Free Republic

The energy bill to be signed by the president today is arguably the worst piece of energy legislation ever enacted into law. It will substantially increase the price of automobiles, increase highway fatalities, increase fuel prices, worsen air pollution, and force consumers to buy products (like super-efficient light bulbs) that they manifestly -- and for very good reason -- do not want to buy. It will transfer huge amounts of wealth from the consumer to the farm lobby in the course of promoting a dubious product -- ethanol -- that will make energy supplies less reliable and greenhouse gas emission...

Warning: Unless you put up a roadblock this minute, soon Florida Republicans will "Dubai" all the state's assets. Once again, Elephants in the Florida Legislature have sold their souls, assuming they ever had any. Routinely, they barter the public interest for a buck. This time, in a scheme that only Halliburton could hail, House Republicans just passed H.B. 7033, giving private companies virtual monopoly ownership of most of Florida's toll roads. (Democratic state Reps. Susan Bucher and Keith Fitzgerald told me they were outraged.) That's right! If the scheme becomes law, corporate interests will be able to make a profit...

The idea of a cap-and-trade system for limiting carbon-dioxide emissions in the U.S. has become all the rage. Earlier this year, 10 big American companies formed the Climate Action Partnership to lobby for government action on climate change. And this week the private-equity consortium that is bidding to take over Texas utility TXU announced that, as part of the buyout, it would join the forces lobbying for a cap on carbon emissions. But this is not, as Lenin once said, a case of capitalists selling the rope to hang themselves with. In most cases, it is good old-fashioned rent-seeking with...

With mandatory curbs on U.S. global-warming emissions looking increasingly likely in the next several years, industries are starting to argue over who will pay for the cleanup. One thing is clear: Whatever the cost, it will get passed along to consumers. A new report from the utility industry's think tank, the Electric Power Research Institute, says the U.S. utility sector could ratchet back its global-warming emissions to 1990 levels by 2030. That would be a major feat, given that emissions are projected to rise significantly over the next few decades. But Congress is unlikely to boost taxpayer-funded energy research by...

Democrats want to flog the global warming theme through 2008 and they'll take what help they can get, even if it means cozying up to executives whose goal is to enrich their firms. Right now, the corporate giants calling for a mandatory carbon cap serve too useful a political purpose for anyone to delve into their baser motives.The Climate Action Partnership, a group of 10 major companies that made headlines this week with its call for a national limit on carbon dioxide emissions, would surely feign shock at such an accusation. After all, their plea was carefully timed to coincide...

Why our CEOs are warming to Kyoto. (Editor's note: We reintroduce today the Potomac Watch column from Washington. It will appear on Fridays and be written by Kimberley Strassel, a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. She joined the Journal in 1994 and has worked as a reporter in Europe and as an editor and editorial writer in New York.) Washington this week officially welcomed the newest industry on the hunt for financial and regulatory favors. Big CarbonCap may have the same dollar-sign agenda as Big Oil or Big Pharma, but don't expect Nancy Pelosi to admit to...

The global-warming debate is shifting from science to economics. For years, the fight over the Earth's rising temperature has been mostly over what's causing it: fossil-fuel emissions or natural factors beyond man's control. Now, some of the country's biggest industrial companies are acknowledging that fossil fuels are a major culprit whose emissions should be cut significantly over time. A growing number of these companies are pushing for a mandatory emissions limit, or "cap." Some see a lucrative new market in clean-energy technologies. Many figure a regulation is politically inevitable and they want to be in the room when it's negotiated,...