By Lorrie Goldstein

Few things are as frightening as governments that don’t want to be confused by the facts because their minds are made up. So it is with U.S. President Barack Obama and most Democrats, who, determined to create a domestic carbon cap-and-trade market, which Canada will inevitably be forced to join, are rushing into this useless and discredited “tool” for addressing man-made climate change, like lemmings going over a cliff. It’s not as if we don’t know what’s going to happen.

Based on the experience of the world’s largest carbon trading market—Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), created in January, 2005—we know exactly. First, electricity prices paid by already hard-hit North American consumers are going to rise even higher and faster than they are now. Second, giant energy utilities, hedge fund managers and speculators are going to make a fortune on the backs of ordinary taxpayers, from the moment the government puts a price on emitting carbon dioxide.

Third, emissions by major industries—which cap-and-trade is supposed to reduce—will continue to rise under normal economic conditions, as they did in the ETS from 2005 to 2007. (Preliminary data from the European Union released yesterday shows 2008 emissions dropped, but that was mainly due to the global recession, since the less demand there is for goods and services, the less energy it takes to produce them.)

Power up

Moody’s Investors Service predicts U.S. electricity rates will rise up to 30% due to cap-and-trade alone, and “the vast majority” of that will be paid by ordinary citizens. By contrast, large industrial emitters will pass along cost hikes to consumers, plus win favourable concessions from government bureaucrats, desperate to do the bidding of their political masters by getting the system up and running quickly, no matter how flawed.  That’s what happened in Europe. It’s why the ETS is a fiasco.

The myth about cap-and-trade is that it pits environmentalists and “green” politicians against big business, using market forces to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This is nonsense. In fact, all three become allies in assaulting the wallets of ordinary citizens. As Democratic Rep. John Dingell, of Michigan told CNN last month: “I attended a recent meeting of an organization interested in (climate change legislation) and guess who it was? It was a bunch of good-hearted Wall Streeters getting ready to cut a fat hog.” Added Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington: “Starting with Enron and now the current financial meltdown, energy markets have been a target-rich environment for (undeserved profits).  We don’t need to solve our carbon problems by creating another fiscal crisis because we have a trading platform that has lots of holes and ends up being exploited.”

Supporters

Not only was Enron an early supporter of cap-and-trade, so are many firms involved in the ongoing global financial meltdown, including AIG, which has received $173 billion in federal bailouts so far; Morgan Stanley ($25 billion); JP Morgan Chase & Co. ($25 billion); Merrill Lynch ($10 billion) and Goldman Sachs, which got a chunk of the AIG bailout because of its financial relationship with it.  As Republican Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon observed: “This is a disaster in the making. If you like the bubbles of the technology market and the housing market, I predict you’ll love the bubble that will come from the cap-and-trade market.” Indeed. See post here.

And note how not only will tax-and-trade savage our pocketbooks and feed another speculative bubble, but this study suggests for every green job created, the U.S. can expect to lose 2.2 other real jobs.

By Andrew Ward and Sarah O’Connor in Washington, Financial Times

President Barack Obama’s plan to push through climate change legislation as part of his $3,600bn federal budget appeared all but dead on Thursday after the Senate ruled out fast-track action on the issue.

A Republican-sponsored amendment passed on Wednesday night ruled that Congress should not try to set up a cap-and-trade system to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as part of the budget “reconciliation” process.

While not binding, the amendment, which drew support from more than 20 Democratic senators, showed the Obama administration has little chance of forcing through climate change mea-sures as part of the budget.

It also underscored the difficulty that Mr Obama will face winning support for his proposed cap-and-trade system even outside of the budget process, raising the possibility of the US arriving empty-handed at the next round of United Nations talks on climate change in Copenhagen in December.

Mr Obama had wanted legislation either passed or making progress before the Copenhagen meeting to signal US commitment to reducing carbon emissions and to encourage other nations to take action.

But opposition is mounting on Capitol Hill as Republicans and some Democrats raise fears that cap-and-trade would undermine economic recovery by increasing energy costs.

“Families and small businesses are struggling to get by, but the Democrats’ budget would raise taxes on every American who drives a car, flips on a light switch or buys a product manufactured in the United States,” said John Boehner, Republican leader in the House of Representatives.

Republicans claim the average family would face up to $3,100 (£2,160) a year in additional energy costs under a cap-and-trade system.

Both the House and Senate were on Thursday expected to approve preliminary budget plans passed by their budget committees last week, signalling broad Democratic support for most of Mr Obama’s proposals. But the congressional blueprints contain only vague commitments to the healthcare reform and climate change laws that Mr Obama put at the heart of his budget.

A congressional lobbyist for an environmental group said he was not surprised by the backlash against climate change measures. “I never ever thought it would go through budget reconciliation,” said the lobbyist, who asked not to be named. “I think it was a smart threat for Obama and people to have on the table, but never thought there was a prayer they could use it.” Read more here.

By Amy Ridenour, Newsbusters

When the New York Times today told its readers about the massive Henry Waxman-Ed Markey 648-page draft global warming bill, it bent over backwards to report the pros and cons of the proposal.  Not.

The March 31 story, supplied by Darren Samuelsohn and Ben Geman of Greenwire:

* Included sponsor Rep Waxman’s claim that “this legislation will create millions of clean energy jobs, put America on the path to energy independence, and cut global warming pollution,” without a balancing rebuttal or reference to the economic damage passage of the bill would almost assuredly cause.

* Followed that favorable quote by California liberal Democrat Waxman with a favorable quote by California liberal Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

* Followed those two favorable statements with seven sentences quoting Democrats Rep. Charles Gonzales (D-TX), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Rick Boucher (D-VA), who have quibbles on the margins about the proposal but who like the concept.

* Followed that with two sentences from the lone voice of rebuttal, the only Republican/conservative quoted, and the only person quoted who addressed the massive negative impact the bill, if adopted, would likely have on the economy, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX).

* Followed the two sentences allocated to Rep. Barton with 32 paragraphs of discription of the bill, none of it a critical analysis.

* Concluded with seven paragraphs headlined “Reactions,” which covered quotations and opinions from four organizations on an ideological spectrum ranging from very left-wing to far left-wing: The Environmental Defense Fund, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Oxfam America and Environment America.  No economists, energy experts, free-market groups, businesses or business groups or any other individual or institution other than left-wing environmental organizations were quoted or cited.

No one with a straight face could call this a balanced story.

For more details see this story Shut Up and Swallow. It begins: “Deliberation in Washington is dead. We don’t have legislators. We have lemmings. We don’t have debates. We have high-speed hysteria sessions. After ramming through stimulus legislation that no one read and bailout bills that no one understood, Congress is now poised to stuff down taxpayers’ throats a deficit-exploding $3.5 trillion budget that enshrines the largest tax increase in American history. Welcome to the cap-and-trade crap sandwich.
The Democrats want to rig the game so you don’t have time to figure out this latest act of collective thievery before it’s perpetrated. They have been colluding on a plan to circumvent the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and amendment process by attaching their massive green tax scheme to a special budget legislative maneuver ("budget reconciliation” in the parlance of the Washington sausage-makers). No less than Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd criticized this short-circuiting of debate as an “outrage that must be resisted” and “an undemocratic disservice to our people.” But the eco-zealots on the Hill seem hell-bent on telling Americans to shut up and swallow.”