Image Credit: Associated Press
Senator Robert Byrd opposes the Waxman-Markey "cap and trade" climate change legislation pushed by President Obama and passed, but not read by the House:
"I cannot support the House bill in its present form," Byrd said in a statement. "I continue to believe that clean coal can be a 'green' energy. Those of us who understand coal's great potential in our quest for energy independence must continue to work diligently in shaping a climate bill that will ensure access to affordable energy for West Virginians."
It is no surprise that the Democrat, who grew up in grew up in West Virginia coalfields, would oppose cap and trade. After all, Obama says cap and trade will bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant.
Also, Senator Byrd's was one of the two sponsors of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which the senate unanimously passed, 95–0, in 1997. Byrd-Hagel stated the sense of the Senate that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing nations as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States." Byrd-Hagel prevented Clinton from even trying to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which like the Waxman-Markey "cap and trade" climate change legislation, would have put the U.S. economy at an economic disadvantage to China and India.
Comments
The cap & trade bill is a huge energy tax and FRAUD! Economists say it will cost anywhere from $2000 to $4000 per year per family of 4. Obama has said that energy costs would "necessarily skyrocket” under it. It’ll raise the cost of living for all Americans, and send many to the unemployment line. It actually includes provisions that set-up & extend unemployment benefits for people who lose their jobs as a result of it! It's meant to reduce carbon emissions and encourage green energy by causing pain in our fossil fueled economy. To sell it politically they’ve vitiated it; The gov't was counting on $80B per year by selling emissions credits. Now, to win over industry, the bill gives the credits away for free… There goes the revenue! Then it bestows hundreds of billions of $'s in credits to companies and industries - with the ear of a congressman or a competent lobbyist...can you say “MASSIVE FRAUD!”? It blows my mind that our Congress could bring this piece of trash to the floor!
Calling it a Cap and TAX is a huge fraud - its just like right wingers to attempt to redefine things this way - much in the same light many older right wingers who were raised in those deeply distrubing dark days of the 1980's equate welfare with black people. It's ingenius sure but wrong none the less. Anyways I disagree fundamentally - we should just heavily tax carbon use altogether....people's sense of entitlement bewilders me sometimes
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