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Cap and Trade = Scam and Greed
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Standing in front of the pictures by Norman Rockwell depicting our four freedoms, Mike Carey, President of the Ohio Coal Association, spoke at a town hall meeting in Madeira last night about the economic effects of cap and trade. He testified at the September Energy Summit in Columbus in September, as well as at numerous Congressional hearings in Washington D.C. over the Waxman-Markey Bill (HB-2454) and the Kerry-Boxer Senate Energy bill.
Carey said, "Ninety percent of Ohio's electricity is generated by coal." What exactly will cap and trade mean to the industry, and how does it relate to the new carbon credits scheme? It's complicated but here are some of the points Carey made.
1. The Kyoto agreement gave a free pass to developing countries in regard to energy emissions. However, some big companies, like Nike, can look "green" in the US while their production is in China. Nike and others have left the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which opposes extreme regulations, but they manufacture in places like China and India. Al "Green" Gore is on the board of Apple, which manufactures, not in Steve Jobs' garage, but in China.
2. While campaigning, Obama clearly said he wants to drive coal companies out of business, though he said this in San Francisco, not in the coal-producing states, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Illinois.
3. Pelosi made deals with some Dems so they would approve cap and trade.
4. One proposal is that coal workers who lose their jobs will get 80% of their pay for three years, plus $1,700 to retrain, plus $1,300 to move to other states, which don't have jobs now either.
5. New jargon: "Carbon sequestration" means carbon emissions will be captured and stored underground. The problem is that it would take land the size of the state of Maryland to hold the carbon emission from one small power plant. It sounds good but it can't work, but no one wants to talk about the science. (As in, "The debate is over.")
6. Nuclear power is being pushed while waste storage facilities are being shut down. We can be energy-independent and more secure if we would drill our own oil.
7. Power companies can shut down some plants to get paid carbon credit money, which will raise prices. We will pay and we will still need to use energy. Companies can buy carbon credits from China and other countries while we reduce our energy production, energy independence, and manufacturing capability. Utilities will make money, the east and west coasts will make money, the middle of the country will lose.
8. Businesses are leaving California, however. Their energy plan led to the famous brownouts. In Spain, cap and trade has lost about twice as many jobs as have been created.
9. Solar and wind power plans suffer from the lack of enough sun and wind in a lot of locations, as well as inadequate battery storage technology.
If this seems to be a disjointed picture of the proposed clean energy bill, it's because the elephant is so big.
The House passed the bill in June, not because it's a good idea, but because the usual carrots and sticks were applied, and the big global warming scare is still functioning even though the climate has been cooling.
Hot or cold, Americans are going to pay and pay. The apparent point of all this is not really to clean up the air. The CO2 scare is bogus. The point is that a lot of people stand to make huge amounts of money without actually producing anything of value. And, of course, the goal is to turn over even more controls to the government.
There's still time to contact your Senators to tell them to say no to the energy bills. We can deal with the EPA regulations later.
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