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.

Comments

Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[russotto]

And energy rationing, by this name or any other, spells death for the economy. They might as well call it the "starve and freeze" bill.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[EastCoastSurfer]

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.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Logical Zebra]

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.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Anonymous Coward]

But i am probably overestimating my fellow Americans who cannot even do what British, French or Germans do routinely.

Get completely trampled by the fascists and communists? Because if that's what you meant than I totally agree, we cannot do that.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Duradin]

A much more moderate climate and population centers that were established when eight miles was the distance that could easily be traveled in a day has nothing to do with it at all...

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[goldspider]

This can't be true. Obama promised that taxes would not go up for 95% of Americans.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[ArcherB]

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.

NO NO NO! We have nothing to worry about!!

"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes...you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."
--Barack Obama
Dover NH, Sept 12, 2008

See, the leader has spoken. There will be no tax increase for those of us making under $250,000/yr

(If I need a sarc tag, you need to go to another site)

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[russotto]

Where did you find them explaining that everyone will have to ration energy? What does starving have to do with energy? It's further down the slope of environmental consciousness vs the economy but you are doing no one a service by claiming it is utter self-annihilation when it's not that bad.

What do you think the "cap" part of "cap and trade" means? Capping CO2 emissions means capping energy use, in the absence of significant carbon-free sources -- and since neither nuclear, solar, nor wind, nor any other carbon-free source is in any position to take up the slack, things look pretty grim. And the caps are designed to be ratcheted DOWN.

As for what starving has to do with energy... uhh, you realize it takes energy to grow and distribute that food, right? And I don't mean just solar.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[jcr]

They might as well call it the "starve and freeze" bill.

Depending on how quickly its effects show up, it could also be called "the democrats piss away their majority in both houses of congress in a single election cycle" bill.

-jcr

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Chris Mattern]

Why does it have to spell death for the economy?

1. New products will need to be designed that use their energy more efficiently. Which produces jobs.
2. Industries will have to buy new products to increase their efficiency to stay within limits.
3. People who have jobs from 1 will be spending money again.

I got an idea. We can come and break every window in your house. Better yet, we'll break every window in every house on your block. Think of the jobs created when those windows have to get fixed!

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[corbettw]

Ah yes, the Broken Window fallacy. Here's a hint why this is bad: you're forcing people to spend money to, in effect, tread water, instead of letting them invest in something that will expand their business.

Here's an example: a baker finds his business doing well, with people lining up around the block to buy his signature muffins. So he wants to buy another oven to produce more muffins, and hire two more counter staff to handle the customers. Then cap and trade gets passed, forcing him instead to buy a replacement oven for the one he already has, plus get new windows and air conditioning, not to mention all the similar upgrades in his own home. This consumes the money he would've spend on that new oven and new employees, leaving him in the same position as before. So how exactly has this helped him or the economy?

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[jcr]

in Western Europe, where pollution per capita is four times less than in the US,

[Citation needed]

While you're at it, do the figures you allude to account for pollution generated outside of Europe in the process of manufacturing imported goods?

-jcr

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[sumdumass]

pollution per capita has a lot more to do with population density then efficiency unless your going to use abstract rules in your efficiency.

Anyways, the cap and trade laws are not identical to those in Europe. It turns out that in Europe, they increased the costs to the "average" family by $1,300 a year. In the US with the US limits in this bill being voted on, we are looking at an estimated costs starting out at adding $1,870 in costs for the average family which will increase to over $6,800 by the time everything is implemented.

Yes, it's most likely you are over estimating a lot of things. The biggest is your intellect and ability to fathom the real implications of this program. And no, people are not saying no caps at all, they are saying it has to be done in ways that do not damage the economy or place people through hardships that aren't necessary. Why is taking the time to do it right such a big fucking inconvenience for this democrat congress. It's like the bailouts in which they claimed to be outraged a bonuses being paid when the democrats wrote the law to allow the bonuses to be paid then forgot it was there (or didn't think anyone was actually smart enough to look) and acted outrages at their own actions.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[russotto]

So nothing will ever become more efficient or clean than it is now? Your Slashdot cred has been revoked for lack of technological imagination. HTH, HAND.

Now that the definition of clean has been changed so that not just byproducts like SOx, NOx, and CO are defined as "dirty", but CO2 -- the end product of complete combustion of any hydrocarbon with oxygen -- is also defined as dirty, the answer is that no, we cannot make certain things more "clean". And we're up against a wall with efficiency in many cases also.

To reduce CO2 emissions without energy rationing, you need a lot more non-CO2 containing sources. Nuclear... forget it, politically it just isn't going to happen. Hydro -- the large sources are tapped and environmentalists hate it anyway. Wind on the scale needed is both technologically and politically challenging. Solar... well, the Bureau of Land Management has basically said "forget it" to building solar thermal in the desert southwest, for instance, so it's another case of environmentalists not liking ANY energy source.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[debrain]

This bill should really be called "A Tax Increase For All Americans."

Sir:

Responsible energy use is only a tax on the current generation. Future generations will have the benefit of this tax, including more oil, less pollution, less natural catastrophes, better environmental technology, and a more responsible culture. Indeed, the "free" oil we're burning today is a tax on future generations, who will pay the price for our selfish, short-sighted behaviour. I call the existing scheme of state-environment relations as the "fuck the kids" model.

As a technical note, it's not strictly a tax because it is simply the assignment of a property value to a currently hidden cost (i.e. on future generations), it permits valuation and bartering of that now hidden cost (i.e. it's "property", somewhat like intellectual property), and it can be avoided through technological innovation. The brilliance is that it is creating the facade of a marketplace, where the costs to the participants in the marketplace are designed to coincide with the harms to the environment. It's actually quite fascinating and brilliant, in my humble opinion. Let's hope it proves valuable.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[profplump]

You know, I can't buy the old school hydrochlorofluorocarbon [wikipedia.org] to use as a refrigerant in my new car. The new stuff doesn't work as well (it's close) but it's a lot better for the environment. Small things like this can be important to entities like the EPA.

R-134a is actually not very efficient compared to R-11/R-12, and overall it may be *worse* for the environment. Don't confuse "doing something" with "doing the right thing" -- banning CFCs and HCFCs in cooling systems was not necessarily the best choice. Among other things, cooling systems were not a huge contributer to atmospheric CFCs (particularly modern, low-pressure chillers which cannot leak), and the ozone hole is actually not nearly as bad as we imagined when we started banning things. But now, 25 year later, greenhouse gasses are a much larger concern, and you know what the CFC/HCFC ban did without question -- raise energy usage in cooling systems by lowering efficiency.

You see, in our rush to do something to "save the environment" (i.e. generate political capital) we just rushed out and banned the first thing we could find that had a potential negative environmental impact and didn't have a strong lobby to protect it. We could have done something useful like reducing sulphur levels in diesel (we put that off for another 20 years), but instead we did something that is, at best, a wash for the environment, and quite possibly detrimental. Can we please not make the same mistake twice in a row?

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[goldspider]

"As for what starving has to do with energy... uhh, you realize it takes energy to grow and distribute that food, right? And I don't mean just solar."

And won't it be a kick in the balls to supporters of C&T once they realize that this is going to negatively affect food aid to the third world.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Anynomous Coward]

He's not lying. Thanks to hyperinflation, soon every murkan may make a million or more.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[anonicon]

Eh, sorry, but Americans elect candidates based on the quality of their lies. Obama's were better than McCain's, and his delivery was smoother.

Between your documented instance and the fact that the dumbest politicans are the ones who tell the explicit truth regardless of blowback, if you want to spread the blame, look no further than a public that isn't willing to be honest with itself and its expectations.

Chuck

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[artemis67]

Exactly. The real purpose of this bill is to pay for all of the porkulus spending we've seen this year.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[RobotRunAmok]

Yeah, and Obama's team (hockey, basketball or what, no one knows)

I'm reasonably sure it's not a hockey team...

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Malc]

The tax rate's gone up, but if consumption has gone down, what is the real cost to average family? Do you really trust a group to be unbiased or accurate whose mission statement starts: "The TaxPayers' Alliance is Britain's independent grassroots campaign for lower taxes."

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[icebraining]

Germany
Germany's voluntary commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 21 per cent compared to 1990 levels has to all intents and purposes been met, because emissions have already been reduced by 19 per cent.

France
In 2004, France shut down its last coal mine, and now gets 80% of its electricity from nuclear power and therefore has relatively low CO2 emissions.

