, so workers of all income levels can expect to see a 5% increase in their income taxes, and additional tax increases from a number of other areas. The taxes affected include the capital gains tax, the alternative minimum tax, education deductions, sales tax exemptions. They also include small tax increases, like a rollback in tax breaks for tuition expenses and donations of books to public schools. "If you believe the current consensus, we could potentially see the top income tax rate hiked back up to...

In pushing the latest attempt by liberals and RINOS (Republicans in Name Only) in Congress to get a 'cap and trade' energy bill and other legislation passed, politicians in Washington have pulled out 'the God card.' House speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, stated that in her conversations with Catholic priests she said, 'I need you to speak from the pulpit about this issue. There are people in the pew who do not support the bill. And they need to know that is a manifestation of our living out the Gospel.' And then, Senator John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, in announcing the new...

Yet another example of the left’s promised transparency. Senators Liebermann, Kerry and Graham have taken the Obama Energy Tax Bill and skipped taking it to a committee and handed it over to Senator Reid so when he deems the time is right, Reid can ram it down our throats and take more of our hard earned money. The promises of transparency are being disregarded on all fronts and nothing but quiet on this issue thus far from either side of the aisle. Robert A. Heinlein said it best, “Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and...

(This was sent as an email alert) Senate Hides Obama's Energy Tax Bill From Debate "If we introduce it, (correctly) it'll get referred to committees," - Lieberman - Vote Expected In 2 Weeks At The End Of April Lieberman a so-called independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats and fellow co-energy conspirators Kerry, D-MA, and RINO Graham, R-SC, will NOT introduce their Phony Secret Energy Tax Bill via the normal Senate process, but will instead simply hand it over to Reid. Lieberman said "We want him to be able to work with it and bring it out onto the floor as...

Cap and trade is not that complicated. Recently Ag Secretary Vilsack has been out promoting cap and trade and touting its benefits to farmers. Well, let’s look at these benefits that Sec. Vilsack is selling to the American people. Sec. Vilsack is selling this terrible legislation by pointing out the money farmers can make from planting trees which is considered a “carbon offset.” Therefore, during a recession those in Washington would rather re-forest our land, which Vilsack said would provide “significant income opportunities to America’s farmers and ranchers.” This is absurd. When did even the most basic rules about supply...

Pollution Control: From cars to coal mines, the imposition of economy-killing restrictions is under way. Are the new EPA regulations on auto emissions the precursor to regulating carbon dioxide by executive order? In announcing the Environmental Protection Agency's first regulations on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cars, Administrator Lisa Jackson has promised they won't be the last such rules stemming from the EPA's "endangerment finding" that carbon dioxide, six pounds of which every human being exhales every day, is a dangerous pollutant. "These are the first regulations that cover greenhouse gas emissions in the United States," Jackson told reporters in...

Some moderate Democrats still are “really anguished” over voting for the energy bill, Rep. Jason Altmire told Fox News, and they “would be reluctant now to vote for health care and take a second vote that might be unpopular in their district.”With Republicans raising the volume of their protests and House Democratic leaders uncertain if they have enough rank-and-file support, some moderate Democrats sense that passing a health care reform bill will be as difficult as the House’s energy bill, which was approved by a slim margin June. That has caused quite a bit of hand-wringing among the Democrats. Some...

For many years, Americans indulged the global-warming fantasies of Al Gore and the loopy left because it didn't cost them anything (at least directly), it didn't materially affect their lifestyles, and it made some of them feel all warm, fuzzy and green. Now warmists are in power in Washington and pushing cap-and-trade legislation that will raise energy costs for the average household, conservatively, by a few thousand dollars a year while increasing America's dependence on intermittent and unreliable energy sources but without meaningfully changing earth's climate. Not surprisingly, Americans no longer are all that hot for global warming. Actual data...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Max Baucus said Tuesday he has "serious reservations" about climate legislation newly unveiled by his Democratic colleagues, signaling that lawmakers may have to pull back from some ambitious goals in order to line up needed votes. "I have some concerns about the overall direction of the bill," Mr. Baucus (D., Mont.) said at the start of hearings in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "I have serious reservations with the depth of the mid-term reduction target in the bill and the lack of preemption of the Clean Air Act." Mr. Baucus -- who's also chairman of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Senate committee on Tuesday launches three long days of hearings on a Democratic climate bill in a bid to further convince an international summit in December that Washington is serious about tackling global warming. The Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee will kick off Tuesday's hearing at 9:30 a.m. EDT with a panel of heavy-hitters from President Barack Obama's Cabinet: the secretaries of energy, transportation and interior and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Joining them will be the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. According to an EPA statement, the officials will focus...

Sending Anita Dunn—who is probably not enjoying her proverbial 15 minutes of fame—out onto the north lawn of the White House to attack Fox News is serving its purpose. The responsibility for determining which of the national news networks are legitimate and which ones are not is something the founders did not include in the executive powers section of the Constitution. One might even argue that the inclusion of the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights is a pretty clear sign they thought that giving any part of the federal government the power to do so would not, to...