Cap And Trade Even Worse Than First Thought
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Gary [email protected]
I painted it as a counterproductive abomination that will do little to stave off global warming and much to be a burden on the "95 percent of working-class Americans" President Obama likes to talk about helping[[In-content Ad]]Turns out it's much worse than that.
Since the bill was almost 1,500 pages long, most House Republicans and Democrats - by their own admission - didn't read it before voting.
When I wrote about it last week, very few people outside the Beltway had even seen it, let alone read it.
Well, now people have read it. Stephen Spruiell and Kevin Williamson, of the National Review, have read it.
They wrote an article under the title:
A Garden of Piggish Delights.
Waxman-Markey is part power-grab, part enviro-fantasy. Here are 50 reasons to stop it.
Now, to be sure, the National Review leans conservative in its political ideology. But that certainly doesn't erase the abject insanity of this piece of legislation.
Here's a portion of their foreward:
Two main things to understand about Waxman-Markey: First, it will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least not at any point in the near future. The inclusion of carbon offsets, which can be manufactured out of thin air and political imagination, will eliminate most of the demands that the legislation puts on industry, though in doing so it will manage to drive up the prices consumers pay for every product that requires energy for its manufacture - which is to say, for everything. Second, it represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together. Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison. From comic bureaucratic power grabs (check out the section of the bill on candelabras) to the creation of new welfare programs for Democratic constituencies to, above all, massive giveaways for every financial, industrial, and political lobby imaginable, this bill would permanently deform American politics and economic life.
You can read the entire article article here:
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=YTc1MmVhMGYxY2UzNzAwMTJlODBjZjg2NDJjNmM2MWE=
It's lengthy. It runs to around 4,200 words, but I recommend you read every one of them. And then I recommend you get ahold of Indiana Senators Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar and beg them to kill this horrible piece of legislation.
Let's just take a look at one little section - section 304.
That's where the government tells you you have to retrofit your house, more or less.
The legislation requires states to label buildings - residential and non-residential - as to their energy efficiency. It also requires that information be made public.
How would they do that?
Well, according to the bill, there are several events that could trigger a state inspection.
Quoting from the bill:
(A) preparation, and public disclosure of the label through filing with tax and title records at the time of--
(i) a building audit conducted with support from Federal or State funds;
(ii) a building energy-efficiency retrofit conducted in response to such an audit;
(iii) a final inspection of major renovations or additions made to a building in accordance with a building permit issued by a local government entity;
(iv) a sale that is recorded for title and tax purposes consistent with paragraph (8);
(v) a new lien recorded on the property for more than a set percentage of the assessed value of the property, if that lien reflects public financial assistance for energy-related improvements to that building; or
(vi) a change in ownership or operation of the building for purposes of utility billing; or
(B) other appropriate means.
So it seems if you want to renovate or sell your house, the state could swoop in and inspect your house to determine its energy efficiency.
So what? Well, the state could ask you to bring your house or business into compliance with new energy efficiency ratings spelled out in the bill.
That could cost a bundle, but no worries. there's the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Purposes program. It pools up money in all the states for property owners to green up their homes - up to $12,000 per home.
Well, kind of.
There's this maximum percentage clause that says the award can't exceed 50 percent of the cost for each building, no matter what the cost.
So the homeowner's on the hook for half.
Ah, but none of this is mandatory. That's to say, states don't have to go along with it.
Whew!
Of course, if they don't, they stand to lose billions in federal revenue. It's the classic carrot and stick deal.
And everything I've read about Sec. 304 notes that it is just one tiny little morsel of what's in store for us if this legislation passes.
The good news is that I believe the US Senate will water this stuff down or eliminate it altogether. This bill can't pass as is.
I painted it as a counterproductive abomination that will do little to stave off global warming and much to be a burden on the "95 percent of working-class Americans" President Obama likes to talk about helping[[In-content Ad]]Turns out it's much worse than that.
Since the bill was almost 1,500 pages long, most House Republicans and Democrats - by their own admission - didn't read it before voting.
When I wrote about it last week, very few people outside the Beltway had even seen it, let alone read it.
Well, now people have read it. Stephen Spruiell and Kevin Williamson, of the National Review, have read it.
They wrote an article under the title:
A Garden of Piggish Delights.
Waxman-Markey is part power-grab, part enviro-fantasy. Here are 50 reasons to stop it.
Now, to be sure, the National Review leans conservative in its political ideology. But that certainly doesn't erase the abject insanity of this piece of legislation.
Here's a portion of their foreward:
Two main things to understand about Waxman-Markey: First, it will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least not at any point in the near future. The inclusion of carbon offsets, which can be manufactured out of thin air and political imagination, will eliminate most of the demands that the legislation puts on industry, though in doing so it will manage to drive up the prices consumers pay for every product that requires energy for its manufacture - which is to say, for everything. Second, it represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together. Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison. From comic bureaucratic power grabs (check out the section of the bill on candelabras) to the creation of new welfare programs for Democratic constituencies to, above all, massive giveaways for every financial, industrial, and political lobby imaginable, this bill would permanently deform American politics and economic life.
You can read the entire article article here:
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=YTc1MmVhMGYxY2UzNzAwMTJlODBjZjg2NDJjNmM2MWE=
It's lengthy. It runs to around 4,200 words, but I recommend you read every one of them. And then I recommend you get ahold of Indiana Senators Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar and beg them to kill this horrible piece of legislation.
Let's just take a look at one little section - section 304.
That's where the government tells you you have to retrofit your house, more or less.
The legislation requires states to label buildings - residential and non-residential - as to their energy efficiency. It also requires that information be made public.
How would they do that?
Well, according to the bill, there are several events that could trigger a state inspection.
Quoting from the bill:
(A) preparation, and public disclosure of the label through filing with tax and title records at the time of--
(i) a building audit conducted with support from Federal or State funds;
(ii) a building energy-efficiency retrofit conducted in response to such an audit;
(iii) a final inspection of major renovations or additions made to a building in accordance with a building permit issued by a local government entity;
(iv) a sale that is recorded for title and tax purposes consistent with paragraph (8);
(v) a new lien recorded on the property for more than a set percentage of the assessed value of the property, if that lien reflects public financial assistance for energy-related improvements to that building; or
(vi) a change in ownership or operation of the building for purposes of utility billing; or
(B) other appropriate means.
So it seems if you want to renovate or sell your house, the state could swoop in and inspect your house to determine its energy efficiency.
So what? Well, the state could ask you to bring your house or business into compliance with new energy efficiency ratings spelled out in the bill.
That could cost a bundle, but no worries. there's the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Purposes program. It pools up money in all the states for property owners to green up their homes - up to $12,000 per home.
Well, kind of.
There's this maximum percentage clause that says the award can't exceed 50 percent of the cost for each building, no matter what the cost.
So the homeowner's on the hook for half.
Ah, but none of this is mandatory. That's to say, states don't have to go along with it.
Whew!
Of course, if they don't, they stand to lose billions in federal revenue. It's the classic carrot and stick deal.
And everything I've read about Sec. 304 notes that it is just one tiny little morsel of what's in store for us if this legislation passes.
The good news is that I believe the US Senate will water this stuff down or eliminate it altogether. This bill can't pass as is.
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