Cap and Trade

[GeauxSioux]

I know SiouxSports is a non political site, but I see this as being more of an economic than political issue. The House is voting today on the Cap and Trade bill. This bill will hurt North Dakota and the rest of the US. Call, email or Twitter Earl Pomeroy and let him know where you stand on this important issue.

The Cap and Tax Fiction

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House, and the bill may get a full vote as early as Friday. It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done.

Despite House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's many payoffs to Members, rural and Blue Dog Democrats remain wary of voting for a bill that will impose crushing costs on their home-district businesses and consumers. The leadership's solution to this problem is to simply claim the bill defies the laws of economics.

Note also that the CBO analysis is an average for the country as a whole. It doesn't take into account the fact that certain regions and populations will be more severely hit than others -- manufacturing states more than service states; coal producing states more than states that rely on hydro or natural gas. Low-income Americans, who devote more of their disposable income to energy, have more to lose than high-income families.

This mean you, ND.

[Snake]

We're all going to pay for this if it passes...

[Shawn-O]

Boehner is about half way through reading the 300 page amendment....and he's got unlimited floor time. This could be a late one.

[Shawn-O]

It passed 219-212.

[GeauxSioux]

But the important news of the day is all about Michael Jackson I'm so frustrated with Washington I could scream. :angry:

[Goon]

I heard it won't pass the senate. Also, time to call Conrad and Dorgan. I called Earl's office today.

[MplsBison]

I know SiouxSports is a non political site, but I see this as being more of an economic than political issue. The House is voting today on the Cap and Trade bill. This bill will hurt North Dakota and the rest of the US. Call, email or Twitter Earl Pomeroy and let him know where you stand on this important issue.

The Cap and Tax Fiction This mean you, ND.

Good, we need more incentives to stop coal production in ND. I hope it does pass.

I'm also sick of this pure bulls**t attitude that if something is good for the country as a whole, but not good for my state individually, I'm going to tell my senator to vote it down! Screw that. State provincialism should not be allowed to derail important, NATIONAL policy. Especially not small states like North Dakota.

[GeauxSioux]

Good, we need more incentives to stop coal production in ND. I hope it does pass.

I'm also sick of this pure bulls**t attitude that if something is good for the country as a whole, but not good for my state individually, I'm going to tell my senator to vote it down! Screw that. State provincialism should not be allowed to derail important, NATIONAL policy. Especially not small states like North Dakota.

We need more incentives to stop coal production? Somewhere in the DC area there must be a tree that generates so much money that politicians don't know what to do with it. Incentives cost money,

The reason that I implore people from North Dakota to contact their congressman is because I'm hopeful that the Midwesterners can derail the goofy east coast greenies.

I know that I'm probably wasting my breath here, but why not let business take care of it. Over regulation of nuclear, killed what was a viable source of energy for America. I hate to ever use France as an example of something positive, but this is something that France has done right, producing near 90% of their needs. I have said it before government is not the answer. Government is the problem. It's not that I'm pro-coal, per se, I'm against government control. Next up health care. Then.... ? Getting scared yet?

[STS]

Good, we need more incentives to stop coal production in ND. I hope it does pass.

I'm also sick of this pure bulls**t attitude that if something is good for the country as a whole, but not good for my state individually, I'm going to tell my senator to vote it down! Screw that. State provincialism should not be allowed to derail important, NATIONAL policy. Especially not small states like North Dakota.

WTF are you talking about? Taking inventory of you post, there's not one accurate statement in there.

You're right, let's become more energy independent by ceasing production of major domestic energy deposits, we can buy that stuff from friendly nations like Venezuela or Iran, no worries there. And we should for sure let larger states like California or Minnesota make all of our decisions, I mean, let California handle fiscal policy, they got that down pretty good. Minnesota can run the elections, after all, they haven't had any election problems lately, and they're good at counting, they don't call it the land of 11,842 lakes for nothing. Small states like North Dakota with their pathetically low crime rates, laughably low unemployment, and ridiculous budget surplus should just STFU once and for all.

American are looking at a average yearly cost of about $1600/household, but that won't matter anyway because nobody will be able to pay it when unemployment explodes. The bill is modeled after laws in Spain, Spain has unemployment of 17.4% and are forecasting 20% by the end of 2009. That'll be more an 30 million American without jobs if we can only be more like lovable, green Spain. Hope and change indeed.

[wxman91]

Humans are single-handedly changing the composition of the atmosphere, increasing a radiatively important gas by a tremendous amount over a short period of time. While there are still uncertainties in the magnitude (and signs) of some feedbacks, it is without a doubt that this will have significant cumulative ramifications down the road (both climate and oceans). Did the dems craft the greatest bill around? Certainly doesn't look like it. Far too complicated and backloaded. But what was the repub alternative? A prize system. Seriously. As if there aren't already monetary incentives (hint: free-market capitalism) available. Maybe if the repubs actually come up with something that isn't completely useless, then there can be some discussion, but until then this is the only game in town. (no idea if the senate will pass it).

