Michigan Today — Home And Health Care

 climate legislation to the Senate floor. He won’t call it cap-and-trade or

 cap-tax-and-trade, and certainly not a carbon tax.

“Those words are not in my vocabulary,” he says. “We’re going to work on pollution.”

Senator Reid’s twenty-pound bill will be laden with lofty language about “clean

energy,” energy conservation, “green jobs,” reducing “dangerous” power plant

emissions, ending our “addiction” to oil, creating a renewable economy, and saving

the planet from “imminent climate disaster.”

Environmental euphemisms aside, however, the legislation is really about

 imposing national “low carbon fuel standards” (LCFS) and forcing dramatic

reductions in the use of oil, natural gas and especially coal. It would expand

 on existing laws, regulations and decrees, like the Environmental Protection

Agency’s ruling that carbon dioxide somehow “endangers human health and

welfare,” EPA’s June 30 invalidation of flexible air quality permits for Texas

refineries, Interior Secretary Salazar’s offshore drilling moratorium, multiple

state and federal renewable energy standards and mandates, and various state

and regional “greenhouse gas initiatives” that restrict emissions from power

plants and industrial facilities.

The EPA, Energy Information Administration, White House and Mr. Reid insist

 that America can easily limit hydrocarbon use and switch to “eco-friendly” wind,

 solar and biofuel energy – at low cost and minimal harm to families, businesses

 and jobs. However, their self-serving, other-planet claims are flatly contradicted

 by a host of studies by reputable analysts with a solid history of integrity and accuracy.

The most recent is a June 17 report by Charles River Associates, examining

the “Economic and Energy Impacts Resulting from a National Low Carbon Fuel

Standard.” Prepared for the Consumer Energy Alliance, the study looked only at

transportation fuels. (Including coal for electricity generation and other uses

would dramatically increase its cost estimates.) Nevertheless, the study found

that national standards implemented in 2015 would:

* Increase average gasoline and diesel prices by up to 80% in five years, and

170% within ten years – sending regular gasoline prices soaring to nearly

 $5 per gallon by 2020 and $7.50 per gallon by 2025 (assuming other international

 price pressures remain unchanged);

* Spur sharp cost increases for petrochemicals in plastics, pharmaceuticals

 and other vital products;

* Reduce employment and consumer demand significantly, by increasing the

cost of transporting people, equipment, supplies, raw materials, food and finished

products – for work, school, healthcare, business, manufacturing, vacation and

 other purposes;

* Cut business investment by $200-320 billion annually, compared to the

no-LCFS baseline;

* Slash gross domestic product by $410-750 billion annually by 2025;

* Cost 2.3 million to 4.5 million American jobs, including up to 1.5 million in

 manufacturing and 3.0 million in the service sector; and

* Force household purchasing power downward by $1,400 to $2,400 for a family

 of four by 2025 – impacting minority, elderly and other low and fixed income

families worst of all.

None of this should be surprising. As President Obama himself has said, the very

purpose of energy and climate policies like LCFS is to ensure that prices “necessarily

 skyrocket.” It is to force people to use less fuel, compel companies to change power

 generation and use practices, drive coal companies and utilities out of business, and

force the development of new fuels and technologies that may or may not work.

All on the premise that we waste energy and are causing a planetary meltdown.

 Climate change is real, and has been since the dawn of time. But there is no consensus

 and no evidence that carbon dioxide is the primary factor in global warming and

cooling, or that humans are causing a climate disaster. Assertions, assumptions and

 computer models are not evidence, and cannot justify what Harry Reid is pushing.

Restricting, taxing, regulating and penalizing the hydrocarbon fuels that provide

85% of America’s energy would severely hobble our free enterprise system and

impact jobs, families, living standards, and basic rights to life, liberty and the

pursuit of happiness. Doubling the price of electricity in our industrial

heartland – where coal provides 50-95% of all electrical power – would kill millions

 of jobs, and send millions of families into fuel poverty.

Renewable energy is intermittent, unreliable, land and raw materials intensive,

and unsustainable without government mandates and constant infusions of “other

people’s money” in the form of subsidies. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus might be

ecstatic that an F/A-18 fighter jet recently flew on biofuel av-gas. But brewing

 $65-per-gallon fuel from camelina is hardly sustainable, even for the Defense

 Department.

As to the great utopian vision of “green jobs,” Spain’s subsidy-driven wind turbine

industry cost the country 2.2 jobs for every eco-job it created, according to studies by

 Dr. Gabriel Calzada. And when the global recession hit, the subsidies dried up, the

 turbine-making jobs disappeared, and hundreds of wind and solar companies were

 driven to the precipice of bankruptcy.

Wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars require “rare earth” metals. America’s

 probable deposits are locked up in wilderness areas, which leaves China as the

world’s predominant producer. So the bulk of the green manufacturing jobs will be

 in China – while we will get the temp jobs hauling, assembling and installing

 components made in the Middle Kingdom and shipped to the United States.

Thus, China, India and Brazil will continue to surge forward on plentiful coal and

 metals, cheap labor, affordable electricity, a can-do attitude, laxer environmental

standards, and a rational refusal to accept legally binding carbon dioxide reductions.

Thus, even if the USA went cold turkey, and completely shut down all greenhouse-

gas-spewing factories, homes and cars, these developing country emissions would

overwhelm our sacrifices within a few months, and atmospheric CO2 levels would

 continue to rise.

And for what? Cars and power plants are already 90% cleaner than their 1970s era

 predecessors. Climate change is moderate and primarily natural. Mr. Reid’s formula

is all pain, for no environmental gain.

Even bright high school students understand this. US senators certainly ought to.

But Harry Reid is hoping 60 do not. That’s the magic number he needs to regulate

not just one-sixth of our economy (the healthcare sector), but 100% – because

nothing happens without abundant, reliable, affordable energy. And enacting any

form of fuel rationing legislation will put Congress and bureaucrats firmly in

 charge of our lives, liberties, hopes, dreams and rights.

Either Mr. Reid’s cadre doesn’t understand these basic facts – or they are so blinded

by power, ambition, ideology and desire to control that they willfully ignore them.

Climate change truly is a huge moral issue. What the Political-Activist-Industrial

Complex is doing in the name of preventing climate change and creating a green

economy is un-American and immoral. Applied to poor countries, to restrict their

 access to abundant, reliable energy, it becomes lethal and inhumane. It can no longer

 be tolerated.

Be alert. Speak out. And beware of energy and climate dictators and charlatans,

and any lame duck session that may come after citizens vote to replace many of

the control freaks on Capitol Hill.

Goto Town Hall for the whole Article

     If you need to get your finances inline before Cap and Trade er Cap and Tax takes

place, you might one to consider a principal balance reduction.  You do need a hard-

ship, but fairly soon everyone is going to have a “real” hardship.   Call Dave Brigle,

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