Top 10 Reasons to Kill Cap and Trade

By Human Events                              It is nothing but greed
11/27/2009

1. It’s Not Getting Hotter: Five major international climate centers report that average global temperatures have not risen over the past 11 years.

2. It’s Bad Science: A British judge ruled that teachers in Great Britain’s school system will be required to issue a warning before they show students An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s controversial film on global warming.

3. It’s Just a Tax: Energy costs will soar under the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill, and those costs will be passed on to consumers. Obama Administration Budget Director Peter Orszag has estimated that a 15% decrease in emissions would cause the average American family to pay $1,300 in additional utility costs a year.

4. It Will Spread Your Wealth Around: The Obama Administration’s goal is to raise $650 billion through the energy tax. But only $150 billion of that will be devoted to alternative energy production, while $500 billion gets redistributed to people who don’t pay income taxes.

5. Jobs Will Disappear: A Congressional Budget Office report says the legislation would create “significant” job losses from fossil fuel industries as the country shifts to renewable energy. A Heritage Foundation study estimated that the new law would mean 1.9 million fewer jobs by 2012.

6. Home Prices Will Be Depressed: Under the new energy regime, most homes put up for sale would be required to undergo environmental inspections. New homes would have to be 30% more energy efficient than the current building code.

7. The Midwest Will Be Hardest Hit: Forty-four House Democrats voted against Waxman-Markey. That’s because most of them represent Midwestern states. A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that 10 states, mostly in the Midwest, would be hardest hit.

8. America Will Be Less Competitive: China and India are the first and fourth biggest emitters of carbon dioxide emissions, respectively, but they refuse to commit to binding emissions cuts.

9. It Has Never Worked: The European Union has had a cap-and-tax regime since 1997, but 12 of the 15 EU nations that signed on are failing to meet their targets.

10. Haste Makes Waste: Before the House passed its version of the measure, which is almost 1,500 pages long, at and costs about $900 billion, members had less than 16 hours to read the final bill before voting on it.

Cartoon by Brett Noel.