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The American Clean Energy and Security Act, better known as Waxman-Markey for its sponsors, is being rushed to a vote in what has become a trademark move for the Pelosi-Reid Congress. The key component of the bill is a cap and trade scheme for controlling greenhouse gasses.

Critics of the bill claim the cap and trade plan will tax energy usage across the board, which will hit taxpayers both directly in their own energy consumption and indirectly through increased cost in the production of goods.

Even supporters of the bill seem to be doing so from a sense of "something is better than nothing", but see many flaws in the legislation. An article by Yale Environment 360 calls out two primary weaknesses. The first is that concessions to industrial lobbies has lowered the greenhouse gas reduction targets to the point of irrelevance. The second is the removal from the EPA of the authority to regulate emissions from coal plants.

There are other controversial points as well. According to Investor's Business Daily, the act would pay companies, domestic and foreign to not cut down trees. This component is suprising from an administration that has so often and loudly decried the transfer of American wealth overseas.

At the heart of the battle over Waxman-Markey is the actual impact of the legislation on taxpayers and the economy. The Congressional Budget Office cites the impact on the average household as about $175 per year. Yet the CBO's own report adds a disclaimer in a footnote stating, "The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap." In fact, the Wall Street Journal points out, the report "contains so many caveats as to render it useless."

The Heritage Foundation estimates that the bill would result in 2 million jobs lost when the act takes effect in 2012, and would remove $9.3 trillion from the GDP by 2035. The additional national debt incurred would add an estimated $115,000 per household, and cost each household $4600 in additional energy and consumer costs by 2035.

According to the Wall Street Journal, even though Democrats are publicly promising no burdensome economic impacts, they are privately acknowledging the potential for significant impact and are determined to go ahead anyway: "During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them."

The Wall Street Journal concedes that it is difficult to estimate the actual impact of the bill, and therefore suggest looking at the United Kingdom, which already has many green taxes and carbon-cutting programs. Independent studies there indicate that these measures cost British taxpayers as much as $1300 per year for an average family.

During World War II Americans would respond to wasteful activities with the criticism, "Don't you know there's a war on?!" This could become the new battlecry as the Obama administration continues to push bill after bill with enormous potential price tags even while spending even more money to shore up the economy. Faced with an over-ambitious and counterproductive White House agenda, it may be time for Americans to cry, "Don't you know there's a recession on?!"

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