The American Spectator : Cap and Control the EPA

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Cap and Control the EPA

The House moves to regulate the global warmist regulators.

There’s a relatively new front in the war against elephantine government and the Obama administration’s socialist dreams. It’s called The Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, and it’s gotten less attention than it deserves, even in the conservative press.

If it becomes law, the bill, which the full House Committee on Energy and Commerce approved 34-19 on Tuesday, would prohibit the federal Environmental Protection Agency from forcing a carbon cap and trade system on an unwilling nation, something the EPA has already begun doing. The bill, with majority support in the House, will likely be approved by that body later in the spring. Its prospects of making it to the floor in the Democratic-controlled Senate are less certain.

Cap and trade is the Soviet-style system whereby decisions on energy use throughout the economy are taken from the private sector, where they’ve rightly always been, and turned over to politicians and bureaucrats. In every contest to name the quickest way to make a Third World country out of the U.S., this scam has come in first. The cover for this audacious leftist putsch is that we need the government to parcel out permission to use fossil fuels in order to save us from manmade global warming and its attendant horrors (which, news out of Japan has demonstrated once again, are trifling compared to what Mother Nature can dish out without any help from us).

Over the past two years an increasing number of Americans have figured out that global warming, along with the left’s favorite nostrum to head it off, cap and trade, are frauds of such audacious dimensions as to make the Piltdown hoax look like a fraternity prank by comparison. They’ve also figured out that cap and trade would severely limit the availability of energy and drive the price of everything up, the last things an economy struggling to recover needs. (Rather than burden the economy with cap and trade, why not just shoot it in the back of the head? This would be slightly quicker, more humane, and accomplish the same thing.)

This is why while a cap and trade bill was approved in the U.S. House in 2009 with room to spare, a companion bill never made it to the floor of the Senate in ‘09 or 2010. Americans were catching on.

Undeterred by the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline in the near term, and unambiguous evidence that the American people don’t want cap and trade any more than they wanted Obamacare when that was rammed through, Obama and his EPA have already started implementing rules which, if they are allowed to metastasize nationally, would essentially put government apparatchiks in charge of the American economy.

So far about a dozen states have sued the federals to block enforcement of these destructive rules. One state, Texas, has told the EPA to bugger off. They won’t cooperate with enforcement. Comes now the “Energy Tax Prevention Act,” which would permanently strip the EPA of the power and funds to enforce cap and trade.

The bill in no way alters the Clean Air Act, which would still oblige the EPA to regulate real air pollutants such as lead, ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter. But greenhouse gases would be stricken from the list of pollutants as there is no convincing evidence that they are, well, pollutants.

The Senate bill, authored by James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), has 42 co-sponsors, including one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia. But this is a party-line business, with Democrats, the party of government, nearly solidly in favor of the nation’s economy being run from Washington.

Matt Dempsey, communications director of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, concedes it will be tricky to get this matter to the Senate floor with Democrats controlling the calendar, but said, “We will look at every opportunity to bring this bill to the Senate floor,” including perhaps attaching this bill as an amendment to other legislation.

“We’re working across the aisle,” Dempsey told me. “We’re hoping that passage in the House will create some momentum in the Senate. With gasoline prices on the rise, there’s some sentiment now, even among Democrats, to slow the EPA down.”

One of the Senate co-sponsors is rookie Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio. “At a time when Florida families and businesses are already struggling with high unemployment and slow economic growth, the last thing we need is unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington imposing an energy tax through regulation that would increase electricity and gasoline prices,” Rubio said. “This bill not only protects Florida’s families but will also eliminate some of the uncertainty preventing job creators from expanding their businesses and employing more people.”

GOP spokesman Charlotte Baker says members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have been hearing the same sentiments from their constituents. “There’s has been a lot of backlash to what the EPA is attempting,” she said.

Keep an eye on this one. It’s central to the power struggle going on now that will determine how many of America’s freedoms survive the current administration, devoted as it is to command and control.

About the Author

Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (77) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.16.11 @ 6:11AM

Here's some simple math.

Fire 17,000 EPA employees and create over 10 million jobs.

