Cap and Tirade: Bachmann Repeats Falsehood

[GaryC 7]

steven, how much is your electric bill in the summer? your heating bill in the winter? would you like for that to double?

My electric bill (I have no gas) runs about $30-40 per month. Comparatively, when gasoline prices jumped last year to over $4.50 a gallon, my monthly fuel costs doubled. So, if I was spending $200 on gas at about $2.60 a gallon, I was spending over $300 a month.

So if you are asking me which one I'd prefer, I'd take a slight raise in my electric bill than watch my gas costs go up.

My gas and electric bill runs about $250 - $300 in the winter and about $200 in the summer. Cap and Trade will double that. I don't care about the fuzzy math on either side. The fact remains it will raise all energy costs. There just isn't any way around that. Either the power companies will have to buy offsets or junk their power generators and install something "greener". Either way the costs will be passed onto us. Count on the price of gas to go up also. There isn't any way around that either. If the cost of gas goes up then anything that is shipped will also cost more. This will cause great pain to those that can least afford it. The rich will not get hurt but you and I sure will. Is this something you want to do in the middle of a big recession?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Next Bernie Madoff? Emissions Cap-and-Trade Aids the Corrupt, Hurts the Little Guy

By William O'Keefe

Posted April 13, 2009

The American people have had enough of convoluted, indecipherable financial schemes and the opportunists who exploit them. The public is understandably angry about Wall Street's exploitation of Main Street, and yet our political leaders are setting the stage for another complex trading market, ripe for corruption. The future Enrons and Bernie Madoffs of the world would like nothing better than to see the U.S. impose a new market for carbon emission trading.

The cap-and-trade system being touted on Capitol Hill would create a multibillion-dollar playground that would, once again, create a group of wealthy traders benefiting at the expense of millions of average families—middle to low-income households that would end up paying more for food, energy, and almost everything else they buy.

Enron executives—before their well-deserved fall—did little to conceal their lust for cap-and-trade. In 2002, the Washington Post reported that "an internal Enron memo said the Kyoto agreement, if implemented, would do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States."

Promoting the bottom lines of opportunists is not the job of policymakers. Assisting the staggering 2.6 million American workers who lost their jobs in just the last four months should be. With our nation struggling through the worst economic crisis in over 70 years, Congress shouldn't risk further economic damage by pushing a risky carbon emission mitigation scheme. There are far better alternatives for dealing with climate change.

Albert Einstein once observed that things should be made as simple as possible but no simpler. The corollary is that policies should be made no more complex than necessary. Cap-and-trade, however, is excessively complex.

President Obama has pledged to use cap-and-trade to reduce U.S. carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050, and projects over $3 trillion in revenue from the auction of emissions permits to domestic companies. And the carbon trading system outlined in the draft bill released by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman on Tuesday calls for an even more aggressive target—a 20 percent reduction in U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020. But even a casual look at Europe's existing cap-and-trade program provides ample reason to believe that it just won't work.

European governments and industries, in an attempt to stave off the economic impact of cap-and-trade, have found plenty of ways to game the system. Governments have freely handed out emissions allowances. Meanwhile, European consumers have suffered as energy rates have increased. Homeowners in Germany are paying 25 percent more for electricity now than they did before the implementation of cap-and-trade.

The European legal system encourages a "wink and nod" approach to regulation; to date, ours does not.

In contrast to the burdens borne by European households, traders have been reaping the benefits of emissions trading with little regard for the environmental concerns cap-and-trade is supposed to address. The emissions permit market has constantly fluctuated. With the price of carbon up or down by an average of 17.5 percent per month and with daily price shifts as great as 70 percent, European companies have been left to simply guess at how much their environmental compliance costs might be each month. Consequently, investors have been reluctant to invest in these businesses and there is little incentive to invest in new technologies.

As a result, UNCCC data show that the European emissions rate under cap-and-trade increased by 3.5 percent from 2000 to 2006 while U.S. emissions increased by only 0.7 percent.

Washington has little reason to expect different results here. Emission trading has the potential to be the next sub-prime housing market, the next Enron, the next blow to our already weakened economy.

The U.S. unemployment rate is verging on double digits. Taxpayers are being forced to shoulder the burden of a $1 trillion-plus stimulus bill. Yet, the administration and some in Congress are still pushing a high-risk carbon trading strategy—a flawed approach likely to put even more Americans out of work.

