United Liberty

Despite that cap-and-trade is likely dead for the foreseeable future, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be imposing regulatory mandates on energy producers after declaring that carbon dioxide is a “health hazard”:

The latest step by the government to regulate carbon dioxide emissions saddles industry with uncertainty and potentially higher costs, industry groups said Monday after the Environmental Protection Agency declared carbon dioxide a health hazard.

The EPA’s decision paves the way for new regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and factories even if Congress doesn’t pass legislation to do so.

If nothing changes, the EPA, sometime next year, could require big carbon emitters – such as power plants, steel mills, cement makers and others – to put the best available equipment on new and modified plants to curb emissions.

Industry groups say EPA regulation would eventually drive up energy costs, lead to lost jobs and delays in project permits and construction. More immediately, “This adds more uncertainty and could impact how companies make decisions,” says Keith McCoy, vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers.

What bothers me here more than anything is the Obama Administration going around Congress and using non-elected bureaucrats to make energy policy. Explain to me how that is remotely constitutional?

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 current energy crisis facing America is a hot topic among the Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates, not to mention amongst the voters who are feeling the pinch in their pocketbooks because of foreign-oil dependence.  Calls to “drill here, drill now” are becoming common place in political venues and, in my opinion, reflect the feelings of a growing number of voters.