It's a no brainer.

vtwin| 3.16.11 @ 12:36PM

“Fire 17,000 EPA employees and” corporate America will be free to poison the water, air, and soil, we'll all get cancer, die, and go to heaven to live forever with Jesus.

It's a no brainer!

Maryland Lady| 3.16.11 @ 12:59PM

You're a no brainer, vtwin.

Tim the Enchanter| 3.16.11 @ 1:37PM

Every day for vtwin is a no-brainer. Of course Corporate America (straw man much?) wants to poison and kill off their customer base. More like v-twit. P.S.: hope he's found replacements for his pink handlebar streamers.

Maryland Lady| 3.16.11 @ 2:01PM

Tim,

Maybe vtwin can ask his fearless leader, Obambi to pick him up a pair while he's in Rio? A pair of streamers that is ;-)

Mike | 3.16.11 @ 2:42PM

Actually Maryland Lady (presumably), vtwin has it right about corporate America. About the rest, well, that's a matter of faith.

Steve A| 3.16.11 @ 2:59PM

Maryland Lady, Nice one, made me laugh.

Doctor Right| 3.16.11 @ 2:26PM

And in which government agency does your sizable posterior park itself every day?

Deborah D | 3.16.11 @ 6:27AM

If we had a news media that was actually interested in what's good for the country instead of what's good for Obama and the Democrats, this would be a national scandal. I just look around at the destruction this president and this donkey party have wreaked on our country, and I can't help but think -- treason.

And, Nancy Pelosi, you wouldn't know "morality" if it came up and kissed you on your botoxed cheeks.

Tim the Enchanter| 3.16.11 @ 1:38PM

Have to ask... which cheeks?

Appleby| 3.16.11 @ 6:56AM

Turf the hippie scum out of government every chance you get. The Sixties Are Over.

Pecos Pete| 3.16.11 @ 7:15AM

Betcha the Senate will NOT, in this session of Congress, bring the Kill EPA bill to the floor for a vote.

We can all look forward to $4, $5 and even $6 dollar a gallon gasoline. Plus a related rise in food costs. How does hyper-inflation sound as a near term result?

LiveFreeOrDie| 3.16.11 @ 11:28AM

My thoughts exactly. Wishful thinking. The idiots have slowed their cap-and-tax efforts but in no way have they have reversed course. Just about any R-sponsored bill is DOA in the Senate.

Conservative View| 3.16.11 @ 4:58PM

The quality of life of every American is energy dependent. Lower the quality of life by making income worth less (or making income less) and you get what happened in Wisconsin, people jaming the building.

To approve cap and trade, to drive up the cost of energy is to drastically reduce the income of every family in America. You think Wisconsin was a mess, it would be penuts compaired to the citizen revolt against the government driving up the cost of energy.

Will the cap and trade bill make it tot he Senate floor? I'm with Pete here, not a chance in hell. The more gas prices go up, the more people don't like politicans. The Democrats took a fearsome drubbing last election, watch what happens if the price of gas goes over five a gallon.

The Democrats are caught on the horns of their liberal base. Many "progressives" want America off gasoline and coal, and everything but wind and sun. Great if it would work, but it can't. That doesn't stop a progressive however. If the Democrats vote against cap and trade, there goes the tree hugging vote. If they vote for cap and trade, there goes the family vote. If they sit back and hide, why, then nobody hates them any more than they do now.

Mike D.| 3.16.11 @ 8:06AM

The EPA needs to be destroyed and buried like toxic waste. Just another element of a rogue government bent on the destruction of the country.

Mimi| 3.16.11 @ 8:47AM

The EPA and Cap & Trade must be shut down. That more than anything...Will destroy this liberty loving NATION
I honest to God don't know what is worse... this Cap & Trade idea or the Unions havoc. Both coming from the Democrat Party.....So I guess it's them and their destructive IDEAS that truly must be banished from POWER ....This change NO-ONE can believe in!!!

Mike | 3.16.11 @ 8:52AM

It is worth noting that Exelon CEO, John Rowe, said that the low price of natural gas and the failure of Congress to put a price (tax) on carbon dioxide pollution has delay the nuclear program in the U.S. for a decade or two.