Environmentally or economically, it just doesn't make sense.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/200...little-guy.html

Don't you just love the nanny state!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

steven, how much is your electric bill in the summer? your heating bill in the winter? would you like for that to double?

My electric bill (I have no gas) runs about $30-40 per month. Comparatively, when gasoline prices jumped last year to over $4.50 a gallon, my monthly fuel costs doubled. So, if I was spending $200 on gas at about $2.60 a gallon, I was spending over $300 a month.

So if you are asking me which one I'd prefer, I'd take a slight raise in my electric bill than watch my gas costs go up.

My gas and electric bill runs about $250 - $300 in the winter and about $200 in the summer. Cap and Trade will double that. I don't care about the fuzzy math on either side. The fact remains it will raise all energy costs. There just isn't any way around that. Either the power companies will have to buy offsets or junk their power generators and install something "greener". Either way the costs will be passed onto us. Count on the price of gas to go up also. There isn't any way around that either. If the cost of gas goes up then anything that is shipped will also cost more. This will cause great pain to those that can least afford it. The rich will not get hurt but you and I sure will. Is this something you want to do in the middle of a big recession?

There are offsets to the costs and it's not fuzzy math. Eventually, what will happen as more investment goes into alternative energies and their production goes up, is a decrease in the price. Right now, you are also susceptible to price fluctuations for your energy bills. The average cost per family is only about $30 a month. That isn't anything compared to the cost we were paying at the pumps just a year ago.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

In an attempt to block cap-and-trade legislation designed to reduce greenhouse gas emission in the United States, Republicans this week began a campaign to paint the policy as extremely expensive to American families. They cited an MIT study on cap-and-trade which they said showed an increased cost of $3,100 for every American family. The MIT professor behind the study immediately responded, saying the Republicans had “misrepresented” his data, which showed a cost that was more than 40x less.

Know Five Things

• ONE: The GOP Claim. In a press release Tuesday afternoon, House Minority Leader John Boehner charged that cap-and-trade legislation to lower greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. would raise household utility bills by $3,100 per house. Boehner cited an MIT study on the economic impact of cap-and-trade as the basis for his claim. [GOP statement 1]
• TWO: The MIT Study. According to a 2007 MIT study titled “Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals,” the actual economic impact of a cap-and-trade system (beginning in 2015) would be more along the lines of $31 per person a year, or about $75 for a family. That cost would rise to a high of $510 in 2025, then fall back to $205 by 2050. Taken together and averaged, the study figured the average cost per year would be about $340, “only a part of which would be actual energy bill increases.” [The Letter] [The Study]
• THREE: The MIT Response. MIT was not happy to have its academic study distorted. The lead author of the MIT study, Prof. John Reilly, sent a letter Wednesday saying his study was “misrepresented” by the Republicans. In an interview with PolitiFact, the professor said he warned Republicans earlier last month that the number they were using was wrong. “Someone from the House Republicans had called me (March 20) and asked about this,” Reilly said. “I had explained why the estimate they had was probably incorrect and what they should do to correct it, but I think this wrong number was already floating around by that time.” [WonkRoom]
• FOUR: The GOP Math. In spite of the study’s author asking Republicans to stop using the wrong numbers, Thursday, Rep. John Boehner sent out another press release which re-iterated his claim that cap-and-trade would cost families $3,100 a year. Rep. Boehner said he stood by his “formula” for using the MIT data, in which he took the total number of revenues generated by cap-and-trade from power plants in 2015 and then divided by the number of households in the country (assuming that power companies directly passed the expense on to their consumers.” Prof. Reilly and the other mathmaticians say this formulation just doesn’t make sense. Prof. Reilly explains, “The tax revenue collected through such an auction, the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the average impact on a household are very different concepts.” [The Letter] [GOP Statement 2]
• FIVE: The Actual Cost. From Politifact: “The tax might push the price of carbon-based fuels up a bit, but other results of a cap-and-trade program, such as increased conservation and more competition from other fuel sources, would put downward pressure on prices. Moreover, consumers would get some of the tax back from the government in some form.” In fact, MIT has another study, “Report 160, Analysis of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Tax Proposals,” which calculated the cost on families at different income levels. According to Prof. Reilly, “Our Report 160 shows that the costs on lower and middle income households can be completely offset by returning allowance revenue to these households.” (In his press release, Rep. Boehner tried to deflate the rebate concept, saying, “Nothing in the Democrats’ budget would provide rebates or any relief to consumers.” The reply from the Wall Street Journal coverage of the issue: “The draft budget information on planned rebates of cap-and-trade revenue is on page 11, if anyone’s interested.") [GOP Statement 2]

http://miccheckradio.org/Issues/2009/April/3/Today-s-Segment-Misrepresenting-the-MIT-Study-on-Cap-Trade

[GaryC 7]

steven, how much is your electric bill in the summer? your heating bill in the winter? would you like for that to double?

