Cap & Trade Bill

[RanchHQ]

I grew up being told that "All good things in Life start in the West (Surfing, Music, Corduroy Pants, Mister Ed, McDonalds, etc.)"

Technically, Australia is to the East of us because the International Time Line is to the West of us.

I know that is confusing, but it makes as much sense as your North Gate being to the West of your South Gate.


August 13, 2009
Australian Senate defeats cap and trade legislation

Thomas Lifson
Sanity wins Down Under. The warmist fantasy embraced by Labour Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had led to what Reuters correspondent Rob Taylor earlier called a "day of reckoning." The BBC reports:

The Australian parliament has rejected government plans to introduce an ambitious carbon trading scheme to tackle global warming.

The measure was the centrepiece of the government's environment plans, and would have cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5% over the next 10 years.

But opposition senators who control the upper house feared the legislation would harm the country's mining sector.

The battle is not yet over, however. Bloomberg reports:

Rudd, who needs support from seven senators outside the government to pass laws through the upper house, can resubmit the bill after making amendments. A second rejection after a three-month span would give him a trigger to call an election.

"We may lose this fight, but this issue will not go away," Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told the Senate in Canberra. "Australia cannot afford for climate change to be unfinished business."

But warmism opponents welcome a full debate. Australian Senator Steve Fielding writes some interesting common sense:

Australia is really yet to have the debate about what is driving climate change.

For years I believed, like most of us, that man made carbon dioxide emissions were the main cause of global warming.

However, over the last few months after speaking to a number of scientists both here and overseas I have discovered the science on both sides of the debate isn't conclusive.

The government needs to explain to the Australian people why global temperatures have remained steady over the last 10-15 years despite skyrocketing man made carbon emissions.



Given this question remains unanswered, I believe Australia should wait until the climate change conference in Copenhagen at the end of the year, before we pass any emissions trading legislation so we can see what the big economies and polluters around the globe plan to do to tackle climate change.
I believe this is the best course forward for the country as moving before the Copenhagen conference will put unnecessary pressure on our economy with massive job losses and sky rocketing electricity prices.

In June of this year after my return from a self funded trip to Washington, I put three questions to the Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and Australia's Chief Scientist asking them to explain the Rudd government's belief that man made carbon dioxide emissions are the main drivers of climate change. Click on the following links for more information on:


1. My three climate change questions to the Minister

2. Minister Wong's answers

3. A brief assessment of Minister Wong's reply

4. An independent Due Diligence Report from four Australian scientists on the Minister Wong's reply to my climate change questions

Hat tip: Ray Baney

LINK: American Thinker Blog: Australian Senate defeats cap and trade legislation

[RanchHQ]

Want More Green Energy? Roll Back the Red Tape on Nuclear

• Posted August 19th, 2009 at 3.22pm in Energy and Environment.

Despite the growing rhetoric in favor of affordable and clean energy in the United States, the regulatory trend is moving in the opposite direction. A recent article from Platts emphasizes the increasing regulatory costs for the nuclear industry:

“Benjamin Fowke, Xcel’s CFO, said in a second-quarter earnings conference call in late July that nuclear operating costs “probably” will continue to grow as US Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulatory fees and security requirements increase.
“We are seeing — and it is not just this year, it has been over several years now — a lot of increased security requirements, worker fatigue requirements, increased Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) fees — and they are not going away. They just keep coming,” he said.
Xcel spokeswoman Mary Sandok said in an e-mail Friday that NRC’s per reactor and inspection fees, combined with fees charged by other federal and state agencies and entities, had been growing at annual rate of 10%-12%. She said new NRC regulations, especially fitness-for-duty and fatigue rules that are taking effect this year, are significantly increasing staffing and other costs. “The cost increases are affecting nuclear plant operations nationwide,” she said.”

Regulatory preparedness is important, especially in the nuclear industry where public health and safety are and should be top priorities. Not one person has been injured as a result of commercial nuclear power in the U.S.—not even at Three Mile Island (link to tmi paper). Market viability is also important. And nuclear power now has a history of commercial success. Despite a radical anti-nuclear environmental movement, over-regulation, and too much government intervention, 104 reactors still provide Americans with 20 percent of their electricity emissions-free.
Despite this established track record of commercial viability, the fact is that overregulation is a primary reason for U.S. nuclear stagnation over the past three decades. Instead of working toward real regulatory reform, many proponents of nuclear power are more interested in mitigating regulatory risk by securing subsidies, mandates, and other taxpayer support. While such an approach may guarantee that whatever number of reactors the government decides to build will be built, it also guarantees that those reactors will cost too much and that the U.S. will never have a truly viable nuclear industry. The nuclear industry will be little more than another function of government.