It is fun to watch conservatives working at cross purposes.

WB| 3.16.11 @ 9:03AM

Yeah! Almost as much fun as watching Hopeychange squirm as gas prices continue to rise on his watch.

Mike | 3.16.11 @ 9:53AM

Well, maybe Jeb Bush will win the Presidency. Then, he can stroll hand in hand with Crown Prince Abdullah who will go home and convince the king of Saudi Arabia to pump, baby, pump. Then we can drill, baby, drill at home (except for off the coast of Flordia) and gas prices will fall and we'll all live happily ever after.

Dustoff| 3.16.11 @ 9:59AM

I think O-bummer beat him to it.

Nice try.

dc| 3.16.11 @ 11:50AM

Mike, nice audition to be the Maureen Dowd analog for this particular thread of conversation. The pseudo-clever snarkiness doesn't carry much weight here, though. And your ignorance shows through too clearly: John Rowe, Exelon CEO, is a corporatist fascist, a huge Maobama contributor and supporter, and someone who is actively trying to get the federal government to regulate his competitors out of existence. He is an old, tired Neville Chamberlain-type strategist: the beast will eat me last, therefore, in the short term, I will profit and retire to my gated mansion before enough people realize that I've shafted them all (not just Exelon shareholders) by becoming a quasi-government entity, and supporting a fascist takeover of the U.S. energy sector.
Exactly what's "conservative" about that? You can't answer because you don't understand the issues, and don't care to.
Also, just FYI, none of the Bush family are conservatives either. Some were/are in the oil business, but none of them had the interest or guts to face down the Saudis and the other foreign oil-rich scum and ensure that more drilling occur in the U.S. and North America/Mexico generally. For example, a serious conservative would push Mexico to privatize PEMEX and ensure that U.S. contractors get the modernization work. This would effectively cut the filthy, murderous Venezuelan regime (eventually) off of its oil money lifeline.
But neither the Bushs nor asses like you are interested in anything that actually allows more Americans the freedom to choose what types of energy to buy and when, and at what price. Just admit it: what you want is to have enlightened totalitarians like yourself, the luminaries at NPR, the Maobama cadre of anti-American bastards, etc. ration energy for the rest of us. Correct? And anything that detracts from that goal must be (first) mocked, then lied about, and then killed by regulatory fiat. Then blamed on oil business Republicans. To your detriment, this is a dull, familiar game to which intelligent folks are catching on.

Mike | 3.16.11 @ 4:47PM

dc,

Loved your rant.
I thought your description of Rowe fit another "corporatist fascist" named Dick Cheney to a tee.

And, about the Bushes...primo, dude. You know, of course, that they are part of the conspiracy to create a world wide caliphate. Glenn Beck told us so.
But this is the best:"But neither the Bushs nor asses like you are interested in anything that actually allows more Americans the freedom to choose what types of energy to buy and when, and at what price." Are you advocating solar? Wind? Nuclear? But don't conservatives instinctively hate the first two because they are, well, green? And, the freedom to get energy at what price. Last time I looked, I paid the price demanded by the power company regardless of how the power was generated. Save for regulation, I would be paying more.

Ken (Old Texican)| 3.16.11 @ 9:04AM

Mike
I'm glad you are amused.

Mr. Thornberry, Texas Said NO!
www.texassaidno.com

LiveFreeOrDie| 3.16.11 @ 12:05PM

The amusing part is that Mike probably believed it.

Redstateboy| 3.16.11 @ 9:29AM

May be I'm wrong but cannot Congress simply defund EPA or at least pair down their budget to the point where they can't function?

Redstateboy| 3.16.11 @ 9:41AM

I continue to email and call Corker, Alexander (TN. two Senators) and my Congressmen: John Duncan and keep asking the same question of them: "who's in control in Washington, DC.. the Representatives of the People of the United States or the EPA?!!?" Basically they continue to respond - we understand yet all 3 seem to imply or their staffs do - that they actually believe in this Man Made Global Warming BS!

Mike | 3.16.11 @ 9:55AM

And your BS degree in environmental science is from which distinguished university?

