2 Feb 2010, 9:18pm
Climate and Weather Politics and politicians
by admin

Cap-and-Trade Is Dead

In case you didn’t notice, cap-and-trade is dead. Al Gore’s scheme to create a new “carbon market” has bitten the dust. He and his partner in that crime, Goldman Sachs, the global investment banking and securities giant, may or may not realize it, but the canary is belly up.

Al and GS hoped to hamstring American industry (and the world) with an Enron-style market based on fiat “carbon derivatives” of no intrinsic value, bleeding coerced investors, utilities, and rate payers dry. But the MSM is now reporting what the rest of us have known for awhile — that dog won’t hunt.

Advocates of Climate Bill Scale Down Their Goals

By JOHN M. BRODER and CLIFFORD KRAUSS, NY Times, January 26, 2024 [here]

WASHINGTON — As they watch President Obama’s ambitious health care plan crumble, the advocates of a comprehensive bill to combat global warming are turning their sights to a more modest package of climate and energy measures that they believe has a better chance of clearing Congress this year.

Their preferred approach, a cap-and-trade system to curb emissions of climate-changing gases, already faced a difficult road in a bruised and divided Senate. Its prospects grew dimmer after the special election in Massachusetts last week was won by Scott Brown, a Republican who repudiated the federal cap-and-trade proposal in his campaign.

Republicans, industry executives and some Democrats have already written cap and trade’s obituary, at least for this year. And even some of the system’s most ardent supporters now say they must scale back their ambitions and focus on job-creating energy projects and energy efficiency measures if they are to have any hope of dealing with climate change in this Congress.

“Realistically, the cap-and-trade bills in the House and the Senate are going nowhere,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who is trying to fashion a bipartisan package of climate and energy measures. “They’re not business-friendly enough, and they don’t lead to meaningful energy independence.”

Mr. Graham said the public was demanding that any energy legislation from Washington focus on creating jobs, whether by drilling for offshore oil or building wind turbines.

“What is dead is some massive cap-and-trade system that regulates carbon in a fashion that drives up energy costs,” he said. …

Last December Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member, Committee on Environment and Public Works, announced at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen [here]:

I want to be sure the 191 countries understand this: again, an economy-wide cap-and-trade bill stands no chance of passing. …

Today the cost of cap-and-trade bills before the House and Senate bear striking resemblance to those of Kyoto. Take the Waxman-Markey bill, for example. A government study by the Energy Information Administration concluded that the Waxman-Markey bill destroys up to 2.3 million jobs in 2030 and destroys up to 800,000 manufacturing jobs in 2030 — and, I should note, those figures include new green jobs, so they are net job losses.

And in September, under pressure from a Freedom of Information Act request, the Obama Administration released a per-household cost estimate of the President’s cap-and-trade program. The cost per family was over $1,700 per year. Again, that would be the largest tax increase in history. …

When asked to prioritize a list of 20 public policy issues, respondents put climate change dead last. And the Senate has responded. At most there might be 25 votes in the Senate for a cap-and-trade bill, and they need 60.

My stated reason for attending Copenhagen was to make certain the 191 countries attending COP-15 would not be deceived into thinking the US would pass cap-and-trade legislation. That won’t happen. And for the sake of the American people, and the economic well-being of America, that’s a good thing.

Inhofe was correcto mundo. Cap-and-trade is deceased, has kicked the bucket, and is pushing up daisies.

Poor Al. The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.

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