Cap and Trade

[dead_rabbit]

Either explain why you feel carbon emissions need to be capped/curbed or refrain from further comment on this thread.

Amen brother. A#%$^men. I've asked twice, but have yet to get any type of response. When you believe in junk science (I know another red herring) it's difficult to back up your beliefs.

[dead_rabbit]

And here is where our current two-part system is a pathetic failure.

More money is spent on this bulls**t psuedo-war between Democrats and Republicans than it is actually helping the people of this country.

Political parties should be banned. Politicians should have to fall back on their own ideologies and not just pick up the party line.

I don't know about banning political parties, but there absolutely needs to be TERM LIMITS!!!

[Goon]

Companies can't just pass those costs on when their competitors aren't raising their costs.

For example, Wendy's can't just jack the price of their burgers up a $1 each if Burger King isn't raising their prices.

But to your point they can't just pay these huge fees and stay in business.

Hmm, what to do? I guess they'll be forced to upgrade their processes to be compliant! That will create new jobs and consumers will be the big winners.

You have no idea what your talking about put down the bong and inform your self, if TAX AND CAP gets approved everything is going up.

You're applading taxing consumer for their energy use. The ones that will suffer a lot are truckers, farmers, people who live in cold states like the midwest.

There isn't competition for energy in small states like ND. This will be passed on to the consumers.

[LeftyZL]

Companies can't just pass those costs on when their competitors aren't raising their costs.

For example, Wendy's can't just jack the price of their burgers up a $1 each if Burger King isn't raising their prices.

But to your point they can't just pay these huge fees and stay in business.

Hmm, what to do? I guess they'll be forced to upgrade their processes to be compliant! That will create new jobs and consumers will be the big winners.

What happens if Burger King wants to raise their prices to match Wendy's even if Burger King is compliant? Does that make them greedy or too profitable? Would you still go to Burger King if you knew they were price gouging customer's?

As for creating new jobs, I live in Duluth and I had one of those big signs that said "Funding by the Recovery and Reinvestment Act". It consisted of black-topping a section of road that I will say is 1-2 miles. Guess how long it took?

4 days.

Creating jobs. Temporarily at least.

[cheppi]

Here's the true analogy:

doctor 1 is slapped with a new fee because his methods are not compliant with the new standard. He attempts to pass that cost to his customers by increasing his costs.

The customers then leave doctor 1 and go to doctor 2 who did not increase his costs since he did not get the new fee because his methods are compliant.

Doctor 1 is forced to upgrade his methods to become compliant so that he can return to being cost-competitive with doctor 2.

sorry, but I must respond.

If say in my profession the gov. mandates all exams require a visual field exam. I don't provide that to all my patients at this time but my competitors do. My cost will go up due to the purchase of a new machine which will get passed on the the patients, and my competitors who already provide those test will see no fee increase for their patients. The bottom line is my original exam fees were lower than said competitor and now are closer to theirs. I can guarantee they were not providing that test at no cost to their patients and had a higher fee than myself to start with; so said theory doesn't hold water.

[MplsBison]

Say the minimum wage gets jacked up another couple bucks an hour. You're sure Wendy's can't jack up the price of those burgers? The competition is subject to the same constraints. Nobody raises their prices, none of it's passed on to the consumer? In this analogy, both Wendy's and Burger King either pass costs along or sustain economic losses and ultimately go out of business.

But that's the point of the analogy, some companies won't be as affected as others because they're already more compliant than others.

Thus their costs won't go up as much or at all versus other companies that will have great cost increases.

The point is to reward those companies that took the initiative to invest in those processes and methods that don't emit carbon into out atmosphere and punish those companies who did not.

[MplsBison]

sorry, but I must respond.