Dustoff| 3.16.11 @ 9:58AM

Like Van Jones????

Deborah D | 3.16.11 @ 10:15AM

Your BS degree is from the University of Troll.

PhilTheCapitalistPig| 3.16.11 @ 10:23AM

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/faqs-and-myths

This website has credentials out the wazoo, including the founder of the weather channel who has since sold his part of the weather channel because they were becoming a communist front.

If these facts and myths don't change your view on "global warming" / "Climate change" then, please, check your pulse.

vtwin| 3.16.11 @ 11:53AM

Wow, the “founder of the weather channel.”

Tim the Enchanter| 3.16.11 @ 1:42PM

Would you prefer the founder of Home Shopping Network, vtwit?

Conservative View| 3.16.11 @ 5:14PM

Unfortunately Phil, it wont. The believers in Global Warming don't believe in science, (mostly because there is none in the AGW debate) they believe in a religion. You can show them until you are blue in the face that there isn't one shread of scientific evidence to support the AGW theory of global warming, and they will still believe.

You can point out to them that absolutely no expermental data confirms AGW. You can point out to them that the leader of the AGW argument in 1980 said that by now the earths temps would have risen two degrees. You can point out to them that not once has the AGW people predicted correctly about anything.

All science is based on repeatable experiments. There are none. All science is predictive. If I drop my computer it will fill, that's a prediction. Still the religious nut cases can not change their minds.

G.K. Chesterton said it best back in the 1920's. It is easier to defend canabalism than catholicism because the arguments to support canabalism are so few and easily orginized. To support catholicism you actually have to think.

So, the canibals will continue to yell and scream and tell us the world is going to end. That it won't will not phase them one bit. And having them actually read and think, well, that too is a lost cause.

vtwin| 3.16.11 @ 11:48AM

Degrees? We don't need no stinkin’ degrees!
According to Rush Limbaugh Global Warming is…

Deborah D | 3.16.11 @ 12:22PM

...a lie!

Doctor Right| 3.16.11 @ 2:28PM

Yes, and according to the Obama-Zombies, spending is actually saving.

Make sure you get your dose of Soma, today, l'il libby boy.

Dustoff| 3.16.11 @ 9:57AM

Fuel cost is going higher & higher. Food is right behind it. Housing starts have crashed.

What does O-bummer do? NCAA picks and golfing.

Yeah, now that's leadership alright. Come on you lib's... DEFEND this fool.

Hey Carter move over, you've got a replacement.

PhilTheCapitalistPig| 3.16.11 @ 10:15AM

Jimmy Carter's long awaited second term in office.

Fred| 3.16.11 @ 3:24PM

Actually, more like McGovern's first term.

Brian Mc| 3.16.11 @ 10:07AM

"So...let them eat cake!" Marie's sentiment comes to mind when I consider the course this country is taking towards bankruptcy. Communists love it when all suffer the same; or do they? These artificially inflated prices at the pump are the direct result of the Marie Antoinette syndrom in D.C. Personally speaking, I resent it to my very core. As I cringe at the pump, watching the numbers rolling ever higher, my sinking heart tells me this does not need to be happening. I'm quite tired of hearing it's for my own good "Please sir, may I have more..."

"Whaaat?!"

It recalls to me the pictures coming out of the U.S.S.R. years ago; of long lines staring at empty shelves-the realization that came to me at the time that none of the ones who had caused it were standing in aforementioned lines...they were the elite who had caused it, communist or not, and were no better than the Czars they had ousted. The benefits had only shifted to those more willing to shed blood. I would bet my bottom dollar that not a single member of the white house staff has lifted a pump handle since the inauguration of the alien.

They had better watch their backs. Revolts can be ugly. You can prod the lion into a corner only so long. But when his butt touches that corner and he has nowhere else to go, all bets are off. We're in for a bumpy ride this summer.

PhilTheCapitalistPig| 3.16.11 @ 10:20AM

I've heard that it may not be attributed to Marie Antoinette, but some other princess around that time.

Either way, the gist of the story does have a striking resemblance to this administration. The princess was told by one of her people that the people didn't even have any bread to eat, and in her ignorance of what that really meant, she says "let them eat cake."