A study by De Leo et al. found that "accounting only for local external costs, together with production costs, to identify energy strategies, compliance with the Kyoto Protocol would imply lower, not higher, overall costs."
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v413/n6855/full/413478a0.html

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[ArcherB]

I'm amused by Americans who think they are being "taxed to death" but have no problem spending 40 percent of their incomes for corporate profits, which despite some other conventional wisdom, does not come back to the economy.

Really? Where does it go?

In a technical sense, you are correct. Corporate profits do not come back to the economy because they NEVER LEAVE THE ECONOMY! Corporate profits are shareholder profits. Shareholders are citizens that spend money or save for retirement (meaning that they will spend it later).

Profits, by definition, are what make the economy grow! Allow me to explain. Let's say a carpenter buys a piece of wood for $1.00. He carves it into a pair of clogging shoes, which takes him one hour. He sells those shoes for $10.00. He made $9.00 profit. Where did that extra $9.00 come from? Where does it go now? The extra nine bucks (profit) is how economies grow. He took $1.00 worth of wood plus an hour of his time and turned them into shoes worth $10.00. He has increased the economy by $9.00 at the cost of 1 hour.

Now what does he do with his profits? Same thing everyone else does; He spends them. He eats, pays bills, pays for his home and so on. That's what drives the economy.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Loadmaster]

My problem with that WSJ article is that it assumes energy production will not change before 2020. Basically, the CO2 output of a energy production plant will remain constant. The point of the legislation is to encourage (or force if you prefer) a switch to renewable energy and/or CO2 sequestering. If we do the green revolution in earnest we'll get a lot of our energy from green sources which will fall well under the CO2 limits thereby not succumbing to the tax hits. Today's conventional energy production facilities should be working on CO2 sequestering and by 2020 (when the really strict CO2 limits come into effect) they should be under as well. Energy moguls don't want to change because it costs them money. Average Americans don't want to change because they don't see why they should, don't really understand the effects of the legislation and don't want to pay a cent more. Both want things to go back to the way they were. That is not ever going to happen. If you want cheap energy we need wind, solar, nuclear, tidal, algae and carbon sequestering. We need more sources of energy. Killing this legislation doesn't make that need go away.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[jimbolauski]

Here is the problem with you logic. The economy is in the shitter and the cap and trade tax will immediately increase the burden on everyone, the green jobs will not be enough to cause everyone's pay to increase immediately to offset the the tax.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[theascended]

Let's hope it proves valuable.

Lets hope we see the smallest amount of value before the American economy completely implodes.

I would love to debate the merits of individual policies all day long. Between the stimulus, bailouts and healthcare we've already got a hole that can't be filled that was dug by policies that were short sighted and badly engineered in the first place (yes, some from Bush). Sure, they all have redeeming principles in them, but the actual implementation leaves much to be desired. All of that aside, Obama's biggest problem is one of scope. You can't quadruple the national deficit in one year and add nearly $5 trillion (number from the CBO) to the national debt in as many years and then go on to (at a minimum - again numbers from the CBO & WSJ) double the energy costs for the AVERAGE American... We've already passed the legislation necessary to completely destroy the economy... this will just help it come faster.

Obama and his administration seem to only consider the ideal situation... the one in which their policies work out exactly as they intended... unfortunately they aren't and will continue to go awry, cap&trade included.

I, like you, see our destruction of the environment as a debt to future generations and actions must be taken to protect the world for the future, however, please consider the fact that our children won't have a future if we've spent out economy into oblivion. If you are ok with the United States going up to 25% unemployment again, people by the tens-of-millions living on the streets on in shelters, and your children having little to no education (or an advantage really) to speak of all for the protection of the environment, then I guess such considerations need not be made. I, however, will give my votes and support to people who are willing to find a hybrid between prosperity and environmentalism.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[AlexDV]

He told the truth. Taxes will go up for 100% of Americans.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[dc29A]

There is a great article in the Rolling Stone magazine by Matt Taibbi about Goldman Sachs and the bubbles it has created/exploited. Can you guess where the tax money from this is going to go? The next big bubble: carbon credit. And who will benefit from it? The company who is "environmentally conscious", Goldman Sachs.

The US will put a cap on CO2 emission. Company A goes over the cap by 10 units. Company B is under by 10 units. B sells the credits to A. Who is the middle man? Goldman Sachs. To make it worse, this is a speculator's wet dream, far better than Credit Default Swaps. The US will always strive to reduce pollution, thus the cap will be lowered eventually and this will mean that in the long run, prices can ONLY go up for carbon credits. This will attract speculators like there is no tomorrow, and who is the middle man again? Oh yea, Government Sachs. They already own 10% of the exchange (Chicago I think) and seeing other major investment banks out of the picture (Bearn and Lehman) they'll have a quasi monopoly on carbon credit trading.

I wouldn't worry about the tax increases if I were an American, I would worry way more about Government Sachs.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[syphax]

Here's a better chart

Does it strike you as interesting that human civilization and culture flourished during the prolonged stability of the last 10k years or so?

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[demachina]

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.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Zymergy]

Having studied Chemistry with experience in the oil industry, I must say that there is much FUD with the Global Warming hype.
Oil/Gas ALREADY contains the desirable energy content when collected and processed. Processing is minimal when compared to Nuclear fuel.
EVERYTHING ELSE (fuel) must have the energy added as part of its production and that is very Expensive.
"Renewables" must be planted, fertilized, watered, harvested/collected, processed, and then are usable. ALL renewable alcohols (except perhaps iosbutanol) are inferior to 100% gasoline in energy content per gallon. Taxes are based on per gallon. (Duh! renewables = more demand in terms of gallons required to do the same amount of work and MORE taxes collected for the additional gallons purchased... of course politicians are for renewables) But it is a sham. Petroleum is superior fuel from an efficiency per gallon standpoint and burns very cleanly in modern vehicles.
The only way to have ANY fuel compete with petroleum is to legislate an unfair and non-level playing field against petroleum. It is just math and thermodynamics and chemistry.
Politicians are especially bad at math and thermodynamics and chemistry.

People crying the sky is falling and who blame alleged 'Global Warming' (AKA 'Climate Change') on CO2 levels as a proven fact is insanely irresponsible and unscientific. True, CO2 can contribute to retaining heat close to the surface of the planet, but much is wholly unknown about the CO2 cycle.
Ever hold a sea shell or coral? Ever drive on concrete or gravel? Chances are that those substances were almost completely composed of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3). Yes, that is the product of the OCEANS, the ultimate CO2 sink is in Carbonate rocks.
These rocks rain down on the the floors of the oceans and become sea floor and eventually limestone (CaCO3). That is the ultimate fate of much of the CO2.
This process has happened for the history of the earth and has nothing to do with the minuscule amounts of CO2 we have added to the atmosphere.

This is a BLANKET TAX INCREASE and it will FAIL to solve any of the energy issues because the premise of what the problem is claimed to be is false.

Deforestation of parts of Africa, Europe, and South America effect global weather patterns much more profoundly than CO2 increases.
Meteorologists have trouble predicting the weather past 7 days into the future, I find it VERY improbable that the supercomputer models have it right 50-100 years out.

But if it gets politicians short-term funding, they will pass Cap & Tax and we will lose the rest of our industrial manufacturing and become a service-jobs-only based country.
Let's face it people, Oil and Gas are NATURALLY OCCURRING SUBSTANCES, and our environment is very well equipped to absorb the reintroduced CO2 released in the combustion of these fuels back into out planetary CO2 cycle.
CO2 is not like Mercury, Chlordane, or DDT. It is one of our body's own natural byproducts! To declare it a pollutant under EPA control is very ignorant of scientific facts and is irresponsible and dangerous.
The Cart is now trying to push the horse, and Petroleum is the Horse that built this country.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[imamac]

Company buys steel (or whatever): $5000 Company makes car and sells it for $20000 Company pays union: -$15000 ? Company goes bankrupt. You can see how this analogy doesn't work with unions involved...

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[DriedClexler]

Um, the broken windows fallacy works both ways here. Now that we know that unlimited CO2 emissions are harmful to others, it is those who burn fossil fuels who are, in effect, "breaking windows to create jobs".

Yes, it's stupid to cap CO2 emissions to "create jobs", and I wish environmentalists would, for their own good, stop using that argument.

But it's just as bad to say, "Let's f*** over the rest of the world with CO2 emissions so dinosaur industry workers can keep their jobs!"

Carbon restriction legislation doesn't merely "create jobs". Indeed, as the broken window people point out, it "merely" redirects jobs. But it redirects people from "jobs that f*** over future generations and the environment" to "jobs that don't f*** over future generations of the environment".

Not so pointless when you look at it that way, I think.

