Nancy Pelosi just got a slim majority of the House of Representatives to vote to double or triple your electric bills last week.
She did it by getting the House to pass a bill which charges you both directly and indirectly for the carbon you put into the air.
Directly if you happen to own a small business which, say, makes, say, heating or air conditioning units. Indirectly if you pay for electricity to run those units.
Of course, indirectly means that your utility bills will skyrocket and that seems a pretty direct impact to me.
The bill in question—which must still pass Harry Reid’s Senate—is called The American Clean Energy and Security Act.
Among the key provisions in the bill, according to House Majority Whip James Clyburn:
• Require electric utilities to meet 20% of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020.
• Invest in new clean energy technologies and energy efficiency, including energy efficiency and renewable energy ($90 billion in new investments by 2025), carbon capture and sequestration ($60 billion), electric and other advanced technology vehicles ($20 billion), and basic scientific research and development ($20 billion).
• Mandate new energy-saving standards for buildings and appliances, and promote energy efficiency in industry.
• Reduce carbon emissions from major U.S. sources by 17% by 2020 and over 80% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels. Complementary measures in the legislation, such as investments in preventing tropical deforestation, will achieve significant additional reductions in carbon emissions.
Clyburn left out the indulgences. They call that the “Cap and Trade” provision which essentially says that if you are the auto industry and you can’t or don’t want to make more fuel efficient cars, than you can buy indulgences from the government or from an industry which is more advanced and has some to sell. Pollution permits in Obama-speak.
Here is what Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle prior to the election:
“Let me sort of describe my overall policy. What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there. I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches. The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.”
That’s what your Congress just voted to do.
Economics 101 pop quiz: What happens to your utility bill while all of these “ideological” matters such as taking coal off the table are debated?
And the timing of this bill could not be worse.
So, to paraphrase his eminence Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff, we, too should never waste a good crisis. The people’s mood is ugly these days and they have a President and a Speaker of the House who want to triple their electric bills.
If we can explain this clearly and accurately, both this President and this Speaker will be neutralized.
Because, no matter how much the hard left thinks of global warming as an issue, I promise you that the guy who has to write a check to the power company which is bigger than his mortgage payment won’t think global warming is very important at all.
And people vote their checkbooks.
FRED WEINBERG
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