As if cake would be abundant when bread is not. But primarily the parallels you can draw are in the ignorance of Obama and the princess.

Brian Mc| 3.16.11 @ 10:41AM

Yep! I'll take two windmills, please. The alien is trying to create a 'necessity' (alternative energy) by strangling oil production at home. He believes himself to be "the mother of invention"...how trite.

vtwin| 3.16.11 @ 11:40AM

Do you really think the United States which imports over 4 million barrels of oil a day -incidentally it is costing our economy over $160 billion a year- could be replaced with “oil production at home?” If so, you might consider entering the dumbest f**k on the planet contest as I think you’d have a real good chance of winning.

Redstateboy| 3.16.11 @ 11:55AM

your new religion - the New Church of the Man Made Global Warming - can be easily refuted so that leaves us with.. ANWR?

vtwin| 3.16.11 @ 12:47PM

Oh, you’re right. I forgot about drilling in ANWR as a solution.

Hey, Brian Mc about your competition it's going to be a lot steeper than I initially though.

dc| 3.16.11 @ 11:58AM

Idiot troll--did Brian Mc state that all oil imports could be replaced with domestic production? Has anyone said that?
What's obvious to anyone who has more than a People-magazine level grasp of economics is that IF fascist rationers like you were not in power, the U.S. might source more of its oil domestically, which (because the oil market is global) would increase supply, decrease transportation costs (for the North American sub-market), and put downward pressure on oil prices, therefore putting less money directly into the pockets of the Islamic totalitarians whom you worship.
Pretty simple, dumbfuck.
By the way, I assume you don't use or consume any oil-based products? Or you do, but believe that the federal government should, by force, tell the lesser rubes in flyover country how much they can use, for what, and when, while the enlightened elite like you and Dear Leader (and Algore, of course) consume at will and at your leisure.
Your green-tinged totalitarianism isn't hard to discern, but that doesn't make it any less disgusting.

LiveFreeOrDie| 3.16.11 @ 12:08PM

Vtwin hasn't made a compelling argument EVER. Stop feeding the moronic trolls.

Redstateboy| 3.16.11 @ 1:40PM

Thank you dc.. all I was attempting to suggest via ANWR is what you wrote as well and as for Vtwin?? Wanna shut up a Liber-ul?? Ask a pointed and specific question say... "Gee Vtwin.. let's take say.. oh.. the Jurasic Period - 50 million years - in that time, how times did the Earth's temp. change? how many Ice ages and warming periods did we go through and how did that happen if not for man being around to cause it? Or would you say it occurs naturally as it is doing now?"

moronic fool.

Dave Williams| 3.16.11 @ 1:43PM

Sorry, but you, Alan Brooks, and John the Muslim Apologist have retired the Dumbf*ck Cup....a fact you and they continue to demonstrate every day with your leftist, moronic (but I repeat myself) postings.

Tim the Enchanter| 3.16.11 @ 1:46PM

Sorry- that award was already won, and shared between yourself, Mike, and Alan Brooks. Enjoy!

Steve A| 3.16.11 @ 3:01PM

vtwin, No, you have that spot locked up pal.

Ray| 3.16.11 @ 6:32PM

"Do you really think the United States which imports over 4 million barrels of oil a day -incidentally it is costing our economy over $160 billion a year- could be replaced with “oil production at home?"

Yes, it could. There's more than enough oil here in the Continental U.S. to supply our needs for 30 to 40 years, but we're not allowed to exploit it fully. Add up all the known oil fields on federal property, ones that are being underutilized, and even denied, thanks to the EPA, along with the vast deposits on BOTH of our coastlines, well with out territorial waters, as well as the Gulf, and you'll see that, yes, we could, if we wished, produce enough oil domestically to provide fully for 20 to 30 years. And that's just the known reserves!

