Supporters of the Senate energy tax, for which there are hearings taking place this week, have repeatedly claimed that cap and trade will create "green jobs" in America by taxing traditional energy production, which will supposedly lead to an economic boom of new energy technologies.
The official name of the Kerry-Boxer energy tax is even the "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act."
It all sounds like a wonderful and fantastic future for America. Too bad it's a complete hoax.
To believe that a national energy tax will create jobs in America requires us to believe that we can tax our way to prosperity and that it is okay for the government to pick winners and losers in the economy. It demands that we reject basic economic principles about how to grow the economy and instead accept the notion that higher costs for companies will somehow allow them to hire more employees.
The reality is simple: Cap and trade will kill jobs. The Congressional Budget Office admitted this as recently as a few weeks ago. The Heritage Foundation predicts 1.8 million jobs will evaporate as soon as 2012 under the Senate energy tax. The National Association of Manufacturers predicts 2.4 million jobs lost by 2030 under cap and trade. The National Black Chamber of Commerce says by 2015 America will have lost 1.5 million jobs if we impose a new energy tax.
European countries even are starting to learn that green jobs are a myth.
In Germany, a recent study found that green jobs only existed if taxpayers churned out more than $200,000 for each job. Researchers also concluded that the high costs of green job creation in Germany would lead to higher employment in countries such as China.
In Denmark, where wind generates around 20% of their electricity but also where half of that wind energy has to be exported to other countries, taxpayers also suffer from the government's green jobs efforts. One Danish study revealed that each green job requires a taxpayer subsidy to the tune of 250 times the wage earned.
Indeed, green jobs require that the government pick winners and losers in the economy, and even then the result is fewer total jobs. Can America afford that kind of shortsighted policy when unemployment is close to 10 percent?
Most of the studies agree that there will be a net job loss, but the job losses stated are worst case estimates. None of these analyses have taken into account the impact of jobs and the world if we do nothing. As opposed to the usual do nothing or do it all, recommend a true bi-partisan solution with milestones that work on both sides and help the environment. You can be correct, wrong or do nothing. And by far the worst decision is to do nothing. No decisions are absolutely correct or wrong, all process can be modulated as they move along, but if you don’t start then nothing happens. You should tie all aspects, nuclear, clean coal, solar, etc into the process and move forward as the best comes to the top. Killing the environment is not a solution and running out of oil is a given. Use a sliding tax schedule as needed depending on milestones met.
Thanks,
Steve
Steven,
One of the major problems with any of the "GREEN" energy bills is that they all "SOUND" so good. Who wants to Destroy the enviroment? Are you Crazy or what? You must be one of "those" people, a crazy Republican or Conservative or something!
Trouble is that the science does not support more than the very SMALLEST portion of Global Warming, Climate Change, or whatever other name you want to tag on it today.
When do you ever hear about the economics of the Wind Mill? Fact is that without Federal dollars to subsidize them (such as Florida Power & Light, the largest Owner / Operator of Wind Mills in the World) they would all be shut down! Fact is that it takes more expenditure in materials and energy to build and maintain a Wind Mill than most will ever produce -- in real value -- in their life time!
This is just one small example! There are so many more!
We could be energy independent in 5 to 10 years if we made up our minds to do it! But we are too busy trying to figure out how to "save" ourselves from CO2 for crying out loud! Perhaps we should just support Genocide, so we can reduce the World Population?
NO, of course not! But Science and Common Sense need to be back reintroduced into this issue!
You want to help the environment? Then put the EPA to work on doing its job instead of collecting fines! Stop massive off-shore dumping of Toxic Waste!
Just one common sense opionion!
Thanks!
Steve P.
Before America gets even further into an already unsustainable debt, let's focus on the intentions of those pushing for this bill. The facts are still unresolved that global warming is even occuring. Now the same guys (scientists) are changing this to climate change. This covers all bases since we know that climate always changes and has since the beginning of time. We also know that past climate changes occurred without man being on this planet. There is absolutey no proof, scientific or otherwise that man has any noticable control over climate change whatsoever. Since this administration and the democrat party is controlled by the ultra liberal segments of their party and the Obama administration is filled with people at high levels who are avowed anti free market believers and have certain ideals more in common with socialist governments, I have serious concerns of the motives of this movement. Just because it sounds good and feels good to "save the earth and our environment does not in itself make it good. Follow the money and the intentions of the administration.