This is not to say I support the current bill. To the extent that GHG emissions are the problem, they need to be done the most economically efficient, least painful way. A simpler, easier, less painful solution would be to impose a tax or cap the level and auction permits, and then rebate money received this way to individuals in equal shares so as to offset the higher costs of goods, while retaining the incentive to cut back any activity not worth its environmental cost.

But politics allocates by political power, not reason.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[ArcherB]

And then the savvy businessman decided to move his profits into an off-shore tax haven. Meanwhile, the local infrastructure that savvy businessman used goes unsupported and the country rots from within. Globalism distorts your simplistic model.

That may be true, but unless he moved himself offshore, his money is still spent locally. Where the money "sits" is irrelevant. It's where it is spent that matters.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[AK Marc]

There will be no tax increase for those of us making under $250,000/yr

And so he will not increase taxes. That he taxes corporations and they pass along costs to people doesn't make it a lie. It makes him a politician. The taxes on the people making less than $250,000 will not change. Period. But if those evil corporations don't cut energy use, and instead choose to charge people more for products, that's their fault.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Alt_Cognito]

Correction. This will be a tax on the current generation of those countries who chose to adopt these regulations.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Rockoon]

If it's soooooo impossible, then we're all doomed.

This, vs the alternate bullshit, that we are all doomed if we dont do something to "fix" the "problem."

I have been telling everyone that the Global Warming scare will result in a power grab for years and years. This is seizing power over all industries in one fell swoop. This allows for the targeted taxation of any industry, any region, at will. Control over the instruments of labour (tools, factories, ..) and subjects of labour (natural resources and raw materials.)

Yeah... i'm sure its for the good of everybody... riiiight.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[AK Marc]

Lets hope we see the smallest amount of value before the American economy completely implodes.

Too late. Clinton managed to halt the growth of the debt, even sandwiched between two borrow-and-spend presidents. However, doing that again, with the additional debt Bush added would be nearly impossible. We'd need both sides to make concessions, and not the "concessions" where they aren't giving up their own pet projects, but instead letting the other guy spend more on his. Cut military in half. Cut health care spending in half (and I think that could be done without decreasing care at all, so that isn't a call to decrease coverage, but change the system so that costs and coverage are the primary concerns, not protecting the health care and insurance industries and AMA). Index SS (if it was indexed at the beginning, then we'd not be having any problems, but with people living longer, retiring later and such, the numbers don't work out). Pay back at least 5% of the debt per year (not 5% of the previous year each year, but to make the debt 0 in 20 years).

That's a simple plan. That plan would work. However, the Republicans would be against it because it cut military. The Democrats would be against it because it would appear to cut welfare. Pork is nothing in our budget, it's a billion here and a billion here in a multi-trillion dollar budget. If all the pork was cut, we still couldn't balance the budget, let alone start paying off the massive and debilitating debt. If the debt was gone now, our tax bill would be 25% less. Wouldn't you like a 25% decrease in taxes? If they cut spending enough to make my plan work, once the debt was paid off, taxes would be nearly half what they are now. Wouldn't you like lower taxes? Then make your politicians cut spending and pay back the debt.

I gave up. I'm leaving the country. The ship is sinking, and I'm the rat leaving the millions of captains to go down with it. Not that the global economy will do great when the US implodes, but that it will be better than being here. I'll come back in 30 years when everything recovers and it's the best country in the world again. At this point, the sooner it blows up, the sooner the US will be fixed. So I'm morbidly cheering for all plans that spend money without increasing taxes. That's one step closer to insolvency.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[diamondmagic]

If you force the employer to pay an income tax instead of the employee, does that no longer make it a tax? Of course not. The logic is ridiculous. Taxes can be most broadly defined as any government revenue, inflation (money printing) included, because no matter how they get it, it takes resources away from the people and makes living that much more expensive. This "Cap and trade" bill is a tax, plain and simple, on every single person, and it isn't even projected to do much to the climate to add insult to injury.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[vandon]

He also promised that there would be change:

He still supports not investigating the warrant-less wiretapping.

Despite having a majority in congress, Gitmo still isn't closed.

After promising all non-emergency bills would be posted to be read on the gov website, only 2 have been before he signed them and then only for 1 day in a non-searchable format.

He said that we have to bail out the automakers and not let them file bankruptcy for the good of the US, he only saved the CEOs and investors, then let them file for bankruptcy anyway.

He promised that there wouldn't be any new taxes on the middle or lower class, but most of the bills he's pushing amount to direct taxes on everyone. Cap and Trade=Fuel tax, National healthcare=tax hike for any employed American with health insurance, Raising capital gains taxes=tax hike on anyone with a 401k or IRA account.

The only thing that's changed in the whitehouse is that people stopped believing Bush's lies.
<sarcasm>At least we still have "hope"</sarcasm>

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Cyberax]

"and the ozone hole is actually not nearly as bad as we imagined when we started banning things"

Uhm. No, it's as bad as was predicted (http://vort.org/2009/05/14/world-avoided/). And banning CFCs in cooling systems was also necessary.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[Alaska Jack]

I realize that sounds like a sophisticated perspective, but consider another. The surest thing we can do to impoverish future generations is *impoverish ourselves*. By the same token, future generations gain by and build upon our own prosperity.

From reading some of the comments here, you'd never guess that our environment is in far better shape than it was 15 years ago, and it was in better shape then than the 15 years prior, etc. Almost every single enviromental indice is improving, and has been for a long time.

Note that this applies mainly to developed countries. But then, people who have been following the issues understand that developed countries is where environmental progress is made. We're the ones who have the time and resources to devote to environmental protection. This suggests that development is a good thing.

    - AJ

PS I don't pretend to know whether all the above is correct or not. Too many variables!

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[ScentCone]

I am sick of hearing people consider "growing the economy" the highest, most noble goal humankind can aspire to.

The only economy that can afford to invest in the shiny new technology that (as it has been doing for decades) improves our air/water quality, dramatically improves efficiencies and productivity per person and per acre and per hour... is a thriving and growing one.

His son isn't drafted to die in an oil field halfway across the world?

Yes, we're seeing a lot of that, now. The draft is a real burden. We may need one, though, when huge new taxes rock the economy, and places like Mexico completely fall apart at the seams.

His wife doesn't die of lung cancer from air pollution?

Maybe she should stop smoking. That's a much bigger problem than the pollution that we've hugely reduced over the last few decades. Of course, you trolling well know that.

having to wear oxygen masks when they go outside 40 years from now?

Yes, because if we don't do anything hugely punishing to everyone in the economy, we'll suddenly all be driving 1964 Buick station wagons again, with leaded gas.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[cayenne8]

"Responsible energy use is only a tax on the current generation. Future generations will have the benefit of this tax, including more oil, less pollution, less natural catastrophes, better environmental technology, and a more responsible culture. Indeed, the "free" oil we're burning today is a tax on future generations, who will pay the price for our selfish, short-sighted behaviour. I call the existing scheme of state-environment relations as the "fuck the kids" model."

Err...I'm here on earth living now...why do I give a fuck about 'future' generations? By the time they're here to bitch about it, I'll be cold and dead in the ground not caring.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[demachina]

"You don't purposefully pollute your environment because it's doomed anyway."

Fine. Assuming you live in the U.S. just don't come crying to me when you are living in a country which is completely bankrupt, where there are NO jobs, and where if you don't get foreign aid shipments from China you starve. Oh and by the way climate change will continue unabated while you are broke and starving. I am 100% behimd cap and trade. as long as you slap tarrifs on imports from China and India until they adopt it too. Simple solution, problem solved.

The U.S. is heading for third world status because we simply can't continue to drive all our jobs offshore, whether they be manufacturing or IT, import everything we consume through Walmart and run one and two trillion dollar current account deficits every year. Only reason we've gotten away with it this long is the dollar is still the world's reserve currency. If it weren't for that we would be borrowing money from the IMF to stay afloat like every other bankrupt country in the world. Due to our economic fiasco of the last year its unlikely the dollar will stay the reserve currency much longer. If the rest of the world dumps the dollar, or dollar hyperinflation sets in, you will be living in a bankrupt country.

If you can't put food on the table your priority on environmentalism will change fast, trust me. I tend to lean somewhat to pro environmentalism but my dad was born in the depression and knows what its like to starve. He hates environmentalists because to him most of them are spoiled rotten, don't work for a living and are living off the wealth their ancestors generated for them. None of them have ever had to live through really hard times. Environmentalists kill jobs and companies to save the environment with total disregard of the economic consequences. They can get away with it only because they are living off the vast wealth their ancestors created for them during the U.S. industrial boom when it polluted with abandon. That wealth is disappearing fast. When its gone all the environmentalists are in for a rude awakening when their bank accounts are empty, they have no jobs or a way to make money, and no food on the table. I hope they can survive in a barter economy. If you are an environmentalist living in a city... good luck.