Don't believe all the BS about how we don;t have enough oil here at home. All we need to do is drill, baby drill.! We can even recover tens of billions of barrels of additional oil from our "depleted' oil fields just by the use of hydro-injection technology, another viable solution that is, alas, being blocked by the "environmental experts" at the EPA.

john dubose| 3.19.11 @ 8:58AM

I am a semi-retired oil man in that I worked for companies supporting the oil companies. And YES.. If governments around the world would get out of the way by not taxing the heck out of oil, LOTS more could be brought online in just a couple of years. But since markets look ahead, such a decision would have a rather quick and dramatic effect on prices at the pump. When the president says that not much more supply is likely to come along and thys not help much, he is TOTALLY wrong. He says this to cater to his green constitutents are more than willing to inflict a lot of suffering on most people in the short term to change the world into their idea of utopia.

C. S. P. Schofield| 3.16.11 @ 11:06AM

The way I heard it: At that time in Paris there was a government program to provide coarse bread to the poor. On an occasion when the coarse ground flour for the coarse bread had run out, Marie Antoinette was asked (as a person in authority) what should be done and a precise translation of her answer would be "Let them eat the next better type of bread", in other words; feed the poor with what we have even if it is better than they are supposed to get.

Some jerk who hated Aristocracy more than he loved truth blurred the translation to "Let them eat cake" to make he sound like a callous twit rather than a sensible and compassionate administrator.

I'm no great lover of self selected elites like the European Aristocracy or our own Liberal Intellectual Twits, but they make enough real blunders that we shouldn't have to manufacture any.

Tim the Enchanter| 3.16.11 @ 1:44PM

Revolutions do not solve problems. They simply take the current problem set and exchange it for a different set.

Mike | 3.16.11 @ 10:03PM

Tell this to the TEA Partiers.

Richard Baker| 3.16.11 @ 12:38PM

vtwin:
If you are unaware of the amount of proven oil/gas reserves in this country then please stop embarrassing yourself. It's not like the numbers aren't available and oft discussed in the public realm. Vtwin? You probably ride Rice, anyway.

Tim the Enchanter| 3.16.11 @ 1:51PM

There are some real nifty rice rockets out there. Would love to get my hands on a Honda CBX (six cylinder-in line!).

vtwin| 3.16.11 @ 1:36PM

The last number I heard for “proven oil” reserves in the United States was about 20 billion barrels. Sounds great but with consumption rate in the United States at over 4 million barrels a day you’re looking at less than a 2 year supply.

Redstateboy| 3.16.11 @ 2:58PM

that's 2 years till they discover the next big Oil field under our feet - dumfoft! Here's another one for your pea brain to consider.. where does Oil come from anyway? uh..... the Earth produces it Naturally?!!!? and is there any reason why the Earth will suddenly cease producing it??!? Gawd!! These Liber-uls!!! If they could think they might be worth a damn!

Fred| 3.16.11 @ 3:33PM

Um, RSB, vtwin may be an ideologically blinkered fool--even if his (her) numbers are correct, domestic production would bring down the price of oil (a fungible resource) and buy time to find more oil, gas, etc and develop alternative sources of energy as well as partially defund the savages who want to kill us --however, the earth takes millions of years to produce oil naturally. Even assuming the earth is producing it as we speak, humanity will have gone the way of the dinosaur for several million years before the earth produces any new oil.

Steve A| 3.16.11 @ 3:07PM

vtwin, Guess we are screwed. Better sell the Harley & get a Segway. You could personally save the Earth.

Redstateboy| 3.16.11 @ 4:13PM

Vtwin??? (I'm gonna hate myself for this) In 1972 - "the council of Rome" - a bunch of egghead Liber-ul elites got together and claimed that based on the known world oil reserves.. the planet would be out of oil in the year 1992. In the 80's Auto Mgr's began switching to Fuel Injection which increased fuel milage which totally ruined all the careful calculations of the Council of Rome.

Ray| 3.16.11 @ 7:05PM

"The last number I heard for “proven oil” reserves in the United States was about 20 billion barrels."

You're about 10 times to low on that estimate. In North Dakota alone there is a 200 billion barrel oil field, called the Bakken Oil Shale Field. It could even hold as much as 400 billion barrels of recoverable oil, according to one estimate by the USGS.