Instead, the U.S. Congress and the Administration should institute a set of market-based policies that frees the nuclear industry to compete. It will be competition in the free-market that will yield a competitive, diverse, and sustainable nuclear industry. The market should dictate how many reactors get built in the U.S.—not a bunch of Washington bureaucrats.
To move the U.S. toward a market-based nuclear energy policy, Congress and the Administration should:
• Develop an Expedited Process for New Reactor Permits: The current schedule dictates that the NRC take four years under a best-case scenario to permit a new power plant. The NRC collaboratively with Congress should develop an expedited process for applicants that preemptively meet certain conditions. (link to pitts paper)
• Develop a Faster Process for Reactor Design Certification: A reactor design must be certified by the NRC before it can be used in a new power plant. This process should be streamlined, without sacrificing quality or safety, to allow for more efficient certification.
• Open Up to New Technologies: The NRC is currently very adept at regulating light-water reactors (the type of reactor in the U.S.) in a relatively slow growth environment; however, it is not prepared to efficiently regulate a diverse, growing, market-driven industry that could produce reactors both large and small. This becomes an obstacle to the introduction of new technologies. NRC must be reformed to allow for more competition within the nuclear industry.
• Begin Rulemaking for Reprocessing: While a geologic repository is crucial under any scenario, growth in nuclear power will likely necessitate that the U.S. also develop a reprocessing capacity as well, to help manage spent nuclear fuel. While the private sector should determine if such a facility is needed, the NRC should begin the rulemaking process now. .

LINK: Want More Green Energy? Roll Back the Red Tape on Nuclear The Foundry

[RanchHQ]

Obama Administration: Cap & Trade Will Cost American Households $1,761 a Year


"Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Businesses would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that cost onto consumers."

Senator Barack Obama
Speaking on Cap and Trade
San Francisco Chronicle
January 17, 2008

Barack Obama admitted last year that cap and trade legislation would cause electricity prices to skyrocket.
Obama admitted that cap and trade will likely cost $700 to $1,400 dollars per US family per year:

YouTube - Obama Admits Cap & Trade Will Cause Electricity Rates to Skyrocket

YouTube - Obama Admits Cap & Trade Will Cause Electricity Rates to Skyrocket

Obama also promised that cap and trade would decimate the coal industry.

Well, it looks like he low-balled the costs of this horrid piece of legislation.
The Obama Administration this week admitted cap and trade would actually cost American households around $1,761 a year.
CBS reported:

The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.

A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

LINK: Gateway Pundit

[RanchHQ]

Coldest winter in a decade coming?

posted at 12:55 pm on September 29, 2009 by Ed Morrissey


The East Coast should brace for its coldest winter in a decade, and oil commodities traders for sharply higher prices, says a forecaster who serves the commodity markets. This comes as two people on the East Coast introduce a bill designed to combat global warming by imposing emissions controls on the energy industry — which will also make prices go higher, but for much longer and much less reason:

The U.S. Northeast may have the coldest winter in a decade because of a weak El Nino, a warming current in the Pacific Ocean, according to Matt Rogers, a forecaster at Commodity Weather Group.
“Weak El Ninos are notorious for cold and snowy weather on the Eastern seaboard,” Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Washington. “About 70 percent to 75 percent of the time a weak El Nino will deliver the goods in terms of above-normal heating demand and cold weather. It’s pretty good odds.”

As a result, the oil traders have stockpiled heating oil to levels not seen in 27 years. Even with the huge inventory, prices have still risen, and hedge funds have kept betting on long positions for oil. They’re expecting a long, cold winter with plenty of demand for heating oil.
On the other hand, we have noted meteorologists John Kerry and Barbara Boxer, insisting that the world is growing warmer:

Ending some nine months of closed-door deliberations, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) will release global warming legislation Wednesday that they hope will be the vehicle for broader Senate negotiations and an eventual conference with the House.