We live in a globally competitive world, like it or not. The U.S. has, across a range of economic issues, committed unilateral economic disarmament, this is just another instance. We threw our markets wide open to free trade, but look the other way while China, India, Japan and Korea erect massive barriers to U.S. companies and imports. The Chinese manipulate their currency to insure we aren't competitive. When we took all the trade barriers down it became nearly impossible for U.S. workers to compete against Chinese workers making $100 a month, with no health insurance, no workmans'comp, in factories with no OSHA or EPA. Cap and trade is just the next step in economic capitulation to China and India.

Environmental protection is important, China pays a steep price for its life threatening pollution. A lot of the pollution in the U.S. in the 20th century was pure stupidity in the long run but greedy people trying to make a buck will do it, now its just the Chinese doing it instead of us.

About all I'm saying is the U.S. needs to refrain from further destroying its economy to try save the world, while China and India destroy it anyway and break us economically while they do it.

The only good solution here is to sink money in to a Manhattan project to develop a clean, cheap and abundant energy source like fusion. Our current approaches to green energy, relying on impractical initiatives like Ethanol, wind, solar and electric cars, and tax everything else to make them competitive just really isn't very smart. I hope cap and trade forces development of practical clean energy sources, but its not a given due to the stupidity of this country and especially our government sometimes. Somehow our g

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[ksheff]

No. That would be somewhat responsible. This will be spent on some other nonsense.

Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing

[demachina]

Yes I'm 100% against a one nation cap and trade system. It isn't going to save the climate, its just a government scheme designed to make some expensive methods of energy production competitive when they really aren't. Chances are high China will just keep using the cheap method, burning coal and since they manufacture everything now anyway, what America does is increasingly irrelevant. Maybe there will be a modest reduction of coal fired power plants in the U.S. but China will more than offset that.

The surest way to reduce green house emissions in the U.S. is to just finish destroying the U.S. economy. It wont take much effort, there really isn't much left of it once you get outside of federal spending. When there are no factories, no computers, we are all unemployed and too broke to buy anything, drive or pay the utility bills our green house gas production will dramatically fall. The current recession/depression is already significantly reducing our fossil fuel consumption. Just look on it as a preview of greater things to come.

Link to AP FAQ

[VinylRecords]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090626/ap_on_bi_ge/us_climate_q_a

I couldn't get the link to work in the main story so here it is via Yahoo!.

No real impact

[Gothmolly]

People will still drive SUVs, they will just complain about the price. People will still have widescreen TVs, they will just complain about the cost of electricity. What Washington constantly fails to realize is that you can't legislate tastes, attitudes, and morality. If people want to consume energy, they will. You need a cultural shift, where people no longer feel the need to have huge cars, new TVs, etc etc and THEN you'll see energy usage go down.

Re:No real impact

[Anonymous Coward]

Cultural shift in the people or in the government?

Probably both.

Re:No real impact

[Shanrak]

Well that right there is where the problem inherently lies. This is just a plain old tax, but instead of seemingly coming from the government, most people gets the impression that it is from the 'evil' corporations. Damn those car makers and electric companies raising the costs! If the government wants to generate revenue, RAISE THE TAXES and suffer the consequences, don't try to shift blame to corporations.

Re:No real impact

[Anonymous Coward]

No real impact

I think you couldn't be more wrong.

We've already seen with $4 / gallon gas prices, people will dramatically shift the types of cars they drive. Cap and Trade could raise the cost of gas well above this. Only the uber rich will be driving SUV's.

Raising the cost of electricity is inflationary in nature and will raise the cost of everything. We saw this already when oil and natural gas skyrocketed to unseen levels only a year or so ago. Given this fact, the hardest hit will be on the poorer side of the scale as even the smallest increases in costs take a much larger percentage of income. There will be a lot less wide-screen TV's being purchased, and most of them being in the homes of high-middle income earners.

What citizens haven't learned is that Washington politics are beholden to their lobbies (both sides of the isle) and this idea of cap and trade is scandalous right to the core. What good is cap and trade on global warming when all you do is tax manufacturing and jobs out of the US (which has some emissions controls) to other other countries (that have little to none)? You won't be doing the world any favors by pushing factories to another part of the world. You'll just be hurting your own country by destroying it's economy and probably destroying the world faster since those other countries allow you to pollute more as well as all goods will now have to be all shipped back to the places they use to be manufactured.

This has laws of unintended consequences all over this and your ignorant idea that "this will change nothing" couldn't be farther from the truth.

This will be the longest 4 years in America's history.

Re:No real impact

[jcr]

People will still drive SUVs, they will just complain about the price.

The USA isn't just the middle class. The people who will suffer the most from this new tax scheme are the people who are living hand-to-mouth, who are about to get fucked good and hard by the need to choose between driving to work or heating their homes.

You don't actually know any poor people, do you?

-jcr

Re:No real impact

[goldspider]

Exactly. Energy taxes are about as regressive as they come. Of course, I don't think it's a stretch to predict that this will be offset with an "tax credit" (read: subsidy) for low income workers.

Re:No real impact

[Steauengeglase]

This is about forcing the poor and lower-middle into shifting, they'll be the ones who will have no alternative, but fortunately they make up most of the population and seldom contribute to political campaigns. Then again, when someone making 24K a year can't get a loan to get a new car, well good luck with that. I guess they had better make sure they live in a city and rely on public transportation.

The part that perplexes me is why there isn't a tax credit for shippers? They need cheap fuel to transport goods, otherwise this whole world where I can go down to Wally World for a $3 pack of beer is over, literally overnight, not accounting for inevitable food shortages. Guess healthcare really will get better with all of these people walking everywhere and living off of greens they grew in their backyard.

Also, and this is by far the most galling part, why tax electricity? The area I live in is powered by a combination of nuclear and hydro-electric power, so I'll be nothing more than easy income for the Fed, unless I have a windmill in my backyard and then I'll get taxed by my city for noise pollution. I'm guessing this will be written off as a hand-of-one-is-the-hand-of-all type thing since power is shared across the grid.

Re:No real impact

[sumdumass]

I think your missing the forest for all the trees.

When gas prices raised and you think you saw habits change, most of those habits were actually reflections of people losing their jobs from the economy going stagnant because all disposable income was going into the gas tanks.

There is a point in which people cannot trim their gas usage any lower. Going to and from work is mandatory if you want to keep a job, regardless of what anyone thinks of public transportation, it's non-existent in many if not the majority of places.

Surcharges work only when you don't care about the impact it has on the people. Losing their jobs, their homes, choosing between food and gasoline, none of that is an acceptable option to me but it's exactly what happened when gas went to $4.00 a gallon so that you could see the change in habits.

You need to get over yourself and look at what is actually happening.

Good intentions

[brian0918]

Now, if only good intentions could justify the violation of individual rights, then they would have an argument.

Re:Good intentions

[copponex]

Since when is access to cheap and dirty energy a right? We share the same planet. My grandkids have the right to enjoy clean air, water, and a healthy environment that far outweighs your right to pollute it.

This is one of those holes in free market theory that we have to plug. The value of having a biosphere that supports human life is not zero.

Re:Good intentions

[Saint Stephen]

I think Stalin used quite similar reasoning for the forced starvation programs: the greater good, to bring Russia as a whole into the modern era.

Seriously, you thinking you have an answer to a problem -- that scares the hell out of me.

Re:Good intentions

[brian0918]

In a legal sense, you have the "right" to do what is permitted under the law.

I am not talking in the legal sense. I am talking in a moral sense - those inalienable rights necessary for a man to live his life, and further his values and goals.

All other rights are philosophical abstractions you've invented

Hmm? I have not invented them. In order for me to live, I must think and use my mind, and so I must be free to do so. Anyone who imposes force on me leads me to think irrationally, in opposition to my life and my values. So it is right for me to use my mind, and it is not right for others to impose force on me. Show me a person who can live and further their values by automatic action alone, as a plant would do.

show me this right of yours that allows you to emit as much carbon into the air as you want.

You mean the carbon that, when plotted next to global temperature, shows that increases in temperature lead to increases in C02, but not vice versa? Oh, but that's beside the point. Show me the health effects on you of my carbon emission, and you can sue me in court, and anyone else for that matter.

So, just to make sure I understand, your view is that we should not have laws that prohibit pollution outright, the problem should be solved entirely through lawsuits.

No, the problem should and would be solved through privatization.

"insatiable appetite for cheap electricity."

