As in Part 2 of this series, I will continue with the Introduction section of Ryan’s plan. Here is Ryan’s criticism of Cap and Trade:
Cap and Trade. This proposal effectively establishes a government takeover of most of the energy market. The legislation requires companies responsible for more than 86 percent of U.S. energy resources to obtain new emissions permits from the Federal Government to stay in business, includes a series of new mandates on the production and use of energy, and expands bureaucracies – or creates new ones – to oversee this program. Yet it fails to boost two of the most reliable sources of clean energy: nuclear and hydro-power.
By sharply increasing the cost of energy, the bill imposes substantial tax increases that will be absorbed largely by middle-income earners – breaking the President’s promise not to raise taxes for those making less than $250,000 per year. Although the measure contains a complex scheme of allowances, tax credits, and tax rebates that attempt to reduce the impact on households, the bottom line is inescapable: the higher energy costs will have to be absorbed by someone; and the “someone” will be the U.S. taxpayer. Meanwhile, in contrast to the President’s pledge to “change the way Washington works,” the legislation gives away 83 percent of its carbon allowances to energy- and climate-related special interests, at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.
Yet after all this, the benefits of cap-and-trade remain highly doubtful. Some studies show the scheme might move temperatures by no more than a fraction of a degree by the end of this century – which would make little difference on whatever climate effects result from greenhouse gas emissions. There are no effective limits on emissions by foreign countries, such as China and India, that are responsible for the fastest current growth in greenhouse gases.
Mitt Romney is equally critical of Cap and Trade in his book:
“I am uncertain how much of the warming, however, is attributable to man and how much is attributable to factors out of our control. I do not support radical feel-good policies like a unilateral U.S. cap-and-trade mandate. Such policies would have little effect on climate but could cripple economic growth with devastating results for people across the planet.” – Mitt Romney No Apology, p. 227
His web site also states this policy position:
Summary: Mitt Romney on Cap and Trade/Global Warming
Cap and Trade legislation would be disastrous for our economy.
The earth’s climate has been constantly changing throughout its history.
We should not take extreme measures when we are unsure of human role in global warming.
Treaties, like Kyoto, would affect the U.S., but not major greenhouse gas emitters like China and India.
However, he previously stated this about Cap and Trade:
In 2005, Romney Said Cap-And-Trade Was “Good For Business”
2005: Romney Endorsed Cap-And-Trade, Saying “We Can Effectively Create Incentives To Help Stimulate A Sector Of The Economy And At The Same Time Not Kill Jobs. … I’m Convinced It Is Good Business.” According to the Boston Globe:
Governor Mitt Romney signaled his support yesterday for a regional agreement among Northeastern states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, despite opposition from power companies and other business interests that have been lobbying the administration against the plan.
In opening remarks to a clean-energy conference in Boston, Romney said the first-of-its-kind agreement, under which Massachusetts and eight other states could be required to cut power plant emissions by 2020, will not hurt the economy, as some have charged. He argued that it would spur businesses to develop clean- and renewable-energy technology to market worldwide.
”This is a great thing for the Commonwealth,” Romney said, his strongest endorsement of the pact to date. ”We can effectively create incentives to help stimulate a sector of the economy and at the same time not kill jobs.”
[…]
”I’m convinced it is good business,” Romney said. [Boston Globe, 11/8/05]
Additionally, Romney was fact checked on this statement:
Romney Blatantly Flaunts False Cost Estimate For Clean Energy Jobs Legislation
October 07, 2009 1:13 pm ET
On October 7, 2009, Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC sent an email to supporters falsely claiming clean energy jobs legislation would raise costs by $1,761 per household and kill jobs. In reality, legislation increasing our investment in clean energy technologies would create jobs in every state and help America become more energy independent, all for less than a quarter a day.
Mitt Romney Repeated False Cost Estimate
Mitt Romney:
In fact, estimates are that the Obama plan could cost the average American family $1,761 a year, the equivalent of a 15% income tax hike. It will kill jobs and make a bad economic situation even worse. [Romney’s Free & Strong America PAC email, 10/7/09]
The Report Cited Analyzed A Completely Different Plan, Rendering It Irrelevant
PolitiFact.com Rated Claim FALSE: “His Statement That Households Will Pay $1,761 In New Taxes Every Year Is Based On A Blogger’s Incorrect Assumptions And Overly Simple Math.” According to PolitiFact.com: “His statement that households will pay $1,761 in new taxes every year is based on a blogger’s incorrect assumptions and overly simple math. The estimate does not account for revenue that will be returned to consumers in the form of rebates and other efficiency measures. Furthermore, the number is based on old numbers; the Treasury estimate was written on the premise that all permits would be sold, which, ultimately, is not the form that the Waxman-Markey legislation has taken. Finally, both Alexander and McCullagh portray money raised by selling these permits as a tax. We rate Alexander’s claim False.” [PolitiFact.com, 9/16/09]
Bloomberg: “85 Percent Of The Cap-And-Trade Permits Would Be Given Away In The Early Years.” As reported by Bloomberg: “85 percent of the cap-and-trade permits would be given away in the early years of a proposed climate-change program that House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, wants his panel to pass next week. The biggest recipient, the electricity sector, would get 35 percent of the permits, also known as allowances or credits. Others that would receive a large share of the permits for free are energy-intensive manufacturers, natural gas distributors, automakers, and U.S. states with renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.” [Bloomberg, 5/15/09]
Washington Post: “The Plan In The March Treasury Memo Is Not The One Being Debated In Congress.” In an article describing the records obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Washington Post wrote “the plan in the March Treasury memo is not the one being debated in Congress.” [Washington Post, 9/17/09]
Treasury Department: “The Reporting On The Treasury Analysis Is Flat Out Wrong.” According to the Washington Post, “The Treasury said the furor was much ado about little. The March memo was not based on any independent Treasury analysis and summarized other studies. The transition team memo said that the government could use the revenue to ‘offset distortionary taxes on labor or capital.’ ‘The reporting on the Treasury analysis is flat out wrong,’ said Alan B. Krueger, Treasury assistant secretary for economic policy.” [Washington Post, 9/17/09]
Clean Energy Jobs Legislation Would Rebuild America For A Postage Stamp A Day
Reuters: “Climate Legislation Moving Through Congress Would Have Only A Modest Impact On Consumers.” According to Reuters: “A new U.S. government study on Tuesday adds to a growing list of experts concluding that climate legislation moving through Congress would have only a modest impact on consumers, adding around $100 to household costs in 2020. Under the climate legislation passed by the House of Representatives in June, electricity, heating oil and other bills for average families will rise $134 in 2020 and $339 in 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration, the country’s top energy forecaster.” [Reuters, 8/5/09]
EIA: Clean Energy Legislation Would Cost Only $0.23 Per Day. According to a House Energy and Commerce Committee factsheet of the Energy Information Administration’s analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act: “The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has completed an analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454), as passed by the U.S. House of Representatives… The overall impact on the average household, including the benefit of many of the energy efficiency provisions in the legislation, would be 23 cents per day ($83 per year). This is consistent with analyses by the Congressional Budget Office which projects a cost of 48 cents per day ($175 per year) and the Environmental Protection Agency which projects a cost of 22 to 30 cents per day ($80 to $111 per year).” [House Energy and Commerce Committee, EIA’s Economic Analysis Of “The American Clean Energy And Security Act Of 2009,” 8/4/09; emphasis original]
CBO: In 2020, Cap-And-Trade Will Only Cost An Average Of $175 Annually, “About A Postage Stamp A Day.” In its analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the Congressional Budget Office wrote: “On that basis, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the net annual economy wide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion-or about $175 per household.” Rep. Edward Markey noted it was “the cost of about a postage stamp a day.” [CBO, 6/19/09; House Committee on Energy & Commerce Release, 6/20/09]
• Cap-And-Trade Would DECREASE Energy Prices For Low-Income Americans. In its analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the Congressional Budget Office wrote, “households in the lowest income quintile would see an average net benefit of about $40 in 2020.” [CBO, 6/19/09; emphasis original]
Investment In Clean Energy Technology Will Create Millions Of American Green Jobs
As Media Matters Action Network has noted, a recent study from UC Berkeley found that pollution reduction and energy efficiency measures would create up to 1.9 million jobs, boost GDP by up to $111 billion and increase families’ incomes by nearly $1,200 per year!
Investment In Clean Energy Technology Will Create Over 1.7 Million American Jobs. According to the Center for American Progress: “Investments in a clean-energy economy will generate major employment benefits for the entire U.S. economy. Our research finds that spending $150 billion on clean-energy investments would create roughly 1.7 million jobs. This is even after assuming a reduction in fossil fuel spending equivalent to the increase in clean-energy investments.” [Center for American Progress, The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy, 6/17/09]
• Every Single State Will Gain Jobs From An Investment In Clean Energy Technologies. According to the Center for American Progress, investments in clean energy projects would create 1.7 million American jobs in every state in the country. [Center for American Progress, The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy, 6/17/09]
Investment In Clean Energy Technology Creates FOUR TIMES As Many Jobs As An Investment In Oil & Gas. According to the Center for American Progress, “spending $1 million on energy efficiency and renewable energy produces a much larger expansion of employment than spending the same amount on fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Among fossil fuels, job creation in coal is about 32 percent greater than that for oil and natural gas. The employment creation for energy efficiency-retrofitting and mass transit-is 2.5 times to four times larger than that for oil and natural gas. With renewable energy, the job creation ranges between 2.5 times to three times more than that for oil and gas.” [Center for American Progress, The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy, 6/17/09]
Investment In Renewable Energy Has Already Salvaged Many Manufacturing Facilities Closed During Economic Downturn. Across America, factories and plants abandoned by the old economy have been re-tooled and re-opened to satisfy the growing demand for new energy technologies. For instance, once hopeless manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Michigan have re-energized their communities by creating jobs and leading the charge toward a new energy future. [Bloomberg, 4/2/09; Star Tribune, 4/22/09; Grand Rapids Press, 3/6/08]
Here is a little history on Cap and Trade policies:
A little history is in order. Cap and trade was developed as a more flexible, market-based system to reduce environmental pollution compared to the so-called “command and control” model employed by environmental laws in the 1970s. The old system required each polluting facility to make a fixed reduction in air or water contamination, which ignored that some facilities could cut pollution more cheaply than others.