[STS]

Humans are single-handedly changing the composition of the atmosphere, increasing a radiatively important gas by a tremendous amount over a short period of time. While there are still uncertainties in the magnitude (and signs) of some feedbacks, it is without a doubt that this will have significant cumulative ramifications down the road (both climate and oceans). Did the dems craft the greatest bill around? Certainly doesn't look like it. Far too complicated and backloaded. But what was the repub alternative? A prize system. Seriously. As if there aren't already monetary incentives (hint: free-market capitalism) available. Maybe if the repubs actually come up with something that isn't completely useless, then there can be some discussion, but until then this is the only game in town. (no idea if the senate will pass it).

I'm not going to get into the argument about whether global warming is or isn't BS. But how does forcing "environmentally unfriendly" industries to move to nations without environmental laws while simultaneously increasing the cost of EVERYTHING in the U.S. help the planet. China and India win again.

[sioux7>5]

I'm not going to get into the argument about whether global warming is or isn't BS. But how does forcing "environmentally unfriendly" industries to move to nations without environmental laws while simultaneously increasing the cost of EVERYTHING in the U.S. help the planet. China and India win again.

It doesn't this bill is Obama's wet dream. But I do not think it will pass the senate. One can hope that it does not pass. Obama is a failed president already and is a d-bag on top of it. Try him with no teleprompter and he would have never been elected.

[Goon]

Good, we need more incentives to stop coal production in ND. I hope it does pass.

I'm also sick of this pure bulls**t attitude that if something is good for the country as a whole, but not good for my state individually, I'm going to tell my senator to vote it down! Screw that. State provincialism should not be allowed to derail important, NATIONAL policy. Especially not small states like North Dakota.

Ok Hippie, you have no idea what your talking about, the Tax and Cap bill is going to wreck the economy and kill jobs more that we have already.

You sound like you have not studied up on the subject one bit. The bill probably won't pass the senate because there is such a public outrage against this

horrible bill.

[wxman91]

I'm not going to get into the argument about whether global warming is or isn't BS. But how does forcing "environmentally unfriendly" industries to move to nations without environmental laws while simultaneously increasing the cost of EVERYTHING in the U.S. help the planet. China and India win again.

Fine, I'm not a big fan of cap-and-trade. But where's the alternative? Why haven't the Republicans come up with anything realistic? The fact is that this bill is completely watered-down because the dems are so afraid of seeming too anti-business.

[STS]

Fine, I'm not a big fan of cap-and-trade. But where's the alternative? Why haven't the Republicans come up with anything realistic? The fact is that this bill is completely watered-down because the dems are so afraid of seeming too anti-business.

I think they had a better plan, and your first post about letting the free market handle this leads me to believe that you do as well. Take off your blue colored glasses and maybe you'll notice that the GOP plan called for developing the energy reserves that we currently have available domestically and using the royalties from that development to further research into renewable energy. With better technology driving renewable energy forward the free market would take care of itself. A "prize system" would be preferable to the ponzi scheme that's about to be shoved down our throats.

Wind power has the potential to be great, especially for North Dakota, but it's not ready for prime time and can't power our country alone. The same people that are backing this legislation are the ones fighting wind power farms in their backyard, and doing their level best to crush our best hope for clean energy out of existence, nuclear. You can't put up nuclear reactors, not a single new has started construction since 1977, you can't build wind farms because they're ugly and kill bats, and you can't put up solar panels because they might take the ecosystem of a mouse that nobody should care about. Can't win for losing with this crowd.

[Godsmack]

Good, we need more incentives to stop coal production in ND. I hope it does pass.

I'm also sick of this pure bulls**t attitude that if something is good for the country as a whole, but not good for my state individually, I'm going to tell my senator to vote it down! Screw that. State provincialism should not be allowed to derail important, NATIONAL policy. Especially not small states like North Dakota.

If the Waxman/Markey Bill actually did anything to effectively reduce carbon emissions, then perhaps your argument would have some merit. Unfortunately, this was a politically-motivated bill pushed through Congress and passed (by 1 vote) thanks to kickbacks and payoffs to moderates and blue dog Democrats.

If this wasn't a politically motivated piece of legislation, I don't know what is.

This bill will effectively create a $2 trillion tax on American families (no, not just on the super rich who some like to demonize), particularly the low and middle income families....so effectively the House passed one the most regressive tax increases in this country's history. Oh yah, MplsBison, this will have negative consequences on your great state of Minnesota as well as coal production in states like North Dakota, Wyoming, etc. go to support over 50% of the energy needs in 25 of our 50 states....one of those 25 states-you got it, Minnesota.

[GeauxSioux]

Pomeroy voted against it.