[bugeaterr]

The problem of too much cheap electricity is about to be solved.

Re:"insatiable appetite for cheap electricity."

[goldspider]

And nothing beats a recession quite like artificially jacking up the cost of energy for everybody.

Another bad move

[xednieht]

On the market side of things, it creates a market and industry based on pollution - carbon as a profit center is a bad, bad, idea. What business person wants lower profit, and by extension, lower carbon emissions? Under what extraordinary circumstances do you foresee greed taking a second seat to reason and logic?

Re:Another bad move

[ratnerstar]

Huh? Carbon isn't a profit center, it's a cost center: you pay for it. When you reduce the amount you emit, you make money. I've seen some pretty crazy arguments against this bill, but you're the first person to fundamentally misunderstand it. Congratulations.

Huzzah for my no emissions power plant!

[Duradin]

Sure it doesn't actually produce any energy, but it doesn't produce any CO2 either!

Now to sit back, get my pollution permits, resell them and profit!

So they want me to drive a hybrid.

[yourassOA]

So Al Gore can fly a jet. This isn't about polluting less it's about YOU polluting less so some rich asshole can pollute more.

Cap and Tax - we are so screwed.

[Shivetya]

Lets see, to get votes from Democrats in heavily affected states Pelosi will force upon us even more years and billions towards Ethanol. It is a 1200 page bill I doubt you will find if a small minority has read it all, let alone understands it. It will embed taxes while vilifying energy producers - the common theme of Washington - raising the cost of EVERYTHING.

The CBO report was hacked to make it look acceptable, real numbers by other groups put the cost from 1800 to 3000 per family.

I guess they have to rush to get their damage done in the two years they will have complete control. Honestly, once these timebombs start going off its going to flip the house and senate back. Maybe then we can have a real President and real Congress - ones so busy fighting each other that we get some protection from both.

As in, bring back a Republican majority in Congress and Democrat President who will fight them. Not this shit we have now where the President lets Congress run the ball and then claims credit for the touch down with the press dutifully cheering on the side lines with their pom poms.

Tax reform will never happen while government lives up the hidden power of embedded taxes.

National Energy Tax

[Jebinator]

Why not call it what it is? A tax increase for the entire nation based on how much energy you use. The EPA finally released a censored study last night that pointed out how much the EPA has been ignoring the real science of the matter. The EPA's 'endangerment' study was completely politicized. One of the e-mails from a superior to the employee who had worked at the EPA for 35 years and wanted the study released: "The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision... I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office." Look it up, you'll be disgusted as I am after hearing how many times people have said "The science is settled" to try and pass this extra tax.

Re:National Energy Tax

[kms_md]

here you go -- http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/mcgartland-carlin-epa-memo.jpg

Re:Tax & Tax

[bugeaterr]

In 2008 Americans voted "Yes (we can!)" to all of the above.

So long they hired a speed reader

[hansamurai]

This bill is so huge, Congress jokingly hired a speed reader to read through the bill after Republicans asked for it to be read aloud (giant waste of time to do in session). But honestly, if our Congressmen and women won't even read the bills they pass why the hell are they signing their names on them in the first place? There's undoubtedly so much pork in this bill it will cause problems above and beyond the things its addressing in the first place.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/05/speed_reader_brings_levity_to.html

The good part

[Bearded Frog]

The only good that could come from this bill is a national revolution. Hopefully that becomes the case if it passes. Hopefully it just doesn't.

nothing will come of it

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of California's mandate to only sell zero-emission cars by 2005.
This bill has no teeth for 10 years. It is full of exceptions for the biggest polluters until then. The politicians are demanding science come up with a solution within that time. When the deadline comes it will be repealed unless a scientific miracle happens.
But it does make the US look good. That is what Kyoto was about for the countries that did sign on. NONE OF THE SIGNERS FOLLOWED THROUGH ON THEIR PROMISES.

Tax & Kill

[jim9000]

Cap & Trade won't swap smokestacks for windmills. Instead, it will just push energy costs through the roof and push most manufacturing jobs that are left overseas where there are no pollution controls at all. For anyone who is left here, all of these costs will be pushed right on to the consumer, as no business can afford to absorb this massive tax increase, nor should they be expected to absorb it even if they could.

It won't push people into smaller cars. Americans spend too much time in our cars to drive around in a micro car. Not all of us live in big cities with public transportation and easy access to stores. The Smart Fortwo couldn't even fit a one week load of groceries for the average American family. We have states that are larger than entire countries in other parts of the world - what works for them doesn't work for us.

All of this for reducing Carbon Dioxide - which is not proven to be a pollutant, and for reducing global warming - even when there is no proof that human activities are impacting climate.

Creating Chaos for Profit

[Orne]

Put a cap on the emissions that industry can output, then create a market where companies can trade the right to pollute. Cap and Trade.

The big question is, what is this Change going to do to the US economy?

1. Create asymmetry between US industry and global industry for future growth. Why should I build my factory in the USA and go through the regulations when it just became more profitable to build it overseas?
2. Existing price structures are scrambled. Estimates from the power industry say that once you add in the costs of Cap-and-trade, this will make Coal more expensive than Natural Gas fuel, completely flipping the fuel makeups of almost all electricity production markets. Since Coal is used as fuel for about half of the energy production in the US, this will be disasterous to the wholesale markets. Since corporations always pass costs down to consumers, expect to see your retail electric bills go up by 5-15%, or an average of $700-1400 per family per year.
3. Who exactly is benefitting here? Estimates are that about $50 to $300 billion is getting ready to change hands, with the government running the auction for the "rights" to pollute. It essentially puts extra costs on industry that uses polluting fuels, and the claims are that some of the money will become subsidies to cleaner/greener energy producers. Since zero-emission technology is currently 3x as expensive as fossil based technologies, there will not be any savings to the public, hense the comparisons to a "tax" for the public.

While all of cap-and-trade appears very poorly thought out, Pres. Obama actually fully intended this to happen, as interviewed almost a year ago. So, hold on to your wallet, change is coming...

Re:Creating Chaos for Profit

[radtea]

Put a cap on the emissions that industry can output, then create a market where companies can trade the right to pollute

Exactly. Not a tax: a market. Just like the market in sulphur emissions that GHW Bush helped create back in the day, that took acid rain from a big problem to a minor one.

Opponents of this bill hate capitalism, pure and simple. They hate markets and they hate property rights. Creating property rights in the atmospheric commons for the purpose of capturing externalities has been the preferred approach to pollution abatement amongst proponents of free markets for decades. Now that that dream is becoming a reality the anti-capitalist oligarchs of existing industries, which have built their businesses around dumping in the commons, are up in arms about it.

But don't kid yourself for a moment: cap and trade is a market-based solution to the problem. You are free to disagree that dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is a legitimate problem. That is certainly open to debate, and I might even be on your side. But if you hate cap and trade, you hate capitalism.

Re:Creating Chaos for Profit

[mpapet]

Who exactly is benefitting here?

Government owning the rights to pollute doesn't mean they stand to benefit the most.

The Investment Banking cohorts JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are the **huge** winners. How?
1. They take a cut of every transaction. The more valuable the credits, the more they earn. So the value of the business is guaranteed to increase every year.
2. They arbitrage the market. There is a spread that develops between an asking and a selling price in any given market. you can place bets on the spread among other neat ways to make money.
3. They game the market. Recent economic history is full of deregulated energy schemes that had huge artificial spreads between demand, supply and price.

Rolling Stone has a nice article on Goldman Sachs absolutely worth your time. If you read it, please realize it is exactly that bad. http://d.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=16763183&access_key=key-aq99m8654zlwmm5muht&page=1&version=1&viewMode=

It essentially puts extra costs on industry that uses polluting fuels,
Right. The idea is to have the worst polluters 'taxed.' That tax defrays the public health costs of pollution. For example, if there were 10,000 less instances of cancer that kills people, there would be meaningful savings in medical expenditures. Now, that is not to say this scheme will not blow up in a mushroom cloud of corruption. Because it is. GS and JPM are behind it 100%. That's a clue that it's bad to the core.

If I followed the logic as laid out in most of the replies, then most regulations with a public health savings angle should be abolished. We should go back to the 1940's and have cars that kill people instead of absorbing impact, cigarettes for everyone and smoked everywhere just to name two.

How about expressing your dissatisfaction by getting involved in the political process instead?

Re:Creating Chaos for Profit

[bahwi]

"expect to see your retail electric bills go up by 5-15%, or an average of $700-1400 per family per year.
x * 0.15 = $1400
$1400/0.15 = 9333.33- / 12 = $777.77-

WHO SPENDS $800 a month on electricity already? If you're electric bill is already $10k it sounds like a small increase!