This is getting much too scary to accept.
Please let's think about this for a second. The world is NOT running out of oil. We have years and years worth of oil in the mid west (perhaps the largest supply in the world) bunches more in Alaska, ditto off our west coast, Gulf of Mexico etc etc. But we don't get it. We do however let other nations explore for and drill for it, Mexico, China etc. Why? We have huge reserves of coal but those are also off limits (thank you Pres Clinton). Why? We have the ability to build many nuclear power plants to provide clean, cheap, safe energy for years to come but we don't. Why? We are all supose to fall at the alter of environmentalism (emphasis on the mentalism) and if we don't or we question it or we point out contridicting FACTS we are labeled Flat Earthers, Global Warming/Cooling/Changing/Staying the same deniers or worse. Now we are told that "Green Jobs" will save the country but when you look at the facts you see that this is a lie. It has not worked anywhere it has been tried yet we are going down this path inspite of the hard evidence. Why? Follow the trail, not just the money trail but the idiology trail and the power trail.
Just for the sake of argument, let's say that carbon emissions are accelerating global warming. The fact remains, global warming will occur with or without carbon emissions, it is part of the natural climate cycle. The ocean currents will eventually melt the polar ice cap, then the ocean current will stop, then a new ice age will come, the polar ice cap will reform, the ocean currents will restart, and the whole cycle will start over again.
Global warming is going to happen even if we completely eliminate fossil fuel carbon emissions. The most we could hope for would be to slow it down a bit.
Rather than discouraging the burning of fossil fuels, what we should be doing is encouraging the construction of nuclear power plants, this is the only way we will reduce carbon emissions, windmills are a joke.
We are at a judicial impasse.
Global warming is now officially not happening in response to CO2 emissions as shown by global temperatures for the past 11 years. But EPA has been forced by the all wise scientists of the Supreme Court to make a determination that CO2 is a pollutant or prove that it is not. Instead of doing its job, EPA acquiesced for convenience to the so-called consensus opinion (which was hardly a consensus even within the IPCC). Voila, CO2 is a pollutant.
Now the die is cast. We have two choices. Either command-and-control regulation by EPA or cap-and-tax. I agree with AEP CEO Mike Morris. I'd rather be governed by a system of quasi-free market principles than by regulation by EPA.
To get EPA to reverse its determination it seems to me will be as impossible a scenario as Pres. Bush reversing the electric utility NESHAP Hg standard. It backfired then in spite of all the evidence to the contrary of Clinton's risk assessment regarding Hg emissions.
The question to be asked is: which is the cheaper path forward. Regrettably, it is cap-and-tax. Or perhaps a revolt is in order.
If CO2 is a pollutant, then we should all stop breathing for 2 or 3 minutes every day day, and with all the hot air that our lawmakers in Washington have been expelling lately, 30 minutes each. That should do it.
Question: doesn't all of the green plant life and trees on this planet depend on CO2 to survive? Perhaps the "Green Jobs" should be re-named the "Brown Jobs".
A common sense revolt IS in order.
The article is spot on. Unlike so many how leave funny, serious, and often brilliant comments, I just get to wondering how so many voters can continue to elect such dreadful representatives.
It is important to recognize that 'climate change' is real. The climate of the earth has been a dynamic (i.e. constantly changing) system since the beginning of time. The absurdity of 'green' legislation and taxes is that exchange of money will somehow change the earth's atmosphere from dynamic to static.
The earth will warm at times and it will cool at times. Rather than fight nature, we should be positioned to respond to the effects. A little humility and much less focus on money are both in order.
It is important to recognize that 'climate change' is real. The climate of the earth has been a dynamic (i.e. constantly changing) system since the beginning of time. The absurdity of 'green' legislation and taxes is that exchange of money will somehow change the earth's atmosphere from dynamic to static.
The earth will warm at times and it will cool at times. Rather than fight nature, we should be positioned to respond to the effects. A little humility and much less focus on money are both in order.
Your comments Steve make a couple of wreckless assumptions. First, you function under the assumption that global warming is in fact, real. It would be safe to say that there are at least as many scientists that do not support global warming theories as there are those that do.
