House Democrats Pimp Out Climate Change for Tax Money

For Congressional Democrats, it's just one bright idea after another these days.

As they continue to tout all the wonderful jobs supposedly on the way thanks to President Barack Obama's climate change bill, House and Senate Democrats still have not addressed the implications the legislation will have on existing American jobs sectors such as electric power generation, agriculture, manufacturing and construction.

According to the New York Times, the bill establishes "a cap-and-trade system that sets a limit on overall emissions of heat-trapping gases while allowing utilities, manufacturers and other emitters to trade pollution permits, or allowances, among themselves. The cap would grow tighter over the years, pushing up the price of emissions and presumably driving industry to find cleaner ways of making energy."

Last year, Republican presidential candidate John McCain called for a market-driven cap and trade system that not only would have spurred competition for alternatives to carbon-based fuels, but would have also primed the economy. The idea was to develop new methods of curbing greenhouse gas emissions, while at the same time providing economic incentives for businesses innovative enough to find and share such alternatives.

Under McCain's plan, permits equal to the cap on greenhouse gas emissions would have been issued under the system, and if market participants invented, improved, or acquired a way to reduce their emissions, their permits could have be sold for cash. As a profit motive, the cap-and-trade system would have motivated and coordinated the efforts of venture capitalists, corporate planners, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists toward the common goal of reducing emissions.

The bill passed by the House on Friday would do no such thing. Instead, the proposed legislation is virtually bereft of profit incentives, and the few money-making opportunities it does allow will be virtually extinguished by the bodies charged with over-regulating -- ahem, overseeing, rather -- the new market: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Meanwhile, certain job sectors already hit hard by the recession (such as the manufacturing industry and industries reliant on coal-generated electricity) blowing in the wind, with no foreseeable way to scale back emissions or, consequently, finance alternative methods of production.

Which means, essentially, that it is just another one of the many taxes on corporations that are asphyxiating the American economy. This one, however, is being levied under the guise of climate change in an effort to make it more appealing. Nevertheless, environmentalists say the bill doesn't even come close to meeting international standards. What, then, is its real purpose?

As Republican House Rep. Joe Pitts of Lancaster (my representative, incidentally) told the New York Times last week, "No matter how you doctor it or tailor it, it is a tax."

To make a bad bill even worse, over the weekend, Obama warned against sanctioning foreign countries who don't accept limits on global warming pollution:

At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we’ve seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there.

Forget for a moment that our European socialist president seems to have forgotten about the very real recession happening in the nation over which he is presiding (and that, perhaps, protectionist signals need to be sent "out there"), not holding these nations to the same rigid American standards means that domestic businesses unable to compete in the national market thanks to these prospective climate change restrictions will be able to simply ship jobs overseas to trump their competitors and undercut the American economy.

I hesitate to say it, because I don't want to believe it, the question must be asked: is this, perhaps, what Obama intends? Is he more concerned about the global economy and being personally loved by the world than he is about the recession that is sinking the country that elected him to lead it?

American corporations aren't the only ones potentially affected by this legislation. Once again, the hard-working American taxpayer would be stuck footing the bill, and once again incentives are included to keep poor people poor. Those earning an average-to-low income will see their energy bills rise by an estimated $175 a year (according to the Congressional Budget Office), while their poorer neighbors will have their existing bills lowered by $40 a year.

Congress is heading out for its annual summer recess, which is good for a couple of reasons: first, it gives taxpayers a little more time to examine the legislation, and second, it gives lawmakers a chance to hear constituent reactions to the proposal.

Fewer and fewer conservatives are denying the need to address global warming. But when it comes to ways to approach climate change, let's hope for common-sense solutions that don't bankrupt the country any further. From what I can tell, this bill is certainly not one of those.

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