Time to light up the Senators....

https://conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

http://www.dorgan.senate.gov/contact/contact_form.cfm

[Godsmack]

Supposedly, Congressmen like Pomeroy were provided political cover by being able to vote against the Waxman/Markey bill as legislators from "safe" districts whose constituents don't care about the bill's negative impact on coal producing states nor on the consumer who'll ultimately be the one getting screwed, provided the needed votes to get to 219. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Pomeroy voted "no" but now he can throw his arms up in the air and say, "hey, I voted against it, I did my part." knowing full well that the bill already had garnered enough votes to pass anyway.

[dlsiouxfan]

I know SiouxSports is a non political site, but I see this as being more of an economic than political issue. The House is voting today on the Cap and Trade bill. This bill will hurt North Dakota and the rest of the US. Call, email or Twitter Earl Pomeroy and let him know where you stand on this important issue.

The Cap and Tax Fiction This mean you, ND.

I took your advice and called my Senator (Amy Klobuchar) and told her to vote for it.

[star2city]

Earth's average temperature is only now approaching the norm of the past 3000 years:

New Book by Australian scientist, Heaven and Earth, resulted in the Australian Senate saying B.S. to the carbon cap and potentially unraveling the whole global warming industry (to China's and India's dismay).

Some 85 per cent of volcanoes are unseen and unmeasured yet these heat the oceans and add monstrous amounts of CO2 to the oceans. Why have these been ignored? Why have there been five significant ice ages when CO2 was higher than now? Why were warmings in Minoan, Roman and medieval times natural, yet a smaller warming at the end of the 20th century was due to human activities? If climate changed at the end of the Little Ice Age (c.1850), is it unusual for warming to follow?

Computer models using the past 150 years of measurements have been used to predict climate for the next few centuries. Why have these models not been run backwards to validate known climate changes?

[by] running these models backwards, El Nino events and volcanoes such as Krakatoa (1883, 535), Rabaul (536) and Tambora (1815) could not be validated.

The climate change models cannot predict a known past: who with any logic and scientific training would trust them to predict the future?

If increased concentrations of CO2 increase temperature, why have there been coolings during the past 150 years?

Computer models are the essential tool for prediction of future climate. Since the IPCC fourth assessment, several independent analyses of the characteristics of the various models have been published in the scientific literature. These analyses reveal serious defects.

As the Earth warmed during the 1980s and '90s, it was observed that the convective overturning of the tropics (the Hadley circulation) increased. In contrast, the overturning of the computer models is portrayed to decrease as increasing carbon dioxide generates global warming.

Separately it is found that the computer models underspecify (by a factor of three) the important rate of increase of evaporation with projected temperature rise, meaning that the models underspecify rainfall increase and exaggerate the risk of drought.

The same evaporation problem causes an exaggeration of the temperature response to carbon dioxide, but the exaggeration is a model failure and not reality.

The greenhouse effect is real, as is the enhancement due to increasing carbon dioxide concentration.

However, the likely extent of global temperature rise from a doubling of carbon dioxide is less than 1C.

Such warming is well within the envelope of variation experienced during the past 10,000 years and insignificant in the context of glacial cycles during the past million years, when Earth has been predominantly very cold and covered by extensive ice sheets.

[MplsBison]

Global warming is a red herring.

The point of cap/trade is to curb and ultimately eliminate carbon emission. That in itself is a problem that needs to be corrected.

Those energy sources that don't pollute, such as gas and solar, will not see any increases in price due to the legislation, thus funneling people to those sources.

And the government will receive a ton of money from those sources that do pollute in the mean time.

Win-win-win-win legislation!

[GeauxSioux]

Corporations don't pay taxes. People do. All fines and expenses levied against corporations will be passed on to the consumer. The people of America lose-lose-lose-lose.

This is a huge tax increase under the guise of saving the planet. What a sad joke.

[Godsmack]

Fortunately, this bill is very likely to die once it reaches the Senate. As the smaller, coal-producing states coupled with the 25 states that rely on coal as the primary source of energy will have greater voting power and representation, it's going to be extremely difficult for the anti-growth, politically-driven legislators from California and the east coast to see this thing through.

[MplsBison]

I guess Minnesota will just have to find cleaner sources of energy, then!

Energy from coal: no longer welcome in the great state of Minnesota.

[star2city]

Global warming is a red herring.

The point of cap/trade is to curb and ultimately eliminate carbon emission. That in itself is a problem that needs to be corrected.

Those energy sources that don't pollute, such as gas and solar, will not see any increases in price due to the legislation, thus funneling people to those sources.

Let me get this straight. You say global warming isn't an issue, but carbon emissions are. Carbon dioxide in itself is not a pollutant: plants grow faster and better and yield more with more carbon dioxide.

If there is an issue, it's our dependence on foreign oil. If Congress could actually have the balls to deal with that issue (and even tax imported oil as much as I hate taxes), it would actually make some sense and increase economic incentives to develop all types of energy here in the US. Instead, this bill will basically drive out the remaining industry in our country to China and India, which have absolutely no plans to ever implement any form of the Kyoto agreement. This bill is not only based on garbage science, it is the practically the most anti-patriotic bill one could ever imagine.