Second, you assume that "the worst decision is to do nothing". That is the bizarre thinking that has our government currently trying to spend our way of of an economic recession. Strange; If you are having problems with your personal finances, I've never seen a financial advisor say "you're just not spending enough, you need to borrow more to get yourself out of this predicament." It just doesn't make any sense.
The only reason people buy into any of this nonsense is that they have put their hope in man. Hope that Al Gore will fix the environment and hope that Barack Obama will save the economy. Believing that we can save ourselves, from ourselves, is a fatal and eternal mistake.
A few simple points, if you please.
1)“Green is the new Red” It is not about saving the earth, it is about controlling our lives, means of production and the product of our labor. It is also about a creating a utopian “one world government” and forfeiting our sovereignty.
2)“Bigger Government is not the solution, it is the problem”
3)Man made global warming is the hoax. Real science doesn’t support it.
4)Yes, we do have all of the energy we need right here! For hundreds of years (NG, Coal, Nuclear, Oil) Forget about solar and wind. They can’t exist in the free market…it’s all an excused to dismantle the free-market system “Brick by brick”.
5)You want jobs? I got your stinkin’ jobs right here. Build, run and maintain nuclear power plants, coal plants, mines, drilling fields and rigs. This will create “real” millions of jobs that do not have to be subsidized by the government like ethanol, wind, solar.
Problem solved. Thank you for the opportunity to vent and for reading.
Doug
The European version of Cap & Tax has been a dismal, expensive failure. That's what is in store for us with Cap & Tax with it's foolish hoax of saving a planet that is not in distress.
Matthew Sinclair, Research Director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:
“The EU Emissions Trading Scheme has cost ordinary families billions, while energy companies have made huge windfall profits. Despite that, it has failed to produce a stable carbon price, leaving consumers with an unpredictable addition to their bills. Manufacturers already struggling to compete with emerging economies like India and China cannot cope with such a substantial addition to their costs, and driving them abroad won’t help cut emissions but will mean fewer jobs in Britain. The Government claim to be against high energy prices but then embrace policies like this and even use taxpayers’ money to support European Commission legal cases which threaten to increase the bill to British families further. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme has been an expensive failure and should be abolished.”
Read the article at Climate Research News, "EU Emissions Trading Scheme Costs UK Consumers £3 billion a Year".
The IPCC has built a case for man-made global warming on observation and "scientific" speculation built upon empirical conclusions. There is no hard evidence that green house gases contribution to global warming are any more than necessary to sustain life existence. It is a hypothesis just as at one time "scientists" believed the earth was flat and the center of the solar system. Their beliefs at that time were based upon observations that were in fact true, however, their conclusions turned out to be incorrect. Our atmospheric system is huge; it does in fact cycle; it warms and it cools.
As we are now discovering, the IPCC has been consistently wrong on its forecasts for ice melt, polar bear extinction, higher sea levels, etc. The global temperatures have in fact been cooling since 1998 and global temperatures were perhaps hotter in the 1930s. The earth has experienced multiple times of severe temperature swings (i.e. the ice age) that had nothing to do with civilized development. The glacial melting could just as likely be a "normal" cycle, albeit not one civilized man has yet to witness (or document). The bottom line - just because you can connect some dots does not mean that they are related or dependent.
Oil, natural gas and coal will always be an essential part of the U.S. energy plan so we need to be practical. Until we humans come up with viable alternatives for eating, breathing, farting, traveling, and simply living, there is and will always be carbon dioxide emissions into the air by every person and animal that lives, every plane, train, car, truck, boat, lawn mower, tractor, air compressor, generator, air conditioner, etc. that operates by engine or turbine.
Let's keep in mind also that the oil and natural gas companies are pioneers in developing alternatives and expanding America's use of virtually every form of energy - from geothermal to wind, from solar to biofuels, from hydrogen to lithium ion battery for next generation cars. Even with all the re-investment of profits by the oil and natural gas industry, the practical role of renewable energy consumption is projected by API to account for only 13% (0.03% solar, 2.7% hydroelectric, 0.5% geothermal, 8.3% biomass, and 1.8% wind energy) of U.S. energy supply in 2030. The balance of U.S. energy supply will be 34% oil, 22% natural gas, 23% coal and 8% nuclear. It is simply not practical to created jobs and develop renewable energy beyond the above limits.