The bill’s authors said last week that they expect to start hearings early next month on the bill, with a markup in Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee to follow soon thereafter. They also acknowledged that their legislation is just a “starting point” in a bid to win over moderate and conservative Democrats, as well as Republicans. …

Kerry last week sought to change the vernacular surrounding the climate bill and sell its concepts more broadly, insisting it is not a “cap and trade” proposal but a “pollution reduction” bill. “I don’t know what ‘cap and trade’ means. I don’t think the average American does,” Kerry said. “This is not a cap-and-trade bill, it’s a pollution reduction bill” (E&E Daily, Sept. 25).

But a leading GOP opponent to the Senate climate effort quickly pushed back on the Democrat’s strategy.

“No matter the semantic games employed, or the extent to which Democrats wish to hide the truth from the American people, cap and trade will mean more job losses, more pain at the pump, and higher food and electricity prices for consumers,” said EPW Committee ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.).”

Jules Crittenden wonders why no one will explain why the El Nino didn’t get stronger rather than weaker, considering the global-warming activists insist that we’re on an inexorable path to Saunaville:

I’m confused about this bit, though. El Nino is a periodic warming in the eastern Pacific. The article doesn’t explain why it isn’t warming as much as it usually does, which is odd. I thought everything is getting warmer. El Nino is a somewhat mysterious and poorly understood phenomenon, like much of the often subtle underpinnings of weather. In fact, the article, focused mainly on what great news a cold winter is for energy traders, doesn’t mention the bigger “warming” picture at all.
Global warming, that is, which this Nobel Laureate in Economics … speaking of poorly understood, mystery-shrouded, in fact notoriously inexact sciences … insists is beyond questioning.

Related, senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer are getting ready to lead the charge on the big climate change bill in the Senate. NYT. I take this as good news. Rank partisans in charge of a rank partisan bill, in the wake of the rankly partisan health-care debacle, should go nowhere. Correction: Inept rank partisans …

Global-warming activists insist that we can’t take an assumption from a single year. However, if the CWS forecast turns out to be correct, we will have gone eleven years without any warming at all — eleven years in which carbon emissions did not decline in any significant manner. How does one begin to explain that? And how will Kerry and Boxer and the rest of their Democratic colleagues try to sell cap-and-trade as a scientific necessity while people spend a fortune heating their homes in the coldest winter in a decade?

Great timing, Senators!

Addendum: It looks like a colder and longer winter for us in Minnesota, too, and that follows the 2008-9 winter, one of the coldest and longest in the last 15 years. The temperatures have dropped 15 degrees since last week. We got snow in October last year, and we may see that this year again, although it will have to drop down quite a bit farther for that. This follows a summer in which we never saw a 90-degree day. Global warming? Not so much in the upper Midwest.

Update: Is the “hockey stick” dead? Using a wider collection of data seems to eliminate the warming spike shown to argue for global warming.

LINK: Hot Air Blog Archive Coldest winter in a decade coming?

[RanchHQ]

Senator Barbara Boxer, from our own California, said that if President Obama were to get this Legislation passed it would help get people back to work.

Some people say it would add thousands a year to our Energy Costs but maybe the more money we pay the less we will use.

We can all turn our thermostats back to 66d for the Winter. That would help save the World also.







Obama Should Turn to ‘Cap-and-Trade’ for Growth, Boxer Says

By Simon Lomax
Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama should consider legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions as he looks for new ways to speed the U.S. economy’s recovery from the recession, said Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat.

Boxer and Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, last week unveiled a “cap-and-trade” proposal to cut U.S. greenhouse gases 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. In June, the House passed a cap-and-trade plan with a 17 percent cut.

After the Labor Department reported that the U.S. unemployment rate hit 9.8 percent last month, the highest level since 1983, Obama said he was working to “explore any and all additional” means of spurring growth. Obama signed a $787 billion stimulus package in February.

Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” what extra steps the White House should take to stimulate the economy, Boxer said “it could be moving forward with an energy bill.”

Since cap-and-trade legislation, allowing the federal government to issue a limited number of carbon dioxide permits that firms could buy and sell, passed the House 219-212 in June, it has taken a back seat to the debate over health-care reform in the Senate.

