Kerry, Lieberman, and Cap n Trade

[David Atlee]

From my blog at http://theatleeappeal.com ;

I’m coming out swinging today. Sometimes a day off from a daily opinion paper can do wonders for the blogger’s mind. But we have more wonderful news about our esteemed leaders in Washington who are still hell bent on the idea of combating an imaginary problem, i.e., global warming. This would be like trying to play Santa Clause to a 25 year old. The story broke last year regarding the phony science used to manipulate climate models that were used to “prove” man-made global warming. That’s ok. “We don’t need no stinking badges!” says our know-it-all politicians.

So John Kerry, who “has better hair”, and Joe Lieberman are teaming up to take down the monster under our beds. According to the EPA, their climate bill will only increase costs on households’ energy bills between $80 and $150 a year. But do you really believe the EPA? Having the EPA estimate the costs of a climate bill would be like allowing the home team to make the rules for a championship game. Joe Lieberman claims it will only be under $1 a day: “Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment? I think the answer is going to be yes.” (except he doesn’t want anymore drilling here) Good to know Mr. Lieberman knows exactly what I’m willing to do! Just as Nancy Pelosi claims that I’m going to love the health care bill after they passed it because that would be the only way I’d know what’s in it. Sadly, these people aren’t imaginary creatures in our heads.

The Kerry-Lieberman bill is basically cap-and-trade. Meaning: The government will tell companies how much carbon they can omit. If they go under their limit for the year, they can sell those credits to other companies. If a company goes over their limit, they must buy more credits from someone else. Did anyone else’s head just explode after reading that? So here is what they are trying to jam down America’s throat while we are still in a recession: Higher energy prices in the name of fighting off an imaginary enemy. Brilliant!

Liberals gloat over this whole concept of a “green economy”. “Green energy.” “Live green!”…puke green. From a strategic standpoint, it’s not too bad (how they plan to implement their agenda). Americans are concerned about jobs right now. Well at this point, what better idea than to verbally molest “Big Oil” and claim that this, the oil spill, is the reason for needed “green energy jobs.” Then just slap on major taxes on coal and oil (cap and trade) while paying companies, errr.. subsidizing, to invest in renewable energy. There’s just one problem though. Free markets are not craving for renewable energy right now because renewable energy does not provide near the amount of energy as say coal or oil. Let’s also not forget that greeny environmental kooks have all but killed any expansion of nuclear energy in America. Obama claims he wants more nuclear, but let’s hold our breaths and see if he dares to cross his biggest supporters.

So just how well has subsidized green energy worked out for a country that’s actually tried implementing it? Spain tried this, and how did that turn out for them? From Bloomberg: ”The premiums paid for solar, biomass, wave and wind power – - which are charged to consumers in their bills — translated into a $774,000 cost for each Spanish “green job” created since 2000, said Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at the university and author of the report. ‘The loss of jobs could be greater if you account for the amount of lost industry that moves out of the country due to higher energy prices,’ he said in an interview.” And in case you haven’t been paying attention to the financial situation in Europe, Spain is right behind Greece. Folks, we aren’t too far behind either, which makes you wonder what planet are these politicians on who come up with these ideas? But wait! There’s More! From Spain’s King Juan Carlos University: [W]e find that for every renewable energy job that the State manages to finance, Spain’s experience cited by President Obama as a model reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created…

So what is the underlying assumption in liberals’ green energy initiatives? In order to create a green-energy sector, you must buy it through massive tax-payer funded subsidies. You then increase taxes on carbon emitting energy such as oil and coal. The sky-rocketing costs will be a burden on consumers i.e. the taxpayers. But lo and behold! They will be forced to switch to “affordable” energy (code word for subsidized) after being unable to afford energy run off oil and coal. Since the technology is not in place yet to create the amount of energy needed from renewable sources, more and more money will be thrown from the taxpayers to these government funded and operated green energy companies. So, the oil and coal industries go bankrupt while the green energy industry becomes stagnant. – This is exactly how Amtrak operates. It is not a reasonable form of transportation and has low demand, therefore in order to stay afloat it must be covered by the taxpayers through subsidies. Proof of efficient government.

Now, am I against alternative energy? No. Absolutely not. The more forms of energy and the more access to energy we have, the lower overall energy costs will become IF they are not politicized. Natural supply and demand is a very simple concept, but as we learned from a recent study which I posted on this site, liberals as a whole fail miserably on economic aptitude. If we have more oil through more drilling, the supply of oil increases which will lead to a natural drop in oil prices (while demand stays the same). If more nuclear energy is installed, we will have a drop in power bills due to larger amounts of energy with minimal increase of demand. This stuff is not rocket science. But if you have an agenda that does not coincide with common sense along with natural supply and demand, everything becomes a complicated mess.