Know what you're talking about. And as a hint, we already pay taxes on this kind of crap, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund
this is just taxing the companies while they exist, instead of having them pay their employees and the citizens having to pay to clean it up while the business gets off scott free.

Peak Oil necessitates energy conservation

[javacowboy]

So far all I've read in this thread are posters decrying this as a massive tax grab. That's a limited perspective, to say the least.

Yeah, mod me down as a paranoid troll, but we're already passed Peak Oil.

For those who don't understand what Peak Oil is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

Basically, it's what is IMO a fact, that oil production/extraction will peak at a certain level (X number of barrels per day) and then begin an inexorable decline. Whether or not this output is replaced by alternative energy remains to be seen.

Nonetheless, most people don't understand how much energy we get from oil. Oil is the densest, easiest to transport, and most reliable energy source available. Once it's gone, alternatives will fall short of those standards:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3084

The total oil production volume amounted to a cubic mile (not a type) of oil per year. To equal this, it would take 104 coal fired plants running for 50 years, 52 nuclear plants running for 50 years, 32, 800 wind turbines running for 50 years.... you get the picture.

So when oil production starts winding down, we'll be hard-pressed to replace that output. The only way we can aspire to coming close to equaling that output is through energy consumption and more efficient use of energy. So far, the government's record on this is pathetic, and the private sector has had, at best, limited results.

Re:Peak Oil necessitates energy conservation

[maxume]

There isn't anything particularly crazy or stupid about using the cheapest available resource. Peak oil mongering is often based around the implied assumption that the decline will come in the form of a shock, requiring us to immediately replace all of the cheap oil in one fell swoop. Reality suggests that the price of oil will go up as it becomes more difficult to extract, leading to the gradual replacement of oil consumption over time (and each time someone comes up with a price viable replacement, it reduces the demand for the remaining oil, further smoothing out the transition).

Re:Peak Oil necessitates energy conservation

[Delwin]

Cap and trade doesn't target oil very much - what it really targets is coal.

Re:Peak Oil necessitates energy conservation

[Attila Dimedici]

And when that point is reached the price of oil will increase causing other sources of energy to be more cost effective. There has been a constant banging on this idea of limited resources. There was once talk similar to the Peak Oil idea about coal. William Stanley Jevons (one of the pre-eminent economists of the 19th century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stanley_Jevons) argued that coal would run out and that there was no possible substitute for it. There were other people around the same time making similar predictions.

Re:Peak Oil necessitates energy conservation

[Itchyeyes]

The complaints against this bill have nothing to do with the spirit of it and everything to do with the structure of it. Taxes, any taxes, have distortionary economic effects. Some of these effects can be good, such as discouraging the use of carbon emitting fuels. Others are bad, such as making goods and services more expensive for consumers. Ideally, the government would enact a carbon tax and offset the tax by reducing personal income and corporate taxes proportionally. This leads to a marginal cost increase on burning fossil fuels without increasing the overall cost of goods and services to consumers and businesses.

But this is not what's happening. Instead of viewing this as an opportunity to enact beneficial legislation, our congressmen have instead opted to see it as an opportunity to increase government revenue. The pitfalls to the proposed system are numerous. As previously mentioned the first drawback is that consumers and businesses will immediately see prices on nearly all products go up. There has been discussion of granting permits to selected firms for free at the beginning. This is a fools bargain. See here for a detailed explanation why, but the net effect of such legislation is to essentially pass the proceeds from a carbon tax directly to the firms granted the permits. Not to mention that it opens up the entire system to immense potential for corruption, as permits will very likely be traded as political favors to campaign contributors, and it puts the government in the position of essentially selecting which companies to grant a massive competitive advantage to.

Yes carbon emissions and dwindling fossil fuels are serious problems, and we as a nation need to take steps to mitigate their effects. But this bill is quite possibly the worst was to do so. It incorporates nearly every unnecessary drawback to such legislation. It's a poorly written bill from top to bottom that accomplishes as little as possible. And it will pass, because the average American is too blinded by the promise of such a law to notice how absolutely terrible the details of it are, and any congressman who wants to be reelected would be a fool to vote against it.

Re:Peak Oil necessitates energy conservation

[limaxray]

the incentive is to extract oil as quickly as possible

That's actually not true at all. The idea is to extract oil at a controlled rate given the estimated rate of consumption and the desired market price. This is because oil producers know they have a limited supply of oil, and extracting it as quickly as possible will only flood the market causing prices to drop, and thus severely hurting their profits in the long term.

Furthermore, you fail to take into account new oil extraction technologies. Oil companies spend large sums on researching methods to better extract oil. This equates to new methods that allow more oil to be extracted from exiting fields and previously unknown or unreachable fields to be tapped.

The argument that peak oil will cause a sudden, catastrophic jump in energy cost is seriously flawed. In reality, it will (is) gradually wean the world off oil. Energy prices have been on a steady increase for sometime now and has thus spurred individuals and corporations alike to seek more efficient ways of doing things.

Re: Sig

[maxume]

Insinuating Obama is more responsible than Bush for the state of today's economy is a particularly impressive piece of mental Judo.

Of course, we can't leave out all the folks who made impressive regulatory errors over the last 10 years, and all the businesses who operated dishonestly, folks from every nook and cranny of American politics.

Cap and Tax

[lgb]

This will be the largest tax increase in United States history. The House Dems are rushing this bill through without even reading the bill. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html

Solution

[SuperKendall]

Obama promised that taxes would not go up for 95% of Americans.

Congratulations. You are no longer an American, but a Citizen Of The World (tm).

Here's you new tax bill.

....the "starve and freeze" bill.

[Joce640k]

Complete the following sentence: The USA needs 25% of the world's energy because...?

Re:Horrible Idea

[jcr]

Sorry you're stupid enough to believe that mentioning fox is some kind of magic word that lets Obama off the hook.

Take a look at the scoreboard: he claims that he's entitled to violate the right of habeus corpus. He promised an end to the DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries; what he actually delivered was a one-week hiatus. He has made no move to investigate (let alone prosecute) anyone for torturing prisoners. He's done precisely squat about his campaign promises regarding gay rights. He appointed a member of the Federal Reserve board of governors as the secretary of the treasury.

As for the economy, he's continued and compounded all of Bush's mistakes. Bush was a failure as a businessman; Obama never even attempted any endeavor where he had responsibility to investors, employees and customers.

Face it, the man is an empty suit. He's Mitt Romney with a better-sounding script in the teleprompter.

-jcr

Re:Gas

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee. Britain is also about the size of one of our less-populated states. I wonder if that has something to do with your lower per-capita gasoline consumption?

Economic suicide

[Experiment 626]

A proposed amendment to the Cap and Trade Tax sought to provide a safety valve in case it goes horribly awry and trashes the economy. It stipulated that if gasoline reached $5 a gallon or unemployment hit 15%, the tax would go away. Sponsors of the bill basically argued that destroying the economy was not a bug but a feature, and rejected this.

If you think the current recession is bad, it's going to get a lot worse if this tax becomes law.

politics as usual

[shystershep]

They told me that if I voted for McCain, science would continue to be subverted in favor of religion and political expediency. And they were right!

It'll screw us all and achieve nothing.

[dfenstrate]

While I don't expect a Chomsky fan to have any reasoning abilities found outside of a college sophomore with a chip on his shoulder, I'll respond anyway for other readers.

Whether or not we have a 'right' to cheap energy is besides the point. The bill will be completely inneffective while gutting our economy.

1) China and Russia are laughing at us. This act will artificially drive up the price of cheap-carbon based fuel in the US, reducing US demand. Reduced US demand will lower the global price, making oil and coal MORE attractive options for the rest of the world. Their increased use will more than offset any possible reductions we could do, with this bill or any other.

2) Folks like you are willing to spend billions of dollars and eviscerate our economy on the trillion dollar scale in a futile and arrogant attempt to turn back the clock. None from your side has ever talked about how we would deal with increased global temperatures, how we might mitigate any rising sea levels, or what the potential upsides to global warming are.

(These first two points are valid regardless of whether or not you're a global warming believer)

3) The climate is always changing, even before we started emitting massive amounts of carbon or anything else. Go look up climate history and see that the best reconstructed information we have, in recorded human history and prior, shows the climate has been significantly warmer and significantly cooler than it is now.

The term 'global warming' lately has even been replaced with the term 'climate change.' This should tip off any prudent observer that it's all a blatant move to grab money and power. The climate is always changing, and as such, in the 'Climate Change' political environment, will always serve as a convienent excuse to expand taxes and the suffocating regulatory state.