Cap and trade is a cost-effective alternative that allows the firms that can more cheaply reduce their emissions below their required limit to sell any additional reductions to companies that are not able to make reductions as easily. This creates a system that guarantees a set level of overall reductions while rewarding the most efficient companies and ensuring that the cap can be met at the lowest possible cost to the economy.
The Reagan White House conceived the first cap-and-trade program to reduce pollution. It was used in the 1980s to phase out lead in gasoline at a lower cost. An EPA analysis shows:
…estimated savings from the lead trading program of approximately 20 percent over alternative programs that did not provide for lead banking, a cost savings of about $250 million per year.
President Reagan also signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987 to slash the production and use of chemicals that deplete the upper ozone layer essential to screen out cancer-causing ultraviolet rays. His administration established a cap-and-trade system to implement the chemical reductions the protocol required. A 2006 scientific assessment concluded that “the Montreal Protocol is working” to reduce chemicals and protect the ozone layer.
President George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s successor, was the first president to propose the employment of a cap-and-trade system in an environmental law. The Clean Air Act of 1990 includes his proposed cap-and-trade system to reduce the sulfur pollution from power plants responsible for acid rain.
The Clean Air Act passed the Senate by a vote of 89-10 and the House by 401-25. Many staunch conservatives voted for it including Sens. Kit Bond (R-Mo), Trent Lott (R-MS), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Strom Thurmond (R-SC). Conservative House supporters included Reps. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Joe Barton (R-TX), Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), and Fred Upton (R-MI).
When President Bush signed the Clean Air Act into law he highlighted its innovative cap-and-trade mechanism:
The acid rain allowance trading program will be the first large-scale regulatory use of market incentives and is already being seen as a model for regulatory reform efforts here and abroad.
By employing a system that generates the most environmental protection for every dollar spent, the trading system lays the groundwork for a new era of smarter government regulation; one that is more compatible with economic growth than using only the command and control approaches of the past.
President Bush’s prediction came true. An EPA analysis a decade after the law was passed determined that the actual cost of cutting sulfur emissions by 40 percent was substantially lower than it had predicted: “$1 to $2 billion per year, just one quarter of original EPA estimates.” A CAP analysis determined that in 2006 utility rates were 5 percent lower (in real dollars) than before the act passed in 1990. And the U.S. economy added 16 million jobs during this time.
President George W. Bush also included a cap-and-trade mechanism in his “Clear Skies” bill that would have amended the Clean Air Act. Upon the bill’s introduction he noted the success of his father’s cap-and-trade program:
The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments have significantly reduced air pollution, especially through the innovative “cap-and trade” acid rain control program. [It] has been a resounding success, cutting annual sulfur dioxide emissions in the first phase by 50 percent below allowed levels. Emissions were reduced faster than required, and at far less cost…The program only requires a handful of EPA employees to operate.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced several global warming pollution reductions bills during the previous decade. While running for president in 2008 McCain proposed to reduce global warming pollution via a cap-and-trade program.
John McCain’s climate plan will be similar to the very successful acid rain trading program created under the first President Bush in the early 1990s.
A cap-and-trade system sends a market signal that organizes the whole economy around our environmental goals…The market evolves by requiring sensible reductions in greenhouse gases, but also allowing full flexibility in how industry meets that requirement.
Then-Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) also supported a cap-and-trade system to reduce global warming pollution as the GOP nominee for vice president. She reiterated that support (see 34:00) during the vice presidential debate.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) also endorsed a cap-and-trade system to reduce global warming pollution in 2007:
I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.
Gingrich has changed his tune, however, just two years later. He railed against the “cap-and-trade energy tax” in 2009.
The Koch brothers largely financed a scientific undertaking to prove that global warming was a lie. Unfortunately, the data indicated the Koch brothers were really the liars. As the article points out, their current position on climate change varies depending on their audience. The project employed huge amounts of data coming from different sources and used assumptions that conservatives were using to criticize global warming. Here is what the data showed:
AND, the warming appears to be human caused:
This is what the founder of the research project wrote in an op-ed piece of the New York Times.
Also, see this for more information.
The Economist had this to say.
Here is the Koch brothers current, official position.
The data for warming looks like an exponential curve. You have seen this before with the national debt. After decades of Republican and Democratic policies including the largest most recent contribution by President Bush which set us on the exponential path to a debt crisis, the Republicans are blaming President Obama for the crisis. Could it be that in the next presidential election the Republicans will blame the Democrats for the climate change crisis?…sophistry works well in capitalism as truth is up for the highest bidder…
The bottom line is that the Republicans have been all over the map on this issue. Initially, they attacked it as a liberal lie. Now, they are faced with data that indicates climate change is not a liberal lie but real AND it appears to be human caused. Is this Republican leadership? Could it be that it may be in some corporatist energy group’s interest to downplay science in favor of ‘free market interests’? I will let the reader’s logic provide the answer.