My electric bill (I have no gas) runs about $30-40 per month. Comparatively, when gasoline prices jumped last year to over $4.50 a gallon, my monthly fuel costs doubled. So, if I was spending $200 on gas at about $2.60 a gallon, I was spending over $300 a month.

So if you are asking me which one I'd prefer, I'd take a slight raise in my electric bill than watch my gas costs go up.

My gas and electric bill runs about $250 - $300 in the winter and about $200 in the summer. Cap and Trade will double that. I don't care about the fuzzy math on either side. The fact remains it will raise all energy costs. There just isn't any way around that. Either the power companies will have to buy offsets or junk their power generators and install something "greener". Either way the costs will be passed onto us. Count on the price of gas to go up also. There isn't any way around that either. If the cost of gas goes up then anything that is shipped will also cost more. This will cause great pain to those that can least afford it. The rich will not get hurt but you and I sure will. Is this something you want to do in the middle of a big recession?

There are offsets to the costs and it's not fuzzy math. Eventually, what will happen as more investment goes into alternative energies and their production goes up, is a decrease in the price. Right now, you are also susceptible to price fluctuations for your energy bills. The average cost per family is only about $30 a month. That isn't anything compared to the cost we were paying at the pumps just a year ago.

Dude, you really need to take your partisan hat off and look around. None of the costs will be offset. The money collected from the government will not come back to us, it will go straight into the government coffers. This is going to hit us hard just when we cannot afford it. This wild hope of "eventually" the price will come down is just wishfull thinking. Right now, this year and for the forseeable future the price of everything will go up. These investments will take decades to kick in. Come on man, this isn't a partisan issue. When is the last time ANY politician has kept ANY promise? I don't care who is in charge, the whole bunch is a boat load of crooks. Please wake up!!!

[natty bumppo 297]

steven, how much is your electric bill in the summer? your heating bill in the winter? would you like for that to double?

My electric bill (I have no gas) runs about $30-40 per month. Comparatively, when gasoline prices jumped last year to over $4.50 a gallon, my monthly fuel costs doubled. So, if I was spending $200 on gas at about $2.60 a gallon, I was spending over $300 a month.

So if you are asking me which one I'd prefer, I'd take a slight raise in my electric bill than watch my gas costs go up.

want to trade electric bills?

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

"A natural by-product of nature"? #######?

God this ####### is stupid.

New! All Natural Uranium Toothpaste! It'll make your teeth shine, even at night with the lights off.

CO2 is plant food and uranium doesn't glow. But science isn't a libs strong point. How does it make you FEEL though?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

"A natural by-product of nature"? #######?

God this ####### is stupid.

New! All Natural Uranium Toothpaste! It'll make your teeth shine, even at night with the lights off.

CO2 is plant food and uranium doesn't glow. But science isn't a libs strong point. How does it make you FEEL though?

Your master baiting again. By your above statement, that means all those climate scientists are not liberal, yet you dismiss their expertise and insult their intelligence.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

steven, how much is your electric bill in the summer? your heating bill in the winter? would you like for that to double?

My electric bill (I have no gas) runs about $30-40 per month. Comparatively, when gasoline prices jumped last year to over $4.50 a gallon, my monthly fuel costs doubled. So, if I was spending $200 on gas at about $2.60 a gallon, I was spending over $300 a month.

So if you are asking me which one I'd prefer, I'd take a slight raise in my electric bill than watch my gas costs go up.

