On global warming and energy independence, President Obama’s team continues to make exceptional moves. This week, Rep Henry Waxman and Rep Edward Markey released a draft of a comprehensive energy bill that hits as many high notes as a Pavarotti opera. Joe Romm has an excellent analysis.
Here’s the nitty gritty: The early version of a major energy and climate change bill calls for national renewable energy and energy efficiency mandates but leaves crucial details on carbon regulations open for negotiation. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s first draft of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 could be voted on as early as this summer, and it was roundly praised by clean-energy analysts and advocates but roundly condemned by the GOP as an energy tax grab. Many utilities and carbon-heavy industries are taking a wait-and-see approach.
Among the bill’s major provisions:
TheVacuous John Boehner
So… That’s all very important. But perhaps even more interesting is the Republican response, and how John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are now trying to suggest that they’re the party of the little guy. To whit:
“The Democrats’ plan to raise energy taxes in the midst of a serious recession is the wrong thing to do and the worst possible time to do it. Families and small businesses are struggling to get by, and this proposal, like the president’s budget, would raise taxes on every American who drives a car, flips on a light switch, or buys a product manufactured in the United States. It would cost every family as much as $3,100 a year in additional energy costs, and will drive millions of good-paying American jobs overseas.”
It’s easy to tell when Boehner is lying. His lips move. If this is the best that the Republican Party can do, then they’re in for a very long time in the wilderness.
This response comes from Professor John Reilly at MIT. He co-authored the study that Boehner quoted in his press conference, so he should know if the Republican from Ohio has his ducks in a row. The short answer is no.
“It has come to my attention that an analysis we conducted examining proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Report No., 146, Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals, has been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The press release claims our report estimates an average cost per family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340…. Our Report 160 shows that the costs on lower and middle income households can be completely offset by returning allowance revenue to these households.”
And the best quote comes from Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund:
“The impact on household utility bills will be about a dime a day, and that dime will be the hardest working dime in America. It will create jobs, reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and protect the climate.”
Why is it that so many on the right have a compulsion to distort, mistate, conflate facts and generally not tell the truth on so many issues? It’s become pandemic.
And the way they throw around labels like socialist, fascist etc., you’d think only the left can be extreme enough to bring about any kind of tyranny, with the right always patriotically protecting us from such excesses.
Meanwhile, pretty much all the wingnut radio talk shows etc are on the right. What I remember in my life time, is that every new freedom was championed by the left, while conservatives fought against them tooth and nail. And that goes all the way back to abolition. Then they wave the flag and assure us that they are on the job, protecting our freedoms, which they fought against to begin with.
The gun issue is the only exception where they have been on the forefront.
Off topic, but whenever solar and wind potential are discussed, we are asked how the base load power from coal will be substituted for. Today there was an article at Alternative Energy Stocks.com that questioned the whole assumption that base load power has to be such a large percentage of the grid.
“Why CSP Should Not Try to be Coal”
http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2009/0
4/why_csp_should_not_try_to_be_coal.html
He is essentially saying the same thing as Joe Romm, that solar thermal with heat storage is even better than base load, because it’s dispatchable. The article shows that less base load in the grid would actually be better for balancing the grid’s various sources of power.