BP| 3.16.11 @ 10:34PM

http://www.eia.doe.gov/international/reserves.html

dc| 3.16.11 @ 2:08PM

Hmm. A "fact." From where, who knows, but let's assume you're right. You and your Gaia-blessed eco-totalitarian rationers would put all of that off-limits (as is practically the case right now), correct? And, of course, as I said above, nobody is suggesting that the US rely solely on domestic production. Nor would anyone but you think that this 20B barrel number is static--because you've never held a real job, you may not realize that companies innovate quite often, and at least in the oil industry, often adjust what are reported as "proven reserves" based on new technology, new assessments of existing fields, etc. So, trying to make whatever point you're incapable of making with this static "fact" is as pointless as trying to explain basic economics to you.
Hate to feed such a useless troll further, but just please admit that what you're after is for you and a narrow, eco-totalitarian elite to ration energy (and everything that depends upon it) for the rest of us, based on your judgment of what is good and right for us. Admit it, and then go back to your Ford Foundation or Soros-funded, or federal union "work," and don't bother the folks who actually know what they're talking about.

JPG| 3.16.11 @ 3:12PM

In America, we "make" decisions. We don't "take" them, as they do in Britain, or in the various other languages of the European continent. This foolishness has got to go. It seems silly among writers and speakers of American English to adopt the lisps and lilts of Europe.

"Cap and trade is the Soviet-style system whereby decisions on energy use throughout the economy are taken from the private sector, where they've rightly always been, and turned over to politicians and bureaucrats."

Nite| 3.16.11 @ 8:41PM

The EPA is destroying jobs based on so science which is nothing but a fraud. Congress needs to put a stop to this crap. We also need to engage in our own energy production before this country is totally destroyed by Obama and the Democrats.

Jack| 3.17.11 @ 6:19AM

Why have we quit drilling when it is obvious that we need the oil. Why have we quit logging on federal lands when it is obvious that we need the lumber. Why has the irrigation water to the farmers been turned off when it is obvious that we need the food. Some one has an agenda because common sense would tell you all these things are needed to create jobs and weath.

Marc Jeric| 3.17.11 @ 5:01PM

This far-left conspiracy is now in its 40-eth year. It started in the 1970's with the globaloney cooling hoax; the it continued in the 1990's with the globaloney warming scam; in the 2000's it transformed itself into the climate change flimflam; and now we are faced with the cap & trade power grab. It has been perpetrated by government-paid drones, almost all rejects of private enterprise, in view of attaining a UN-sponsored world socialist government, and presently trying to nationalize further our industries.

Paul in Colorado| 3.18.11 @ 3:44PM

This little planet will little note nor long remember the humans. Does anyone seriously believe that a million years and twenty ice ages from now the humans will still dominate this rock? We'll be lucky to make it to the next ice age, much less survive it, and within a few ticks of the galactic clock the ice will have scrubbed our last traces away.

Our immediate problem is that the green strain of liberal guilt sees the humans not as the temporary residents of this planet but rather as a form of infection. In their tortured cocoanuts we're a severe case of athlete's foot - the cosmic clap, if you will - and the only cure is a dramatic reduction of the number of humans infesting the planet. Not themselves, of course, but the benighted morons like you and me that clutter up their otherwise lovely world.

No one knows what future generations will do with this planet, and quite frankly its none of our business. The only thing that's certain is that they won't need oil any more than we need papyrus scrolls and chariots. But for now this is our rock, and to impoverish ourselves by obsessing about the needs of future generations is lunacy.

shipley130| 3.18.11 @ 7:35PM

So, lawyers in congress in charge of our energy. It's just really the last straw.

Tiffany| 3.20.11 @ 12:58PM

Global warming unfortunately is not a fraud. It is not a hoax designed to benefit ANY political party. Google "Greenhouse Gas Effect" and "Carbon 380 ppm" and you will get your answer. You learned about this stuff in grade school. It isn't rocket science. The enhanced greenhouse effect from excess carbon is science. Not politics.

We NEED some sort of mitigation in order to release less carbon, and avoid potential ecosystem service degradation.

Also, the EPA keeps poisons from your air, water and soil. Take away the EPA. Let your children play in polluted air, water and soil. You may not like the results.

Creative Recreation | 8.11.11 @ 12:21AM

is good

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