Windmills and solar panels are supplemental and only regionally efficient where trees are scarce and/or winds can justify. The production of biomass, such as ethanol, requires 3-gallons of gas to produce 4-gallons of product, burns less efficient than natural gas, and ultimately was responsible for food shortages worldwide just a year ago.
For energy security and independence, the U.S. must take an even handed and regional approach to develop all forms of energy (oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro-electric, thermal, etc.) and continue to strive for conservation.
During the 1980s, the unintended consequences of the National Energy Plan of 1977 and other domestic policies endorsed by President Jimmy Carter to increase taxes, reduce demand and impose price controls on oil and natural gas, and to shift consumption from imported to domestic sources such as coal and nuclear was high unemployment in the states dependent on the oil and gas industry and increased dependence on foreign oil. Just as was the case in the 1980s, the plans proposed by the "Waxman-Markey Clean Energy and Security Act" and the "Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act" will result in greater dependence on foreign oil and gas, huge GDP losses, annual job losses and increases to the cost of living for all.
When a government decides what is second class energy it decides that its people are a third world country.
Climate change is real - where I now sit was once the bottom of the ocean - the salt water fossils found locally bear witness to this fact. But if you want the real driving force behind "global warming" and "cap & trade" just type in "carbon credits trading" on google - 22,800,000 hits! Follow the money - AlGore left the VP office with a net worth of 2 million dollars. He is now worth over 100 million as a result of his "global warming" enterprises. A lot of people stand to become very wealthy on the climate change scam - and no amount of fact, reason and logic will stop them. Only a MASSIVE rejection by the American public will change this course and that will require education of a basically very uninformed populace. As far as oil reserves the Bakken Reserve in Montana and North Dakota hold more crude than ALL of the middle east according to a USGS 2006 report. Look it up and verify for yourself. Global warming? Professor Richard Lindzen recently released the results of a 20 year study that completely debunks the "global warming" myth. Arm yourself with the facts, then educate your family, friends, neighbors and legislators - then DEMAND action to stop the insanity. That's what it's going to take, the media isn't going to do their job. We can act now or suffer the consequences. Your Choice!
Steven, From everything that I have been reading, your assessment of the job loss scenario is correct. Most of the numbers frequently quoted are worse-case scenarios. We will also loose jobs if we do nothing. Most other industrialized countries, including China, are embracing alternative green energy. I get an investment advisor daily report, and they are pushing "green energy" for just this reason. It will become more efficient and less expensive over time. According to many of these investment analysis, we have already reached "peak" oil. They define this as a supply/demand equilibrium peak based on price. According to their analysis, that peak is around $70-80 per barrel. Over that price, demand goes down; under that price, supply goes down.
We need to pull our heads out of the sand--or where ever they're stuck--and embrace renewable energy as well as other non-petroleum based energy forms--geothermal, nuclear, solar and wind. Oil companies need to realize that they are energy companies and start thinking outside the petroleum box.
As for cap-n-trade, it will be a paperwork nightmare to administer and won't produce the touted benefits.
We are the only country I know that refuses to mine its own oil reserves. Let's do that first, get the huge amount we have ourselves so we can stop importing mideast and Venezuelan oil. I think it's worth continuing to research all other options until we can figure out how to make them more cost-effective and not polluting. But to answer the basic question here, we are competing in the world economy and have 10% unemployment so why in the world would we add any taxes right now. By the way, congrats to Obama for pursuing a smart energy grid, which is something Bush tried to get passed through his whole term but Congress ignored. But cap-and-trade doesn't appeal to me given our economy.
The health care bills are likely to take 1.6 million jobs. This energy nationalization will cap and stun our economy to make another 1.7 million. One thing about it, the revenues will go up because of inflation rather than production.
The sea fossils that are found even at the tops of mountains don't mean that the sea was once at that altitude - the global moving of tektonic plates that kick up mountain ranges cause areas that once were undersea to become mountains and the reverse, too.
Check out recent story:
http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m7d30-Climate-change-Not-so-fast-say-Scientists