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Cap & Trade has been a huge part of Obama’s plans since before the election. His ideas are outlined on the White House government budget site. We all know that Cap & Trade is an ideology to reduce carbon emissions by setting a ‘cap’ on the amount of emissions that companies are allowed to expend into the atmosphere. Companies will pay big money for emissions allowances as set forth by Congress or the President, that has not been ironed out yet. What is perfectly clear is that Americans will definitely be paying more for pretty much anything they purchase if the Cap & Trade program is put into place. What has been unclear is GE’s role in the Cap & Trade policies and how they stand to make billions.
In 2007 the Climate Action Partnership was formed by several corporations to come up with a solution to curbing greenhouse gases, aka CAP. One of the largest corporations that is part of this organization is GE. GE currently is also the largest manufacturer of clean energy equipment such as windmills, natural gas and nuclear power. Since GE already has the technology that will be required for other companies to purchase, with the sales of its products alone in order for companies to abide by any Cap & Trade laws, GE stands to make billions. GE has spent a cool million dollars the past year alone touting their green energy initiatives in a marketing blitz, as if their corporate policy is ‘caring about the environment.’ Immelt is quoted as saying “I didn’t come to this as an environmentalist, I come to it as an industrialist,” “I’m a capitalist, plain and simple.” While I totally agree with capitalism and think it’s great he wants to earn cash for GE, I don’t agree that it should be on the backs of the American people who will truly pay the price for Cap & Trade.
The trade part of Cap & Trade is where companies like Goldman Sachs come into play. You see, those companies that do not use their entire allotment of emissions, can sell them to other companies who may need more. Yes, Wall Street is also in on Cap & Trade. Wall Street will be trading these ‘excess allotments’ as commodities. The very Wall Street companies that Obama constantly derides and claims consist of greedy people who hurt Americans will be earning billions thanks to his plan. One industry analyst believes that this Cap & Trade trading on Wall Street could turn into a $2 trillion business within five years.
The very man who outright states his mission with Cap & Trade is to make money sits on Obama’s Economic Advisory Board. Obama has continually blasted Wall Street for months. While Obama is touting how wonderful Cap & Trade will be in reducing the devastating effects of the yet unproven Global Warming theories, one of his advisors is rubbing his hands together and dreaming about dollar signs the closer cap & trade gets to passing in Congress. GE even created a brand new division in 2005 called GE Ecomagination – from Immelt: “GE Economagination is GE's commitment to address challenges such as the need for cleaner, more efficient sources of energy, reduced emissions and abundant sources of clean water."
What is completely and utterly ironic about that last statement is what the EPA calls Superfund Sites. These are sites that companies have polluted with dangerous toxins and have been designated by the EPA to clean them up. GE has many sites like this but two of the largest are the Hudson River in NY and the Housatonic River in Massachusetts. GE has been fighting the EPA against having to clean up these two sites for 25 years. Their plant in NY left carcinogenic PCBs in the Hudson River – known to cause cancer in animals and known as carcinogens in humans. Funny, Immelt touts clean water when GE did not want to clean up the very water their plant made a toxic mess of. They finally started cleaning up the Hudson River on May 15, 2009 – yes literally just last week.
GE has gone so far as to create yet another division called GE AES GHGS – Green House Gas Services. The company website explains how they can help companies reduce green house gas emissions by purchasing ‘credits’ from GE’s GHGS: “Greenhouse Gas Services certifies each one of its GHG credits to a rigorous Standard of Practice to ensure the environmental and scientific integrity of each credit. As a result, companies that purchase GHG credits from Greenhouse Gas Services can be certain that what they are doing is truly helping to reduce climate change-causing greenhouse gases.” Essentially yet another way that GE will make billions off of Cap & Trade.
Obama has an Economic Advisors who stands to make billions for the company he is the CEO of if Cap & Trade passes. Should an economic advisor be giving advice to a President if the advice would certainly create a windfall of cash to the advisor’s company? Isn’t there some type of ethics violation in here somewhere? How about the deceit of the American people? It’s not that Obama or Immelt are hiding any of this, it’s that neither of them are telling the people that GE and other big corporations plus Wall Street will make billions and even trillions if Cap & Trade passes and it boils down to being at OUR expense.
Part III will be on GE’s healthcare division, Universal Healthcare, Immelt, Obama and Daschle.
If you missed Part I, you can view it here: http://www.examiner.com/x-9100-Boston-Conservative-Independent-Examiner~y2009m5d16-Obamagate--The-tangled-web-of-Obama-GE-Immelt-Cap--Trade-GE-Healthcare-and-Daschle-part-I
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