My gas and electric bill runs about $250 - $300 in the winter and about $200 in the summer. Cap and Trade will double that. I don't care about the fuzzy math on either side. The fact remains it will raise all energy costs. There just isn't any way around that. Either the power companies will have to buy offsets or junk their power generators and install something "greener". Either way the costs will be passed onto us. Count on the price of gas to go up also. There isn't any way around that either. If the cost of gas goes up then anything that is shipped will also cost more. This will cause great pain to those that can least afford it. The rich will not get hurt but you and I sure will. Is this something you want to do in the middle of a big recession?

There are offsets to the costs and it's not fuzzy math. Eventually, what will happen as more investment goes into alternative energies and their production goes up, is a decrease in the price. Right now, you are also susceptible to price fluctuations for your energy bills. The average cost per family is only about $30 a month. That isn't anything compared to the cost we were paying at the pumps just a year ago.

Dude, you really need to take your partisan hat off and look around. None of the costs will be offset. The money collected from the government will not come back to us, it will go straight into the government coffers. This is going to hit us hard just when we cannot afford it. This wild hope of "eventually" the price will come down is just wishfull thinking. Right now, this year and for the forseeable future the price of everything will go up. These investments will take decades to kick in. Come on man, this isn't a partisan issue. When is the last time ANY politician has kept ANY promise? I don't care who is in charge, the whole bunch is a boat load of crooks. Please wake up!!!

LOL - Gary, it's Republican like Bachmann who are playing partisan politics with their deliberate attempt to disinform Americans what this really is about. Lets just stick to the facts...

It's not partisan to compare this Cap and Trade to the one used to reduce acid rain, which has shown that a cap and trade system can and does work. Those studies on the estimated costs were independent, which is why the Republicans have been referring to that MIT study, only fudging with the numbers, even after the author of the study has called them on it.

[Ban Hammer 13,360]

steven, how much is your electric bill in the summer? your heating bill in the winter? would you like for that to double?

My electric bill (I have no gas) runs about $30-40 per month. Comparatively, when gasoline prices jumped last year to over $4.50 a gallon, my monthly fuel costs doubled. So, if I was spending $200 on gas at about $2.60 a gallon, I was spending over $300 a month.

So if you are asking me which one I'd prefer, I'd take a slight raise in my electric bill than watch my gas costs go up.

My gas and electric bill runs about $250 - $300 in the winter and about $200 in the summer. Cap and Trade will double that. I don't care about the fuzzy math on either side. The fact remains it will raise all energy costs. There just isn't any way around that. Either the power companies will have to buy offsets or junk their power generators and install something "greener". Either way the costs will be passed onto us. Count on the price of gas to go up also. There isn't any way around that either. If the cost of gas goes up then anything that is shipped will also cost more. This will cause great pain to those that can least afford it. The rich will not get hurt but you and I sure will. Is this something you want to do in the middle of a big recession?

here it's about $150 a month during the summer for electric, about $50-75 during the winter, propane total runs about $1300 a year, so overall i'd call it about $2500 a year for electric and propane. and no, i'd not like for it to double either.

along with the gas costs rising, so would food. i wonder how many would like that too?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Ahead of Congressional action on proposed cap and trade legislation, Charles River Associates today released a study, commissioned by the Coalition for Affordable American Energy (CAAE), exposing the economic consequences of the bill. The data projects broad increases in energy costs that will result in more than 3 million jobs lost by 2030 and a cost of more than $2,100 per household.

http://www.uschamber.com/press/releases/20...28_economic.htm

[one...two...tree 2,762]

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Ahead of Congressional action on proposed cap and trade legislation, Charles River Associates today released a study, commissioned by the Coalition for Affordable American Energy (CAAE), exposing the economic consequences of the bill. The data projects broad increases in energy costs that will result in more than 3 million jobs lost by 2030 and a cost of more than $2,100 per household.

http://www.uschamber.com/press/releases/20...28_economic.htm

I'd trust the independent study from MIT over any study done by groups that represent the fossil fuel industry.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

*throws a dollar bill at steven*

will that shut you up? or do you want more until i'm all out?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Be Wary of the Agenda Behind Flawed Cost Projections

We've all seen the damage that can come from "studies" that are designed to achieve a given result rather than truly examining the potential cost, impacts or benefits of a given issue. It is often hard to judge the veracity of studies -- which is why it is absolutely critical that the assumptions used are transparent and reasonable -- so as to prove there is no hidden agenda being served.

