United Liberty

It seems that President Barack Obama is making a push on cap-and-trade (but don’t call it that), which has been stalled in the Senate since last year:

Closed-door talks extended to both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday as President Obama, key senators and industry officials searched for an elusive agreement on comprehensive energy and climate change legislation.

At the White House, Obama implored 14 Democrats and Republicans to reach consensus before the end of this year on a bill that puts a first-ever price on carbon emissions, rather than settle for the energy-only approach favored by some moderates.
[…]
Those talks occupied 70 minutes of Obama’s time as eight Democrats and six Republicans went around the Cabinet Room describing their demands. Obama opened the meeting by insisting the Senate stick to his plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions, and in return pledged to make concessions on oil and gas drilling and nuclear power.

You have to wonder if this is his back up plan on getting a major part of his domestic agenda passed in case health care falls apart. While not as much of a hot button issue like health care, cap-and-trade could easily turn into a damaging issue back home for Democrats in Republican-leaning district. In other words, it’s their funeral.

Someone forwarded this video to me yesterday of some of Tax Hike Mike Huckabee’s comments from the 2007 Global Warming and Energy Solutions Conference where he laid out his support for CAFE standards and cap-and-trade, which he not only supports but expresses disappointment that the Senate failed to pass it.

We often hear Blue Dog Democrats referred to as “fiscal conservatives” and we’re told about their concerns about the budget deficits.The guys over at National Taxpayers Union have put together a spreadsheet showing how Blue Dogs or otherwise vulnerable districts have voted on TARP, the auto bailout, the “stimulus,” the budget and ObamaCare (among a few other votes).

If you live in one of these districts, I’d encourage you to support their opponent in 2010. These Blue Dogs are not fiscal conservatives. They are part of the Culture of Debt in Washington, DC.

James Pethokoukis explains why cap-and-trade is dead:

Carbon cap-and-trade legislation appears to be Dead Policy Walking in Washington. The devaluation of the Copenhagen climate summit – now the goal is a “politically binding” rather than a “legally binding” agreement — reflects the emerging political reality in the United States. Yes, a bill did pass the House of Representatives in June. Also, the Senate Environment and Public Works committee passed a version earlier this month. So President Barack Obama won’t go to the talks in Denmark with empty pockets next month.

Publicly, Senate Democratic leaders say they are only pushing off debate and consideration of a comprehensive climate change bill until spring. But it is hard to get a major bill passed in a Democrat-controlled Senate when the Democratic majority leader of the Senate wants the bill to go away. And have no doubt that Senator Harry Reid would like to see cap-and-trade go away — or at least disappear until after 2010.
[…]
A new Gallup poll finds that 51 percent of Americans see the weak economy or high unemployment as their biggest concerns. Barely 3 percent mention the environment. And Democrats have been unable to sell cap-and-trade as a job creator. At worst, the public sees it as a jobs killer or a costly energy tax. That charge has particular weight in Reid’s home state, Nevada, a high energy-use state. (All those air conditioners!) So Reid doesn’t want to have to vote for it, which he would be compelled to do as majority leader. And neither do moderates like MaryLandrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Debbie Stabenow and Jim Webb. They noticed the heat that centrist House members who voted for cap-and-trade took from constituents during Congress’ summer break.

If you’re a homeowner, a builder, or a landlord who owns a condo or two for investment purposes, the cap-and-trade bill is ready to screw you over royally:

That bill contains 397 new regulations. One of them would affect almost everyone who buys or sells a home. If Waxman-Markey becomes law, homes for sale that qualify as “federally related transactions” — which is almost all of them — would be required to undergo an environmental inspection.

Many politicians are upset about depressed housing prices. And true, environmental inspections are one way to raise them. But this is not the way to do it. Sen. Boxer should see to it that the Senate version of cap and trade leaves the environmental inspection provision out.

Inspections are not free. Nor is fixing the inevitable violations. Compliance with new energy-efficiency standards would make homes, especially older ones, more expensive. Selling one’s home would become even harder than it already is in this down market if Waxman-Markey-style cap and trade becomes law.

But wait, there’s more:

Suppose you have a window that isn’t quite airtight or your appliances are a little too old. Maybe they’re not Energy Star certified. You’d have to replace them before you would be allowed to sell your home.

The result could be the end of fixer-upper homes; surely, this is not what Congress has in mind. Some families prefer to buy a home in less-than-stellar condition on the cheap and make repairs and upgrades themselves.

But, of course, consumer choice doesn’t really matter to Congress, does it ?

We learned a couple days ago that the cap-and-trade bill passed by the House a few months ago will cost families $1,761 more in taxes than the Obama Administration admitted.

Today, we learn that we can may see a reduction of as much as 3.5% reduction in the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050:

The climate change bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives would reduce the gross domestic product of the United States by as much as 3.5 percent in 2050, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.
[…]
“Reducing the risk of climate change would come at some cost to the economy,” the CBO said in a reported posted on its website on Thursday.

The report concludes that if cap and trade provisions of the bill are implemented, the measure would reduce the gross domestic product by between 1 percent and 3.5 percent below what it otherwise would have been in 2050.

The full CBO report is available here.

This bill is dead.

H/T: Hot Air

The cap-and-trade bill just got more expensive for families:

A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama’s transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: “Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation.”

The documents (PDF) were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute and released on Tuesday.

This puts the cost of the bill per family very close to the estimation of the Heritage Foundation, which also predicts higher long term costs:

When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill’s restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.

Perhaps it’s not suprise that Democratic leaders in the Senate are going to put off a vote on this until next year.

Next year is an election year, so it’s very likely that this bill is dead.

The Senate is pushing back action on cap-and-trade:

The leading Senate committee responsible for developing the climate change legislation has delayed by at least a month its crafting of a bill, leaving less time for Congress to fulfill Obama’s desire to enact a law this year.

“We’ll do it as soon as we get back” in September from a month-long break, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer announced.
[…]
Senator Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which also has a significant role in developing the climate legislation, was more pessimistic. “I don’t even expect it to come up this year” in the Senate, he told reporters.

Democrats will force a vote on cap-and-trade this week, deciding to tackle the issue ahead of health care:

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has brokered enough of a pact with wary Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) to pave the way for a bill to be voted on by week’s end. But it remains to be seen whether the measure has the votes to pass. Most Republicans are expected to reject the bill, while some conservative Democrats, such as Reps. Jason Altmire (Pa.) and Gene Taylor (Miss.), are firmly against it.