If say in my profession the gov. mandates all exams require a visual field exam. I don't provide that to all my patients at this time but my competitors do. My cost will go up due to the purchase of a new machine which will get passed on the the patients, and my competitors who already provide those test will see no fee increase for their patients. The bottom line is my original exam fees were lower than said competitor and now are closer to theirs. I can guarantee they were not providing that test at no cost to their patients and had a higher fee than myself to start with; so said theory doesn't hold water.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

Those companies that are already using processes that don't emit carbon will not see price increases.

[cheppi]

You're comparing apples to oranges.

Those companies that are already using processes that don't emit carbon will not see price increases.

I agree but in order to supply their product with lower emission they are probably already using more expensive technology. Therefore their base operating expenses are higher and unless subsidized by someone, the higher cost are passed on to others.

[dlsiouxfan]

What an embarassment. Votes found in trunks of cars in the Iron Range and what not.

Pure fiction. I challenge you to find one credible site for this. Coleman's own attorney's even say it was a clean election. Franken won because he got more votes. Deal with it.

[Bison Dan]

Pure fiction. I challenge you to find one credible site for this. Coleman's own attorney's even say it was a clean election. Franken won because he got more votes. Deal with it.

Your proud to have Franken as a MN senator??

[Flatland]

Companies can't just pass those costs on when their competitors aren't raising their costs.

For example, Wendy's can't just jack the price of their burgers up a $1 each if Burger King isn't raising their prices.

But to your point they can't just pay these huge fees and stay in business.

Hmm, what to do? I guess they'll be forced to upgrade their processes to be compliant! That will create new jobs and consumers will be the big winners.

You've completely missed my point. You think just one business will raise prices? Wrong. The government doesn't just tax one company. This cap and trade is pushed into every company's balance sheet. In order to keep a reasonable profit margin all companies will be forced to raise prices.

As to your point about forcing their processes to be compliant, you don't know what you're talking about. There will be some CO2 capture which will be done by some companies which may have to higher a few people, but the higher operating costs is more likely to result in fewer jobs ACROSS THE ENTIRE ECONOMY, not more (unless you are talking about government jobs which I still regard as a net loss on the economy.) So one industry (carbon capture and sequestration) booms and all the rest (manufacturing, petroleum, etc) are forced to recoup the cost.

[Flatland]

You're comparing apples to oranges.

Those companies that are already using processes that don't emit carbon will not see price increases.

Actually, all will because this effects utility prices. On top of that, most companies raw materials have to go through some manufacturing/refining. This will increase the costs all along the supply chain.

[star2city]

No climate debate? Yes there is.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in January 2008, he [Obama] calmly explained how cap-and-trade - the carbon-dioxide rationing scheme that is at the heart of Waxman-Markey - would work:

“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket . . . because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, natural gas, you name it . . . Whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money, and they will pass that [cost] on to consumers.’’

In the same interview, Obama suggested that his energy policy would require the ruin of the coal industry. “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can,’’ he told the Chronicle. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

“There is no longer a debate about whether carbon pollution is placing our planet in jeopardy,’’ he [Obama] declared Saturday. “It’s happening.’’

No debate? The debate over global warming is more robust than it has been in years, and not only in America. “In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming,’’ Kimberly Strassel noted in The Wall Street Journal the other day. “In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country’s new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted . . . Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the ‘new religion.’ ’’

Closer to home, the noted physicist Hal Lewis (emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara) e-mails me a copy of a statement he and several fellow scientists, including physicists Will Happer and Robert Austin of Princeton, Laurence Gould of the University of Hartford, and climatologist Richard Lindzen of MIT, have sent to Congress. “The sky is not falling,’’ they write. Far from warming, “the Earth has been cooling for 10 years’’ - a trend that “was not predicted by the alarmists’ computer models.’’

[The Sicatoka]

No climate debate? Yes there is.

You missed the Aussies.

[Goon]

Your proud to have Franken as a MN senator??

I am so glad that I live in North Dakota. Franken is a vile disgusting human being.

[Goon]

From the article.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

Telling isn't it? Time to call Colin Peterson in Minnesota and other politicians like him.

Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.

[Oxbow6]

No climate debate? Yes there is.

June was the 8th consecutive month with below average temps in Fargo. In those 8 months, 63% of those individual days had below temps.

[Goon]

June was the 8th consecutive month with below average temps in Fargo. In those 8 months, 63% of those individual days had below temps.

The no growth enviormental nazis people will blame those temps on climate change and humans.

[sioux7>5]

Pure fiction. I challenge you to find one credible site for this. Coleman's own attorney's even say it was a clean election. Franken won because he got more votes. Deal with it.

OK lets just say it was a clean vote, do you realize that very early on in the process it was said that MN election law states that no absentee ballot not counted on election day can be re-considered. Therefore, Coleman wins. But the whiny dems can't handle that so they want some ballots counted but not others. That is changing election law after the election. That is crap and should not have been allowed. What they should have done is do another state wide special election and then whoever gets the most votes wins.

Franken is a pig, he plays the "Don't you know who I am" card a lot. He is not respected by a lot of people. He is a socialist, he thinks the government should run your whole life. Good Luck with that. One more reason Minnesota politics are an embarrasment tot he rest of the country.

[GeauxSioux]

I was just listening to Boortz on the radio and he was talking about the "Cap and Tax" bill. The main point of discussion this morning was about the REEP portion of the bill, of which I had not heard. Democrats’ Cap-and-Trade Bill Creates ‘Retrofit’ Policy for Homes and Businesses

The 1,400-page cap-and-trade legislation pushed through by House Democrats contains a new federal policy that residential, commercial, and government buildings be retrofitted to increase energy efficiency, leaving it up to the states to figure out exactly how to do that.

This means that homeowners, for example, could be required to retrofit their homes to meet federal “green” guidelines in order to sell their homes, if the cap-and-trade bill becomes law.

The bill, which now goes to the Senate, directs the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and implement a national policy for residential and commercial buildings. The purpose of such a strategy – known as the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP) – would be to “facilitate” the retrofitting of existing buildings nationwide.

Obviously I haven't read the 1400 page bill (heck, no one in the House even read it), so I'm going by what I heard on the radio and this news piece.

Sorry Sica, this pretty much kills your idea of the UND Reapers. UND would be hated as they guys who make you retrofit your home.

[buckysieve]

I am so glad that I live in North Dakota. Franken is a vile disgusting human being.

What makes him vile and disgusting? And please don't say things that he has said or done in the comedy world. I can't beleive republicans were trying to hold that against him. It was almost as bad as when they were attacking Jim Webb for novels he wrote.

[Goon]

What makes him vile and disgusting? And please don't say things that he has said or done in the comedy world. I can't beleive republicans were trying to hold that against him. It was almost as bad as when they were attacking Jim Webb for novels he wrote.

Read some of his books, I had the chance to listen to a few of his radio shows. In my opinion the man is disgusting.

Thankgod he is yours.

[Goon]

OK lets just say it was a clean vote, do you realize that very early on in the process it was said that MN election law states that no absentee ballot not counted on election day can be re-considered. Therefore, Coleman wins. But the whiny dems can't handle that so they want some ballots counted but not others. That is changing election law after the election. That is crap and should not have been allowed. What they should have done is do another state wide special election and then whoever gets the most votes wins.

Franken is a pig, he plays the "Don't you know who I am" card a lot. He is not respected by a lot of people. He is a socialist, he thinks the government should run your whole life. Good Luck with that. One more reason Minnesota politics are an embarrasment tot he rest of the country.

Franken is also a carpet bagger that had trouble paying his taxes.

[sioux7>5]

Franken is also a carpet bagger that had trouble paying his taxes.

So if I am understanding the Obama administration, if I don't pay my taxes I might get a sweet job with a big paycheck and maybe even be Secretary of State! Cool

[GeauxSioux]

I don't care who you voted for, REEP has to scare the heck out of you.