Cap-and-Trade Bill ‘Out of Control,’ Former Senator Wirth Says

Cap-and-Trade Bill ‘Out of Control,’ Former Senator Wirth Says

www.bloomberg.com...

Cap-and-trade legislation to limit U.S. carbon dioxide emissions has “gotten out of control” and needs to be scaled back in Congress, said former Democratic Senator Timothy Wirth.
“The Republicans are right -- it’s a cap-and-tax bill,” Wirth, a climate-change negotiator during President Bill Clinton’s administration, said in an Aug. 14 interview. “That’s what it is because they are raising revenue to do all sorts of things, especially to take care of the coal industry, and it makes no sense.”

You were warned of this BEFORE it happened and even as it happened!

How will "cap and trade" affect us? What does a liberal Democrat (no longer beholden to D.C. lobbyists) have to say?

“I’m not critical of cap-and-trade,” said Wirth, head of the UN Foundation, a philanthropy established in 1998 with $1 billion from Ted Turner, founder of the CNN cable network. “But it has to be used in a targeted and disciplined way, and what has happened is it’s gotten out of control.”
Wirth, who represented Colorado in the Senate, says the House-passed plan is “too broad across the economy.” Instead of capping carbon pollution generally, the measure should focus solely on coal-fired power plants, he said.

The Senate remains under pressure to pass a cap-and-trade bill because failure to act would leave regulation of carbon emissions in the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency, which has asserted its right to do so, according to Nikki Roy, who monitors Congress for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia.

Environmental Dictatorship by Decree

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Obama sets strict rules on emissions

www.abovetopsecret.com...

EPA regulations would trigger a raft of lawsuits, “delay regulatory certainty” for businesses and postpone the unleashing of low-emissions energy technology needed for a new, carbon-constrained world, he said.
“If you are a company and you want to build a plant, you are on thin ice until we get this law,” Roy said.


Deny ignorance.

jw

Originally posted by jdub297
The Senate remains under pressure to pass a cap-and-trade bill because failure to act would leave regulation of carbon emissions in the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency, which has asserted its right to do so, according to Nikki Roy, who monitors Congress for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia.

I see no reason why the EPA couldn't/shouldn't regulate carbon emissions, they're already trying to revoke Bush's "memorandum that declared that the agency would not limit the emissions from coal fired powered plants."

EPA May Reverse Bush, Limit Carbon Emissions From Coal-Fired Plants

The Environmental Protection Agency will reopen the possibility of regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, tossing aside a December Bush administration memorandum that declared that the agency would not limit the emissions.

The decision could mark the first step toward placing limits on greenhouse gases emitted by coal plants, ...

I think that this "Cap & Trade" thingamabob is just going to end up as a fiasco myself.

Already the "Cap & Trade" implemented in Europe is failing, ...

Cap and trade: Europe's system failed

In Europe, energy prices have skyrocketed, economic competitiveness has drained away, many jobs have been lost and investment has gone elsewhere. Worse still, Europe's carbon emissions have increased.
******SKIP******
To avoid burdening its economies with high costs, the European Union issued carbon permits to some politically connected companies at no charge. The companies then sold their permits to other businesses at a huge profit. The result was that those companies had no incentive to develop technologies for controlling emissions, such as carbon capture-and-storage. Yet they went ahead anyway and raised fuel and electricity prices.

Cap and Trade Woes In Europe

Yet in Europe, which created the world’s largest greenhouse gas market three years ago, early evidence suggests the whole approach could fail. Carbon dioxide emissions are still rising in many industries, not falling.

“We currently are in danger of losing yet another decade in the fight against global warming,” said Hugo Robinson of Open Europe, a research group in London.

This week, the European Environment Agency reported that emissions from factories and plants that trade pollution permits rose 0.4 percent in 2006 over the previous year, and 0.7 percent in 2007, the first two years of the system’s operations.

And even "The Creator's" of the "Cap & Trade" idea is having second thoughts about it, ...

Cap-and-Trade's Unlikely Critics: Its Creators

In the 1960s, a University of Wisconsin graduate student named Thomas Crocker came up with a novel solution for environmental problems: cap emissions of pollutants and then let firms trade permits that allow them to pollute within those limits.

When he was a graduate student in the 1960s working to reduce pollutants, Thomas Crocker devised a cap-and-trade system similar to one being considered in Congress.

Now legislation using cap-and-trade to limit greenhouse gases is working its way through Congress and could become the law of the land. But Mr. Crocker and other pioneers of the concept are doubtful about its chances of success. They aren't abandoning efforts to curb emissions. But they are tiptoeing away from an idea they devised decades ago, doubting it can work on the grand scale now envisioned.

"I'm skeptical that cap-and-trade is the most effective way to go about regulating carbon," says Mr. Crocker, 73 years old, a retired economist in Centennial, Wyo. He says he prefers an outright tax on emissions because it would be easier to enforce and provide needed flexibility to deal with the problem.

I personally think this "Cap & Trade" is just going to be another market where investors/speculators are going to end up driving the price up on everything that is produced that entails releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

[edit on 8/18/2009 by Keyhole]

[edit on 8/18/2009 by Keyhole]

reply to post by Keyhole


EPA is going to do this. No one will notice.

Until you cross their regulations or rules.

What Obama cannot accomplish publicy in Congress, he wil effect through regulation.

Environmental Dictatorship by Decree

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Obama sets strict rules on emissions

www.abovetopsecret.com...

deny ignorance

jw

This is why the EPA was created to begin with, to protect the environment!

When was the EPA created and what does it do?

The EPA was established in response to public concern about unhealthy air, polluted rivers and groundwater, unsafe drinking water, endangered species, and hazardous waste disposal. Responsibilities of the EPA include environmental research, monitoring, and enforcement of legislation regulating environmental activities. The EPA also manages the cleanup of toxic chemical sites as part of a program known as Superfund.

The Birth of EPA

President Nixon called for "a strong, independent agency." The mission of this "Environmental Protection Agency" would be to:

* Establish and enforce environmental protection standards.
* Conduct environmental research.
* Provide assistance to others combatting environmental pollution.
* Assist the CEQ in developing and recommending to the President new policies for environmental protection.

Now, isn't this what the "Cap & Trade" is essentially trying to do (the first one in bold), trying to enforce some kind of "environmental protection" by trying to make it too expensive for companies to keep releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?

Why set up a whole other corruptible system to regulate/manipulate companies CO2 output when there already is a government agency, the EPA, in place to do this?

Not to mention that "Cap & Trade" doesn't seem to be working in Europe anyway!

[edit on 8/18/2009 by Keyhole]

reply to post by Keyhole


No doubt Obama will "decree" the necessary res and rules that will move his agenda forward.

He left Congress an opportunity to set the constraints. They will not.

The Obama EPA, FDA, FCC, DoE, and DHS will exert as much control over our lives as we let them.

My point, exactly.

jw

Yet another massive bill that did not get read and would be better titled "The Cap & Gouge Consumers Bill."

Selling the pollution credits will make a fortune for those who sell them and are just like the old "indulgences" sold by the Medival Catholic Church that were supposed to cut years off your time in purgatory.

Probably as effective too.

If the goal is to reduce all kinds of emissions, instead of making companies buy the permission to pollute indulgences/credits, it would be far better if they simply gave companies some sort of tax credit for every verified percentage point that they reduce their emissions.

Reward them for doing better and avoid punishing all the consumers of gas and electricity which we all need.

Companies will do anything to reduce their federal tax burden - at least the ones who actually pay federal taxes as they should.

Maybe a tenth of a percent for each percentage point of reduced emissions would be fair and incentive enough for them to do it. Maybe more but it is a better approach. Some of the EU countries have a similiar Cap & Trade program and it has done nothing to reduce their pollution levels.

reply to post by Jenadots


Sadly, a 'bill' is not required. Your president can enact this through "rule making"rather than legislation..

Environmental Dictatorship by Decree

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Obama sets strict rules on emissions

[urlwww.abovetopsecret.com...[/url


This is how he will effect "change" for America.

jw