Environmentalists want Congress to pass and Obama to sign a cap-and-trade bill before December, when the United Nations will host more than 190 nations in Copenhagen for negotiations over a new global agreement to cut emissions.

Carol Browner, the White House’s top energy adviser, said Oct. 2 a cap-and-trade bill signing is “not likely” before the Copenhagen talks, despite Obama’s support for the concept.

Venture Capital

Venture capitalists “are ready to pour multibillions of dollars into clean energy” if Congress passes “some kind of bill that talks about energy independence and climate change,” Boxer said.

Advocates of cap-and-trade have said it is less costly for industry than the Environmental Protection Agency requiring firms to use less-polluting energy technologies.

The EPA said Sept. 30, the same day Boxer and Kerry announced their cap-and-trade bill, that it will require newly built or modified industrial facilities that produce more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year to use “best available control technologies and energy efficiency measures.”
Rather than stimulate the economy through investments in cleaner energy sources, Republicans have said cap-and-trade will raise the cost of the existing sources that fuel the economy and hinder growth.

“Don’t be pushing bills like cap-and-trade, which are big job killers,” Senator Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, said on the same CNN program as Boxer.

The Boxer-Kerry cap-and-trade bill also has critics within the Democratic Party. Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, said Sept. 30 the bill’s 20 percent cut in emissions by 2020 is “unrealistic and harmful.”

For Related News and Information:
To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Lomax in Washington at slomax@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: October 4, 2009 15:23 EDT

[RanchHQ]

FROM: Senate Democrats to W.H.: Drop cap-and-trade - - POLITICO.com

I wonder if most Americans thinking this "Global Warming/Climate Change" deal is a hoax and money grab has anything to do with it?

Senate Democrats to W.H.: Drop cap-and-trade

By LISA LERER | 12/27/09 7:10 AM EST

Bruised by the health care debate and worried about what 2010 will bring, moderate Senate Democrats are urging the White House to give up now on any effort to pass a cap-and-trade bill next year.

“I am communicating that in every way I know how,” says Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of at least half a dozen Democrats who've told the White House or their own leaders that it's time to jettison the centerpiece of their party's plan to curb global warming.


Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is one of at least a half-dozen
Dems who want their party to jettison the centerpiece of its
plan to curb global warming.

The creation of an economy-wide market for greenhouse gas emissions is as the heart of the climate bill that cleared the House earlier this year. But with the health care fight still raging and the economy still hurting, moderate Democrats have little appetite for another sweeping initiative — especially another one likely to pass with little or no Republican support.

“We need to deal with the phenomena of global warming, but I think it’s very difficult in the kind of economic circumstances we have right now,” said Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, who called passage of any economy-wide cap and trade “unlikely.”

At a meeting about health care last month, moderates pushed to table climate legislation in favor of a jobs bill that would be an easier sell during the 2010 elections, according to Senate Democratic aides.

“I’d just as soon see that set aside until we work through the economy,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). ?“What we don’t want to do is have anything get in the way of working to resolve the problems with the economy.”

“Climate change in an election year has very poor prospects,” added Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). “I’ve told that to the leadership.”

At least some in the Democratic leadership appear to be listening.

Asked about cap-and-trade last week, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said: “At this point I’d like to see a complete bill but we have to be realistic."

Moderate House Democrats who voted in favor of the cap-and-trade bill just before the July 4th recess came under fire back home, and Republicans have vowed to make the issue a key line of attack during next year’s elections.

Some Democrats would prefer to deny them that target.

“I’d prefer to do energy, because I think you could get a really broad consensus on a lot of energy legislation,” said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) ?

But supporters of the climate bill say that cap-and-trade is an inextricable part of any energy package for next year.

MORE AT: Senate Democrats to W.H.: Drop cap-and-trade - - POLITICO.com

[RanchHQ]

Jobs, jobs, jobs … uh, climate change?


April 16th, 2010 |

Author: Bruce McQuain

Yes the Democrats have apparently decided that they should focus like a laser beam on … climate change legislation? Given the post below, I’m sure Pat Cauddell and Doug Schoen are soaking their heads right about now.


According to Reuters the Kerry/Lieberman/Graham bill aimed at reducing carbon output is to be introduced April 26th.