The problem isn't carbon emissions, the problem is folks like you who think they're infinately wiser than their fellow man and the free market, and see no problem with grasping all the money and power they can in order to force their good intentions on the rest of us.

And don't you dare talk to me like I favor large smoke stacks bellowing thick black smoke over American cities, and dumping nasty chemicals into rivers. We solved those problems decades ago and I'm fine with that sort of regulation. Now we've got arrogant do-gooders on a mission with nothing good to do, and we'll all suffer for their hubris if not stopped.

Re:It'll screw us all and achieve nothing.

[copponex]

While I don't expect a Chomsky fan to have any reasoning abilities found outside of a college sophomore with a chip on his shoulder, I'll respond anyway for other readers.

I'm just starting college, actually. I never went after high school.

1) China and Russia are laughing at us. This act will artificially drive up the price of cheap-carbon based fuel in the US, reducing US demand. Reduced US demand will lower the global price, making oil and coal MORE attractive options for the rest of the world. Their increased use will more than offset any possible reductions we could do, with this bill or any other.

Citation?

2) Folks like you are willing to spend billions of dollars and eviscerate our economy on the trillion dollar scale in a futile and arrogant attempt to turn back the clock. None from your side has ever talked about how we would deal with increased global temperatures, how we might mitigate any rising sea levels, or what the potential upsides to global warming are.

We've spent tens of trillions of dollars investing in arms and killing people for the last fifty years. Do you think that's a better investment?

3) The climate is always changing, even before we started emitting massive amounts of carbon or anything else. Go look up climate history and see that the best reconstructed information we have, in recorded human history and prior, shows the climate has been significantly warmer and significantly cooler than it is now.

So the weather changes, but burning up every drop of biomass stored in the earths crust in 150 years won't make a bit of difference, despite the fact that it's taken hundreds of millions of years to form in the first place.

The term 'global warming' lately has even been replaced with the term 'climate change.' This should tip off any prudent observer that it's all a blatant move to grab money and power. The climate is always changing, and as such, in the 'Climate Change' political environment, will always serve as a convienent excuse to expand taxes and the suffocating regulatory state.

Yes, the scientists have all banded together to RULE THE WORLD by telling us not to kill the planet and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Just like their conspiracy to deny the true fact of creation! Quick, someone call someone, and do something!

The problem isn't carbon emissions, the problem is folks like you who think they're infinately wiser than their fellow man and the free market, and see no problem with grasping all the money and power they can in order to force their good intentions on the rest of us.

The free market isn't wise. It has no self-awareness. It does not care if the human race survives, and is very poor at predicting the future or caring if we're in it.

And here's a shocker: scientists are you fellow man. So are politicians. Not every one of them is an evil person scheming to steal from you. Corporations, however, are legally required to dedicate themselves to scheming and profit. Otherwise their board is sued by the shareholders.

And don't you dare talk to me like I favor large smoke stacks bellowing thick black smoke over American cities, and dumping nasty chemicals into rivers. We solved those problems decades ago and I'm fine with that sort of regulation. Now we've got arrogant do-gooders on a mission with nothing good to do, and we'll all suffer for their hubris if not stopped.

I'll talk to you however I please. Those smokestacks have simply been moved elsewhere, and many American cities still suffer from pollution due to coal fired power plants that are not clean. Why did our jobs and the smokestacks get up and leave? Because dogmatic adherence to the free market - from people like you - led people to believe that buying cheap electronics from Asia instead of paying decent prices for American made products wouldn't hurt anybody. Take a look at any river in China or our manufacturing sector, and you'll see why I have to disagree.

YES!!

[MinistryOfTruthiness]

They sunk that low a long time ago. It's just that the people who should have been calling them on it were too caught up in their Bush-bashing frenzy to care. They were just happy that the media was so biased in their favor. It won't be long until we see the real fruits of a media that doesn't question authority, and instead revels in a sycophantic love fest with said authority.

The media should be questioning Cap and Trade, Health Care Reform, voter fraud, and yes, even presidential eligibility (if only for the purpose of laying the issue to rest) with the same zeal that they showed for mocking Bush every time he mispronounced a word. Mispronounced words don't ruin lives and economies, but these things just might. Where's the in-depth analysis? I don't see it -- for or against. Where's the investigation into winners and losers? We sure heard enough about "big oil" during the Bush years.

The Freedom of the Press was to safeguard their ability to question authority. What they're doing now is betraying that sacred trust and, in my opinion, endangering it by allowing the government to empower itself further and further without resistance or investigation. When the government decides that a free press is too dangerous to allow, the media will probably not have the influence necessary to fight it. They're already at record low levels in viewership because people just don't care about them anymore. Most people see their propaganda for what it is and are getting their news elsewhere -- from blogs if need be -- because at least those sources are genuine and up-front about their biases. The recent "infomercial" and White House-controlled media events are only a further indication of the future path of independent (non-government-run) media.

YES, real, unbiased reporting is just about dead, replaced by the new generation of pundit-reporters who thinks that it's their job to convince people rather than report the facts of the matter. I'm just waiting for these "reporters" to start crying that their business is dead, when it was them that held the pillow over its face.

1/4 of energy for 1/4 of GDP

[tepples]

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).

Yet more jobs to be shipped south of the border

[codepunk]

Get ready to see even more jobs being shipped south of the border if this is implemented. Simple economics
really, cheaper labor and now we add yet another reason not to produce anything in the US by increasing
energy prices.

Re:Gas

[EastCoastSurfer]

Mass transit for passengers and cargo makes the most sense, but the powerful car lobby has lobbied against that for years. Where is all the high speed rail that would actually get people out of their cars? Instead of wasting money bailing out car companies why not use that same money to figure out ways to get us out of the need for owing a call all together?

Re:Gas

[Moryath]

You can also drive across the entirety of Britain on one tank of gas, because it's that fucking tiny and it's uniformly in a temperate zone that makes bicycling feasibly almost year-round.

Now try that in, say, Arizona during the month of July. I hope you allotted time to get a shower and change into your work clothes in the morning, and another to get home and do the same. Oh, wait, are we having a drought too?

Energy usage goes up based on where you live. Not everyone lives in shitty little teeny-tiny island nations that get a kick out of trying to out-socalist their neighbors.

Public Good? Public Grant.

[Bob9113]

First: the fundamental problem: We live in a global economy. This will absolutely increase the cost of domestically produced carbon-intensive goods relative to foreign produced carbon intensive goods from countries that are not affected by the program (unless we implement an import tariff to match the internal effective tax).

That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but it is a fact which must be weighed when considering the program.

I still like the idea, though I would want the allotment (see below) to be high enough that it would be more of a gentle nudge than a baseball bat.

That's the problem, and my take, on the general concept. As for this specific embodiment, it is going to be a gigantic corruption engine, passing money from the biggest polluters to the most unscrupulous politicians, regulators, and lobbyists. But it can be solved, if you like the gentle nudge idea (or even if you like the baseball bat idea).

The first step in a cap-and-trade program sets a limit on the amount of gases that can be released into the atmosphere. That is the cap. Companies with facilities that are covered by the cap will then receive permits for their share of the pollution, an annual pollution allowance. This bill initially would give the bulk of the permits away for free to help ease costs, but they still would have value because there would be a limited supply.

So, what portion of those initial free credits do I get? Who decides how much each company gets? Is it based on industry? Revenue? Profit? Market cap? Campaign contributions?

My guess is that this is going to be another gigantic paean to incumbents and the big shaft for startups.

Here's my proposal:

Every U.S. voting citizen gets an equal share, to do with as they please, apportioned annually. Corps don't get any -- they have to buy them from citizens. Give yours to your employer, sell it, sit on it, whatever. After all, this is a public good that is up for sale, right? What possible fair system could be established for the government picking which corps to give them to?

To keep the prices reasonable at first, start with massive over-subscription. Allot 1,000,000x what we're producing now. That should solve the problems of the initial market not existing. Then just lower the rate by 10x per year until we get to the desired level. But don't just hand these things out to the biggest incumbents and screw new business.

Note that this approach would achieve exactly the objective:

People who want to "be green" can sit on their credits, and forgo the money.

People who consume less carbon-intensive products would pay less of the "passed on" cost from companies that have to buy lots of credits.

People who are willing to pay for carbon intensive goods can, and the glorious free market hands that money to people who make sacrifices to reduce carbon consumption.

Adjusting the annual allotment naturally adjusts the price.

No single person, whether CEO, laborer, politician, lobbyist, or EPA regulator, gets any disproportionate share of the public good.

