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US House May Pass "Cap & Trade" Bill
jamie found this roundup on the status of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, which is about to be voted on by the US House of Representatives. (The article notes that if the majority Democrats can't see the 218 votes needed for passage, they will probably put off the vote.) The AP has put together a FAQ that says, "[The bill, if passed,] fundamentally will change how we use, produce and consume energy, ending the country's love affair with big gas-guzzling cars and its insatiable appetite for cheap electricity. This bill will put smaller, more efficient cars on the road, swap smokestacks for windmills and solar panels, and transform the appliances you can buy for your home." The odds-makers are giving the bill a marginal chance of passing in the House, with tougher going expected in the Senate.
You're right. This bill should really be called "A Tax Increase For All Americans." The estimated tax revenue the government expects to extract from the population from the passage of this bill is huge.
You're right. This bill should really be called "A Tax Increase For All Americans." The estimated tax revenue the government expects to extract from the population from the passage of this bill is huge.
The Wall Street Journal would certainly agree with you.
Britain did something similar, and the average family is paying an extra $1,300 (USD) in taxes per year.
I have a bad feeling about this...
Complete the following sentence: The USA needs 25% of the world's energy because...?
...the GDP of the United States (13.84 trillion USD) is close to one-fourth of the world's GDP (54.62 trillion USD).
I certainly hope it works but I'm wondering how its going to save the worlds climate if China continues to expand its use of coal to generate electricity faster than the entire rest of the world can reduce their output of CO2. Likewise how is it really going to solve our climate problem if, as American's switch to fuel efficient cars, India and China drive to put their billions of people IN TO cars and create cities with clogged freeways in their drive to emulate American stupidity.
If the U.S. and Europe had done this 40-50 years the benefits would have been huge. At this point the U.S. and Western Europe are mostly just cutting back to allow China and India to assume their rightful role, due to their overpopulation, as consumers of most of the world's fossil fuels and producers of most of its pollution.
Cap and trade really only solves our climate problem if they whole world does is. So far China in particular is refusing because they say they are a developing economy and they have the right to pollute and squander energy the same way the U.S. and Europe did during their industrial revolution. They view it as unfair for the west to have gotten away with polluting to build their wealth and now telling them they can't just as they are building their own.
I recall reading an article on cap and trade in Europe, I think in the NY times some time ago. It pointed out that some of its "success" was because many industries, that were major producers of CO2, and which would be hammered by the caps, just moved off shore to Africa, China or anyplace but the EU. In probably resulted in those factories polluting more since they weren't under any pollution constraints at all once they left the EU.
Unfortunately much the same thing will happen in the U.S. for any manufacturing industry that is CO2 heavy. It will just accelerate the flight of manufacturing to China and India where there are NO pollution controls worth mentioning, energy is cheap due to most of it coming from coal, and labor is cheap too. China is trying to build more nuclear and hydro in their defense, and they know they have a problem. But they also HAVE to grow their economy 7-8% a year just to keep their growing population employed. Chances are they will do a major expansion in clean energy AND continue a dramatic expansion in burning coal.
The only solution to the China problem is you have to place tariffs on Chinese exports to inflict the cap and trade on them against their will and then you get in to a global trade war.
Cap and trade is likely to really only work in the U.S. on captive CO2 producers who can't flee to escape the tax, like coal fired power plants, driving and airlines. It will just accelerate the flight of manufacturing and maybe even data centers to places without cap and trade and with cheaper electricity. Only manufacturing that will stay in this country is the manufacturing being government subsidized like our car companies lately.
I appreciate the value of cap and trade in punishing coal fired power plants. They are a horror. But unless this country actually starts a Manhattan project to develop an energy source that is cheap, clean, abundant and renewable, cap and trade is going to have negative economic consequences. If the U.S. could, for example, accelerate the ignition facility and get us workable fusion power SOON that would be a boon to our economy. I fear its blind optimism to think that making "green energy" competitive by making everything else more expensive wont hammer our economy. We started using coal and oil for energy precisely because you need the cheapest possible energy to drive an industrialized economy. The more expensive your energy source is the more of a drag it is on your economy.
@de_machina
insightful? maybe after you get your facts right:
You're confusing "Britain" with "The Netherlands" here:
Britain is
~800 miles long and up to 500 miles wide or so
has hills all over the place, cycling considered to be a sport anywhere outside major towns
climate varying from subtropical (palm trees) to near-arctic
larger than California
has twice as much inhabitants as California
average person uses 5218.2W of energy[1]
The Netherlands is
~200 miles long and wide
flat as your mum's chest (there's only 2 significant hills), cycling main mode of transportation
a climate so moderate and predictable you can guarantee ride your bicycle every day and get wet.
about the size of New Jersey
has about 40% the inhabitants compared to California, or 20% compared to Britain.
average person uses 6675.2W of energy[1]
So, to get to your point: WRONG
The UK is a lot _larger_ and has major geological obstacles (hills, rocks, climate variation) that make it harder to use less energy than the netherlands. However the British use 15-20% _less_ energy per inhabitant than the postage sized dutch who live in a fricken flat country where laying a pipe or road or canal is trivial due to the soft soil, flatness and year-round beneficial climate.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita