Heritage Morning Bell - Cap and Tax

Cap And Trade’s Mandates And Subsidies Are Wrong
Following major defeats at the ballot box on Tuesday, the left’s legislative agenda suffered another huge setback yesterday when once wavering Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Susan Collins (R-ME) all signed a letter supporting Sen. George Voinovich’s (R-OH) demand that the Environmental Protection Agency provide a thorough analysis of how the Kerry-Boxer cap and trade legislation will impact the U.S. economy. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) had been pressing for swift passage of her cap and tax legislation, but conservatives on the Environment and Public Works Committee thwarted her efforts by boycotting a vote on the legislation Tuesday.

An EPA analysis on the economic costs of cap and trade is no small issue. If Tuesday’s elections proved anything, it is that jobs and economic growth are the top concern on Americans’ minds. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis has found that cap and tax legislation would cost the average family-of-four almost $3,000 per year, cause 2.5 million net job losses by 2035, and a produce a cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) loss of $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035. The EPA has issued preliminary reports reaching different conclusions; including an October 23 report on Kerry-Boxer that found it would only cost the average American family $80 to $111 dollars per year.

There are many fundamental problems with that EPA report, none more glaring than their fanciful assumption that nuclear power generation will nearly double in the next 25 years. This is the equivalent of about 100 additional nuclear power plants. The reality is that in the past 30 years, not one new nuclear power plant has been licensed. More importantly, the Kerry-Boxer approach to reviving the nuclear energy relies on the same failed policies that have crippled the U.S. nuclear energy for the past 30 years. Heritage fellows Jack Spencer and Nick Loris explain:

Washington has a role to play in reducing financial barriers, but not by funding projects with taxpayer dollars. The regulatory costs and uncertainty posed by the federal bureaucracy represent significant risk to the success of the nuclear industry, just as regulatory uncertainty significantly affected the timing and budget of past nuclear plant construction. Indeed, this risk and uncertainty results in the higher prices that are most often used to justify government subsidies for nuclear projects. Efforts to reduce that risk by reforming the most obvious areas, such as the regulatory process and waste management, are nowhere to be found in the bill.

Instead, the bill attempts to reduce the financial risk caused by regulatory delays and technological development by expanding the federal government’s responsibility — and authority — on the technical side. It promotes government intervention into areas that are either unnecessary or that should reside solely in the private sector. For example, the Boxer-Kerry bill creates a research and development program to assess plant aging, improve plant performance, engineer safer fuels, and lower overall costs. These are all areas currently being addressed by the private sector and already supported by public institutions and funds.

Instead of handing out more government subsidies to compensate for increased government regulation, Congress should be heading in the exact opposite direction. What the nuclear industry really needs is an end to market distorting loan guarantees, a streamlined permit process for new plants and reactor designs, market reforms for nuclear waste management, and the ability to recycle spent fuel. America can create thousands of new jobs through an expansion of the energy sector. But just as with oil, coal, and natural gas, the less government intervention in the market, the better.

Coal, National Security and Virginia Jobs

Coal, National Security and Virginia Jobs
We have a petition opposing the Wacky-Marxist legislation.It goes like this:

We, your constituents, have signed this petition against the passage of the Waxman-Markey bill and the Senate version of the Cap and Trade Bill and the trillions of dollars and the 100’s of thousands of jobs it will cost the Commonwealth and all of America.

This legislation will increase the cost of energy in the Commonwealth at a time when every feasible source of domestic energy should be explored and used, and at a time when Virginians can afford it least.

Virginia is a coal state. There are thousands of Virginians whose livelihood depends upon the production and use of coal; hard working, tax-paying Virginians who deserve better.

Coal is a reliable source of energy.

It is plentiful.

Clean coal technology works.

The theory of so-called “global warming”, or “climate change” is junk science.

CO2 is not a pollutant.

Ya'll know how I feel about domestic energy production and specifically, the use of coal. You know I help build clean coal facilities for Dominion Power. I've told people over and over, clean coal works its viable, and its cheap.

This is, IMAO, a states' rights issue. A 10th Amendment Issue. Its Virginia's coal. We should be able to use our resources as we see fit, within the guidelines of good sense and economic viability.

