Climate Change and Ensuring that America Leads the Clean Energy Transformation

EPW Committee Aug 6, 2009 Inhofe comments
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JAMES M. INHOFE
Climate Change and Ensuring that America Leads the Clean Energy Transformation
August 6, 2009

Excerpts include:
....so I think it's appropriate to take stock of what we've learned.
...this committee has held over thirty hearings on climate change.

We learned, for example, from President Obama that under his cap-and-trade plan, "electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket."

We learned from Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) that cap-and-trade is "a tax, and a great big one."

We learned from Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) that "a cap-and-trade system is prone to market manipulation and speculation without any guarantee of meaningful GHG emission reductions. A cap-and-trade has been operating in Europe for three years and is largely a failure."

We learned from Sen. Dorgan (D-N.D.) that with cap-and-trade "the Wall Street crowd can't wait to sink their teeth into a new trillion-dollar trading market in which hedge funds and investment banks would trade and speculate on carbon credits and securities. ..... most of the investment banks have already created carbon trading departments."

We learned from Sen. Cantwell (D-Wash.) that "a cap-and-trade program might allow Wall Street to distort a carbon market for its own profits."

We learned from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that unilateral U.S. action to address climate change through cap-and-trade would be futile. She said in response to a question from me that "U.S. action alone will not impact world CO2 levels."

We learned from Sen. Kerry (D-Mass.) that "there is no way the United States of America acting alone can solve this problem. So we have to have China; we have to have India."

We learned from Sen. McCaskill (D-Mo.) that if "we go too far with this," that is, cap-and-trade, then "all we're going to do is chase more jobs to China and India, where they've been putting up coal-fired plants every 10 minutes."

.......Democrats taught us that cap-and-trade is a great big tax that will raise electricity prices on consumers, enrich Wall Street traders, and send jobs to China and India-all without any impact on global temperature.

According to the American Farm Bureau, the vast majority of agriculture groups oppose it;

According to GAO, it will send our jobs to China and India;

According to the National Black Chamber of Commerce, it will destroy over 2 million jobs;

According to EPA and EIA, it will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil;

According to EPA, it will do nothing to reduce global temperature;

The Economic Impact of Waxman–Markey

Heritage Foundation May 13,2009

A couple highlights from there analysis:
Analysis of the economic impact of Waxman-Markey projects that by 2035 the bill will:
* Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion,
* Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 1,900,000 jobs,
* Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation,
* Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent,
* Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent,
* Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,500, and
* Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

Nader proposal on Carbon Tax

Excerpts from Ralph Nader in a WSJ editorial. Note some of the underlying assumptions and requirements for global control.

President Obama can define his legacy in the first 100 days by laying the groundwork for a global tax on carbon dioxide emissions.

In the short-term, consumers would feel the pinch.

China must be part of any climate deal or within 25 years, notes Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, its emissions of CO2 could amount to twice the combined emissions of the world's richest nations, including the United States, Japan and members of the European Union.

According to the world authority on the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it will cost $1.375 trillion per year

the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, contains provisions for retaliatory action to be taken against imports from carbon free-riding nations

A global carbon tax levied on a relatively small number of large sources can be monitored by satellite and checked against the annual surveillance of fiscal and economic polices already carried out by IMF staff.

Cap-and-trade is a simply dreadful policy

SOURCE Free Enterprise Education Institute

"Cap-and-trade is a simply dreadful policy option that is being pushed
by Alcoa, BP, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Dow Chemical, Duke Energy,
Dupont, General Electric, PepsiCo and the other big business interests that
belong to the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)," said the FEEI's Tom
Borelli. "Global warming pork-barrel spending and corporate welfare are
what they're after," Borelli added. "USCAP members hope that, through a
cap-and-trade scheme, Congress will simply give them and other special
interests what amounts to essentially 'free money' -- as much as $1.3
trillion dollars over the next 10 years. "Not only is
cap-and-trade likely to misdirect taxpayer monies and rob hard-working
Americans of income, it's not at all clear that it will produce any
environmental benefits whatsoever," he added.

Obama & Climate Change2

On Tuesday at a governors' conference, Mr. Obama reiterated his intent to cap emissions of greenhouse gases and allow companies to trade permits to emit pollutants like carbon dioxide. Those policies foresee $15 billion a year going to alternative energy sources and nuclear power, while pushing the price of coal up substantially, by forcing coal-fired utilities to purchase the right to burn it.

Candidate Obama said that under his policies, "If somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can -- it's just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

Obama cap and trade costs

Forbes

"On the other hand, an auction-based cap-and-trade system would require power generators to buy allowances from the government. This would drive up electricity prices for consumers, especially in coal-fired regions like the Midwest and Southeast."

"Obama campaigned on a platform that championed an exclusively auction-based cap-and-trade system.... This particular campaign promise could seem especially less palatable now. If producers had to pay $25 for every metric ton of carbon they emitted, rates would need to rise anywhere from 23% to 43% at coal-fired utilities in the Midwest and 15% to 29% at coal-fired utilities in the Southeast to offset the costs of emissions allowances, according to a recent analysis by Bernstein Research."