President Barack Obama has made climate change one of his top priorities and took steps recently to show Republicans he was serious, including expanding federal aid for building nuclear power facilities and allowing more domestic offshore oil drilling — initiatives to be included in the Senate compromise.

So there are the payoffs for GOP support. How far any of the work necessary to hasten the building of nuke plants or drilling offshore actually comes to fruition is most likely not a priority with the administration. It’s a payoff for support. Whether the GOP will be as gullible as much of the voting public was in 2008 remains to be seen, but my gut says “yes”.

Kerry, Lieberman and Graham have been working for months on a global warming compromise significantly different from a measure passed last year by the House of Representatives and a bill approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It also takes many elements from those bills. Like the House-passed bill and Obama administration policy, it would set a target of 17 percent reductions in smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide by 2020, from 2005 levels. Point Carbon, an energy markets consulting service, estimated the anticipated Senate bill would result in U.S. gasoline prices rising an average of 27 cents a gallon from 2013 to 2020. The bill is expected to contain a fee on motor fuels.

Got it – tax increase of an average 27 cents per gallon. Don’t you love how they tapdance around saying “tax”? It’s a freakin’ tax, not a “fee”. And a very nonprogressive tax to boot that will hit those that can afford it least the hardest. But its called a “fee” so Obama can continue to claim you taxes won’t go up ” one dime”.


Also note that the Senate bill is radically different from the House bill, even though Reuters tries to minimize the differences. You have to wonder how much of an impediment that will be to passage (hopefully a large one). And then, of course, there are all the legislators from coal and oil producing states to contend with.


Moving on, and in my best Billy Mays voice – but wait there’s more:

It would also end state and regional carbon-trading programs, such as the one several Northeastern states participate in, to be replaced by a national carbon reduction policy. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, with 10 participating states from Vermont to Maryland, has raised over $582 million for state efficiency and climate programs, said Environment Northeast, a Boston research group. Peter Shattuck, a carbon markets policy analyst there, said shutting the program could create concerns among the states over lost revenues. A group of nine senators, mostly from Midwestern manufacturing states, urged Kerry, Graham and Lieberman in a letter on Thursday to take into account jobs in their states.

OK, lost jobs. Wow – what a surprise. I’m not here to defend carbon-trading programs but it seems ironic that a climate bill aimed at reducing carbon will put carbon trading programs out of business and cost jobs. In a recession. Wait – aren’t those “green jobs?” Heh …

And if you read the article, they’re very nebulous about how they’re going to enforce this “17% reduction in carbon”. We see the “fee” on motor fuel. But they continue to skirt the issue of how one manages this 17% reduction and what it will cost. But reading other sources prior to this, I’ve seen a carbon tax on utilities discussed as the main source of enforcement – a “cap-and-trade” light was how one referred to it. Obviously if it is a tax on utilities, you can up the cost of just about everything you buy since they all require the power generated by utilities. And you can add that to the motor fuel “fee” you’ll be paying if this is passed as well.

The closest Reuters gets to saying this is:

Like the House-passed bill and Obama administration policy, it would set a target of 17 percent reductions in smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide by 2020, from 2005 levels.

“Smokestack emissions”. You can figure it out from there I imagine.

So is there anything – anything at all good in the bill? Well yes:

On Wednesday, a Senate source told Reuters the legislation would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions.

But you don’t need the rest of this bill to do that.

Last, but not least, Reuters throws this in to justify the heavy focus on this vs. jobs, the economy or the deficit:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on Thursday the world’s combined land and ocean surface temperatures in March were the hottest on record.

I apparently missed all the heat (well, except that generated by my heating system) as did most of Europe. But hey, the science is settled, we all know NOAA’s numbers are perfect and irrefutable and so it is damn the facts, full speed ahead.

[dreamliner]

Originally Posted by RanchHQ

Jobs, jobs, jobs … uh, climate change?


April 16th, 2010 |

Author: Bruce McQuain

Yes the Democrats have apparently decided that they should focus like a laser beam on … climate change legislation? Given the post below, I’m sure Pat Cauddell and Doug Schoen are soaking their heads right about now.


According to Reuters the Kerry/Lieberman/Graham bill aimed at reducing carbon output is to be introduced April 26th.