The current crop of new candidates seeking election to the House of Delegates and VA Senate would be well-served to address this issue now. Do not allow the radicals and outside agitators to dictate Virginia's economy. The future of Virginia jobs and her citizens depend on you for protection.

Thanks to one of my Facebook friends I found a link to a website supporting coal production in Appalachia.

Go and sign the letter, please.

From the website:

Coal energizes our communities and the nation. It fuels our economy and powers our homes and businesses. It provides good jobs and an economic future for our families. But radical activists are determined to end coal in Appalachia. They don't care about our jobs, our communities or our future.
Without coal, our thriving communities will not survive. Sign the letter today.

Dear Elected Officials,The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has arbitrarily decided to halt for further review 79 pending coal mining permits in the Appalachian states. These permits have been reviewed and approved by both state and federal regulatory authorities, after the EPA had commented, or chosen not to comment, on each of the permit applications.

Only when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals wholly rejected the challenges by outside environmental activists, did EPA decide to intervene and reassert the same arguments the courts had already rejected.

EPA's action, or inaction, is threatening more than 100,000 jobs and further destabilizes communities that have been battered by the recession. Moreover, millions of Americans depend on coal for affordable electricity, and the Appalachian states depend on coal for tax revenue that keeps their budgets afloat.

When nationwide unemployment is at its highest level in years, the government should not stop Americans from going to work.

When states are facing major budget shortfalls and even bankruptcy because of the weak economy, the federal government should not kill significant sources of revenue.

The consequences of the EPA's actions will be severe. Please take action today to pressure the EPA to lift these bureaucratic roadblocks. The future of families across Appalachia depends on you.

Thank you,

Labels:
Carbon, Carbon dioxide, carbon offsets, Carbon Tax, clean coal, coal, electricity, electricy costs, jobs, national security, Soveriegn States, State's rights, Virginia economy

Cap and Trade-A Federal Leviathan

Not Everyone Won the Cap and Trade Lobbying Battle

The cap and trade bill introduced by Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) and passed in the House is 1,427 pages and includes much more than a cap and trade system to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve been detailing these economically harmful provisions in our cap and trade calamities, but Kathleen Hartnett White at the Texas Public Policy Foundation provides a tremendous synopsis of the entire bill and asks many tough questions in her policy paper, A Federal Leviathan: The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.

One particularly revealing part of the paper is the graph on the bottom of page three. Approximately 2,340 energy lobbyists worked on the cap-and-trade bill to do what President Obama said we shouldn’t – hand out allowances costs to utilities and other industries direct revenue to them. Opposition to this huge energy tax bill wheeling, dealing and arm-twisting to eke out the narrowest of majorities. They promised generous handouts for various industries and special interests but not everyone came out winners. The blue indicates the emissions by industry and the red indicates the allowances allocated by the government.

As shown by the graph, the refining and petroleum products industry, responsible for much of the carbon emissions from energy, receive the very little allowance allocations. White writes,

“Under the aggressive carbon caps, many U.S. industries could not compete with foreign products manufactured in countries without binding carbon limits. And increased import of goods manufactured elsewhere without carbon limits would
increase global carbon emissions. To address this “carbon leakage,” the bill provides for “carbon emission allowance rebates” to industries which meet specified levels of “trade intensity” or “energy intensity.” Petroleum refining, oddly, is excluded from those eligible.”

The other loser is, of course, me and you. The disguised energy tax will cost a family of four an additional $3,000 per year. When all the tax impacts have been added up, we find that the average per-family-of-four costs rise by almost $3,000 per year. In the year 2035 alone, the tax impact is $4,600. And if you add up the costs per family for the whole energy tax aggregated from 2012 to 2035, the years in which we modeled the bill, it’s about $71,500.

Giving away allowances are not an exception to the “no free lunches” adage. Giving away allowances does not lower the costs of cap and trade; it merely shifts the costs around.

Waxman-Markey is Robin Hood in reverse: it takes a lot of money from regular Americans and funnels it to Washington bureaucrats and the corporations with the best lobbyists.