Companies that cut carbon emissions can put their products on the market at a lower price.

The solution as proposed only achieves the last piece, and that only in an extraordinarily corruption-sensitive way.

Limitless energy

[Jeremi]

Perhaps we can find a way to harness the power of Americans whining about their as-yet-imaginary future energy bills? That would give us a wealth of power for decades.

Seriously guys, nad up. You all sound like Neville Chamberlain whining about how difficult and expensive fighting the Germans is going to be, and how they'll probably go away by themselves if we just continue to ignore them for another couple of years.

Existing laws against nuclear, wind, and solar

[tepples]

Clearly you don't have a legal mind. We're not talking about a cap on real emissions here, only on taxable emissions.

The emissions used in building a wind or solar plant or in upgrading the grid are taxable.

Pollute all you want while putting up a HVDC backbone; as long as you do it from sources that aren't covered by this legislation, the planet is saved!

What I'm trying to get at is that wind, solar, nuclear, and the like are ruled out by existing legislation. Nuclear, for instance, runs up against homeland security. Wind and solar run up against zoning (aka "NIMBY") laws.

Stupidity at it's worst

[BCW2]

If anyone thinks that crap and trap will have a 1 degree effect on global temperature over the next 20 years they are fools. This is just a far left energy tax because they hate coal and oil.
Raising eveyones utility bills 40%+over the next 5 years will turn the recession into a depression. Have fun y'all.

Re:Gas

[michaelhood]

get us out of the need for owing a call all together?

Hear, hear.

I, for one, lose sleep at night knowing I owe a call.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Gas

[rhakka]

True. But people do have a choice in where they choose to live. and choosing to live a commute from work in a hot region has consequences. And when we as a society decide that individuals must PAY THE COST OF THEIR OWN CHOICES... as we would with appropriate energy costs that take into account external costs we have gotten used to being shielded from... then people will have to deal with those consequences.

it sucks for the first people who have to change... such as me, who stupidly bought a house a half hour from my office and can't sell it, so I must commute as I don't have time for 3 hours of biking a day, minimum... but hey, thems the breaks. We also had the benefit of stupidly cheap energy for a long time, which is more than anyone coming after us will be able to say.

This is an optional tax. We can use less energy. We may not be able to do it with 70 degree thermostats year round, 30 MPG cars if we're lucky, and without planning our trips to the store a little better, but it can be done. This removes our ability to ignore the consequence of our actions. Nothing more.

The sky is not falling

[Explodicle]

I'm seeing a lot of comments here along the lines of "Dear god, we're going to be living out of cardboard boxes! This bill will devastate the economy! How could all these moron politicians not understand us armchair economists?"

I'd like to invite you folks to RTFA from the Huffington Post. (Emphasis mine)

Q: How quickly will we notice these changes?
A: Some will occur more quickly than others. For instance, measures to boost energy efficiency in buildings and appliances are the low-hanging fruit that does not require major infrastructure changes or new technologies. Other changes are decades off and probably will come when the cap gets more stringent and permits get more expensive. For instance, the country can build more wind and more solar panels, but currently it lacks the transmission lines to move the energy they generate to population centers. As for cars: While more efficient models are a near-term reality, it will take a while to change out the fleet. Some people will continue driving 10-year-old gas guzzlers.

Re:The sky is not falling

[random coward]

Problem is that the bill is 1200 pages long and it was finally published LAST NIGHT . No one knows exactly what is in there. This was written by staffers in closed sessions with no recordings. No one knows who added what. Who honestly thinks that any of the congressmen/women who are debating on this and voting on this at this very minute know what they're getting? They're buying a pig in a poke. And it is probably worse than anyone thinks for our economy, while doing nothing to help the environment. Hell GREENPEACE OPOSSES IT! This is a nasty kickback giving smoke filled backroom produced bill. The only known fact is that Al Gore's company and Nancy Pelosi's companies will make a mint on this legislation.

Re:Gas

[johnlcallaway]

Creating bills to reduce consumption have a higher impact the lower your wages are. If 10% of a person's income is spent on gasoline, and gas goes up 100%, then they are affected more than someone whose fuel costs are 1% of their income. It's a hidden 'tax' by the government that will impact lower income people far more than higher income people. When gas rose to $4/gallon and my monthly gas bill increased by $200/month, I was able to absorb the increased cost by reducing what I saved WITHOUT having to reduce my consumption. People who don't save and are living paycheck to paycheck either have to drive less or give up something in their already tapped out expenses.

And since this will impact EVERYTHING, including necessities like food and heating/cooling costs, that will drive down the ability for lower income people to purchase things like cars, movie tickets, etc., further forcing the economy down into a hell hole just so Congress can get some slush funds.

Notice how now one has specified yet that the MONEY resulting from this bill has no dedicated purpose?? Congress will be free to direct it wherever they want. And the only jobs created will be those like Wall Street brokers, buying and selling no product and contributing nothing to the GDP. (This isn't a slam on Wall Street brokers, but moving money from one place to another doesn't improve the economy, creating a real product does.) It's like trying to fill up a pool by taking water from the deep end and pouring it in the shallow end.

The good news is that in two to four years of this, the country can revolt, kick all the Democrats out, and we can then repeal the bill before too much damage is done.

Re:Gas

[hairyfeet]

Come to a state like AR. Here there is zero public transport, the average work commute is about 50+ miles each way(because you can't afford to live in the cities except for the "welcome to the jungle" section) and there simply isn't any other way. What are we supposed to do, walk 100 miles a day? Ride buses that don't actually exist?

All this crap is cooked up by elitist east and west coast dwellers where there is plenty of public transport like subways and buses. But it will totally kill life in the south, and we are hurting enough already. So say goodbye to all the goods and services you got coming from south of the Mason/Dixon line. Because if crap like this passes our unemployment will shoot through the roof as folks get fired because they simply can't afford to come to work.

Behavior

[copponex]

The price of gas has changed behavior. Britons rarely consider just driving across their country because of the expense. They don't consider having a 30 mile commute because of the expense. They don't consider buying a 6 liter engine because of the expense. Where I live, commuters drive 100 million miles a day just to go to work and back again. That's just fucking madness.

Communities in areas with realistic gas prices are built accordingly. America can choose to be inconvenienced today or be totally noncompetitive tomorrow if we don't make changes to oil usage. If you want to sentence your children to spending half of their money getting to and from work, that's a choice, but not a very smart one.

Mass transit only works ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Mass transit for passengers and cargo makes the most sense, ...

Mass transit only makes sense when you have masses of people concentrated in one place to be transported to another concentrated place. It potentially works in dense and/or inner cities (and boo on the companies that sabotaged it). But it's not a panacea.

Of course with the Obama administration's admiration of plans to demolish thin parts of cities and pack the people into a dense core where "services may be more effectively delivered", as was proposed for Flint MI, you might have more of that situation in the future.

But for suburbs, rural areas, or the wide-open spaces, forget it. Figure that anywhere that doesn't have fiber to the curb by now (and a lot of places that do) will be situated so that private cars will always be a better deal, energetically and financially, than mass transit.

Where is all the high speed rail that would actually get people out of their cars?

Places with such dense population concentrations, such as Japan.

Remember that the US is spread out over most of a CONTINENT. We have counties larger than some European countries, and large areas where the gas stations are more than 100 miles apart and the nearest sheriff might be a day's drive away IF weather is permitting.

(Beware the "all states are the same size" phenomenon of all MAPS being sized to be held but scaled so the mapped area fits. This leads to things like the Japanese executives, when they couldn't get a flight into Detroit Metro to go to a meeting, noticing that O'Hare was "right next to it" and flying there - then being surprised when it took all day to drive to detroit. Or Chrysler closing so many dealers in the larger western states that you have to take your car over 300 miles to get dealer service.)

Re:Gas

[sofar]

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

Re:Gas

[KDR_11k]

If the cost of transportation goes up I expect the rents of the houses that require longer commutes to drop. As long as it's cheap to drive long distances there's no major disadvantage to being far away from the city and no big decrease in demand.

He wasn't lying

[snowwrestler]

Cap and trade will not increase my taxes, it will increase the prices of energy I buy.

Obama is and was playing to his base, who share two attributes--they don't like big corporations and they have a poor grasp of macroeconomics.

You and I know that there is no practical difference in my first sentence--either way I'm paying more money. But there are a lot of people who think we can raise taxes on big companies and the money will just come from "somewhere" to pay them. The rest of us know that higher corporate taxes are passed right on to the consumer as higher prices.

Of course things can be just as bad on the other side, where some people seem to think that all of climate science is a conspiracy led by Al Gore.