More on Cap & Trade – HR 2454
Have you heard about Cap & Trade? It’s also is known as HR 2454. It’s the Waxman – Marley Act which is meant to do everything from create electric cars to ending carbon emissions from electricity power plants.
It’s passed the House already and President Obama loves it. Which is no surprise as he has already stated exactly what he thinks of coal power. (January 17, 2008)
The plan realizes that coal keeps hundreds of thousands of Americans at work. And as such it provides for the people that will lose their jobs, buy giving them half a year of pay at 70% of what they made. Sounds nice until you think of the fact that a person who has worked for a decade or 2 at a coal plant may need more than half a year to find another job (especially in an economy even half as bad as current). It’s also unclear if this extended unemployment will include all the people involved in mining, refining, and transportation of coal (tens of thousands of more jobs gone).
There are multiple emission standards that coal power plants would need to meet immediately upon passage. None are realistically capable of being met in so short a time span. But even if they were, multiple taxes would be levied on coal plants. Make one guess where that money will come from?
Millions out of work, and double the cost of electricity. Sounds like a Democrat plan alright.
And all of that for almost no effect
In fact it’s even worse than you think.
“China just upped the ante in its demands of what the West should do—calling for ridiculously ambitious emissions reductions over the next decade as a pre-condition for joining the club. The Waxman-Markey bill in its original form would have fallen well short of Chinese demands; in the compromise version, near-term emissions cuts are even more modest…
In the big picture, what China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and other developing countries do on emissions actually matters as much or more than what the U.S. does. “
So what is HR 2454 really going to do? Well as it quietly moves along to passage while the nation is obsessively trying to get the attention of politicians on healthcare, I expect HR 2454 to be passed. Thus as the winter goes past and summer rolls we will see the higher prices in our bills. This will cause people to use less energy, which matches the goal of liberals and environmental nuts.
But here is the hidden problem. Will Cap & Trade be worth it as unknown numbers of people have to choose between heat and their mortgages? Will it be worth it in the summer when an unknown number of older people die from extreme heat as they can’t afford the air conditioning bill? Is that worth the green promises that are unrealistic considering China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa don’t care?
October 8th, 2009 at 5:59 am
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