The latest round of fliers and "fact sheets" being pushed by the Chamber of Commerce is unfortunately relying on a very flawed and secretive analysis done by Charles River Associates (CRA) and paid for by the electric industry group, Edison Electric Institute. The study was so flawed that many of the EEI members have called for it to be re-done using more plausible assumptions. Below is a great analysis of the many flaws of the CRA economic projections -- and why folks need to be careful before believing the cost projections of Lieberman-Warner from groups that clearly have an agenda that is not good for agriculture (i.e favoring a carbon tax instead of a carbon market).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Environmental Defense Fund

The CRA Climate Analysis: Extreme Again

America's Climate Security Act of 2007 [s. 2191) is a bipartisan bill that would create a cap and trade program to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. The Edison Electric Institute, a trade organization representing electric utilities, recently paid consulting firm Charles River Associates International (CRA) to assess the possible economic impacts of the legislation. An assessment of CRA's analysis using accepted academic modeling reaches the following conclusions:

· CRA has a history of presenting extreme views for its industry clients. For example, CRA's

analysis in 2003 of the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act projected household costs that were three to four times higher than the upper range of results in an MIT study, and 10 to 14 times higher than MIT's lower range.

· CRA's results are dramatically different than economic assessments by researchers in

academia and government. For example, CRA's estimates for the impact of the bill in 2015 on greenhouse gas emission allowance prices, economic output (GDP), and electricity prices are 75% 300% higher than those found by a study performed by researchers at Duke University and Research Triangle Institute.

· Determining exactly why CRA's numbers are so high is difficult, both because of how CRA

reports their results and because the CRA model remains a "black box" to outsiders. Although CRA released some information in a response to a request from Senator Lieberman, they have never fully opened up their model to outside peer review, so key assumptions remain hidden. Moreover, CRA lumps together results from various scenarios without specifying which scenarios lead to which results. One reason for the divergence from other models, however, appears to be that CRA ignores the role of international credits, which under the Lieberman-Warner bill could meet up to 15% of compliance obligations. In addition, their analysis assumes high costs for new coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration technology, and imposes artificial constraints on how widely that technology is used.

· Like most economic forecasting models, CRA's analysis considers only one side of the ledger:

it considers the costs of reducing emissions, but fails to examine the costs of inaction.

· No single model should be relied upon for policy making. Instead, policy makers should look to the full range of economic models for guidance on the possible impacts of climate policy. And when confronted with a range of numbers, a common rule of thumb is to throw out the lowest and highest numbers, and concentrate on the middle of the range. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker summarized the economic situation best: "If you don't

take action on climate change, you can be sure that our economies will go down the drain in the next 30 years. What may happen to the dollar, and what may happen to growth in China or whatever, will pale into insignificance compared with the question of what happens to this planet over the next 30 or 40 years if no action is taken."

Our analysis is based on testimony by CRA, documentation supporting that testimony, CRA's recent update to their analysis, and economic models by researchers at MIT, Research Triangle Institute, and the Department of Energy.

http://agoffsets.blogspot.com/2008/03/be-w...lawed-cost.html

Edited April 29, 2009 by Col. 'Bat' Guano

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Ahead of Congressional action on proposed cap and trade legislation, Charles River Associates today released a study, commissioned by the Coalition for Affordable American Energy (CAAE), exposing the economic consequences of the bill. The data projects broad increases in energy costs that will result in more than 3 million jobs lost by 2030 and a cost of more than $2,100 per household.

http://www.uschamber.com/press/releases/20...28_economic.htm

I'd trust the independent study from MIT over any study done by groups that represent the fossil fuel industry.

Let's see, a professor from MIT, versus a trusted, worldwide consulting firm:

About CRA

CRA International is a leading global consulting firm that offers economic, financial, and business management expertise to major law firms, industries, accounting firms, and governments around the world.

With proven skills in complex cases and exceptional strength in analytics, CRA consultants have provided astute guidance to clients in thousands of successful engagements. We offer litigation and regulatory support, business strategy and planning, market and demand forecasting, policy analysis, and risk management consulting.

Our success stems from the outstanding capabilities of our consultants, many of whom are recognized as experts in their respective fields; our close relationships with a select group of respected academic and industry experts; and from a corporate philosophy that stresses interdisciplinary collaboration and responsive service.

Headquartered in Boston, the firm has offices throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Hong Kong.

http://www.crai.com/AboutCRA/default.aspx

Those that can, do. Those that can't teach!