President Barack Obama has made climate change one of his top priorities and took steps recently to show Republicans he was serious, including expanding federal aid for building nuclear power facilities and allowing more domestic offshore oil drilling — initiatives to be included in the Senate compromise.

So there are the payoffs for GOP support. How far any of the work necessary to hasten the building of nuke plants or drilling offshore actually comes to fruition is most likely not a priority with the administration. It’s a payoff for support. Whether the GOP will be as gullible as much of the voting public was in 2008 remains to be seen, but my gut says “yes”.

Kerry, Lieberman and Graham have been working for months on a global warming compromise significantly different from a measure passed last year by the House of Representatives and a bill approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It also takes many elements from those bills. Like the House-passed bill and Obama administration policy, it would set a target of 17 percent reductions in smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide by 2020, from 2005 levels. Point Carbon, an energy markets consulting service, estimated the anticipated Senate bill would result in U.S. gasoline prices rising an average of 27 cents a gallon from 2013 to 2020. The bill is expected to contain a fee on motor fuels.

Got it – tax increase of an average 27 cents per gallon. Don’t you love how they tapdance around saying “tax”? It’s a freakin’ tax, not a “fee”. And a very nonprogressive tax to boot that will hit those that can afford it least the hardest. But its called a “fee” so Obama can continue to claim you taxes won’t go up ” one dime”.


Also note that the Senate bill is radically different from the House bill, even though Reuters tries to minimize the differences. You have to wonder how much of an impediment that will be to passage (hopefully a large one). And then, of course, there are all the legislators from coal and oil producing states to contend with.


Moving on, and in my best Billy Mays voice – but wait there’s more:

It would also end state and regional carbon-trading programs, such as the one several Northeastern states participate in, to be replaced by a national carbon reduction policy. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, with 10 participating states from Vermont to Maryland, has raised over $582 million for state efficiency and climate programs, said Environment Northeast, a Boston research group. Peter Shattuck, a carbon markets policy analyst there, said shutting the program could create concerns among the states over lost revenues. A group of nine senators, mostly from Midwestern manufacturing states, urged Kerry, Graham and Lieberman in a letter on Thursday to take into account jobs in their states.

OK, lost jobs. Wow – what a surprise. I’m not here to defend carbon-trading programs but it seems ironic that a climate bill aimed at reducing carbon will put carbon trading programs out of business and cost jobs. In a recession. Wait – aren’t those “green jobs?” Heh …

And if you read the article, they’re very nebulous about how they’re going to enforce this “17% reduction in carbon”. We see the “fee” on motor fuel. But they continue to skirt the issue of how one manages this 17% reduction and what it will cost. But reading other sources prior to this, I’ve seen a carbon tax on utilities discussed as the main source of enforcement – a “cap-and-trade” light was how one referred to it. Obviously if it is a tax on utilities, you can up the cost of just about everything you buy since they all require the power generated by utilities. And you can add that to the motor fuel “fee” you’ll be paying if this is passed as well.

The closest Reuters gets to saying this is:

Like the House-passed bill and Obama administration policy, it would set a target of 17 percent reductions in smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide by 2020, from 2005 levels.

“Smokestack emissions”. You can figure it out from there I imagine.

So is there anything – anything at all good in the bill? Well yes:

On Wednesday, a Senate source told Reuters the legislation would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions.

But you don’t need the rest of this bill to do that.

Last, but not least, Reuters throws this in to justify the heavy focus on this vs. jobs, the economy or the deficit:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on Thursday the world’s combined land and ocean surface temperatures in March were the hottest on record.

I apparently missed all the heat (well, except that generated by my heating system) as did most of Europe. But hey, the science is settled, we all know NOAA’s numbers are perfect and irrefutable and so it is damn the facts, full speed ahead.

Good grief! When will these guys get a life? Just mebbe' climate change is natural and needs to happen. Solar flares? Sun spots? Recent volcanic and earthquake activity identified with Earth's core molten lava making its presence known in "adjustment"? Really, Al, what do you call a guy who capitilizes on natural phenomena?

[Maximus]

Robert, you asked about Obama lowering taxes. Please read this thread and tell me how he is going to reduce taxes for anybody who is paying them. This bill will only further tax the middle and upper class.

[RanchHQ]