Climate Bills and a Green Economy

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Challenges Obama's Regulation of Greenhouses Gases

February 15, 2010

Reuters - The Chamber of Commerce is mounting a legal challenge to the Obama administration's bid to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the Clean Air Act.

"The U.S. Chamber strongly supports efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, but we believe there's a right way and a wrong way to achieve that goal," said Steven Law, a legal official for the business lobby group, in a statement on the chamber's website.

Law said the right way to proceed was through a bipartisan effort that promotes new technology for reducing emissions, not through the Environmental Protection Agency, which has ruled greenhouse gases a health risk. Greenhouse gas emissions are blamed for heating up the planet.

Law said the Chamber of Commerce was "filing a formal petition indicating it will challenge EPA's decision to trigger Clean Air Act regulation" in federal court and that it would release more details about how it is doing so later.

EPA regulations could go forward as early as March, but the chamber's action could be the first of a barrage of lawsuits to try to prevent the agency from acting.

The EPA is threatening to regulate carbon emissions if Congress will not. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a cap and trade bill in June, but it has stalled in the Senate.

Opponents are expected to argue it is the job of Congress, not the EPA, to try to stem greenhouse gas emissions.

President Barack Obama would rather have Congress act on a bill that could provide more protections for industry while also accomplishing more comprehensive pollution control. But he is using the threat of EPA regulation to encourage lawmakers.

Some prominent Senate Democrats have predicted that comprehensive climate control legislation, including a cap and trade mechanism allowing industry to buy and trade pollution permits, will not pass this year.

A recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press said only 28 percent of those surveyed now listed global warming as a top priority this year, down from 38 percent in 2007.

Under cap and trade, utilities, oil refineries and factories would be required to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases over the next 40 years. Companies would have to obtain permits for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit and the permits would be traded on a regulated exchange.

Cap and Trade Scam to be Enforced at State Level

January 29, 2010

PrisonPlanet.com - Globalists intent on ushering in a zero-growth post-industrial society are bypassing the federal government’s stuttering efforts to implement the cap and trade scam and going directly to the states in an effort to impose their control freak tax on the very life-giving gas that we all exhale – carbon dioxide.

Even as the foundation of the argument that human emissions of CO2 cause global warming crumbles and collapses amidst scandal after scandal, energy companies and state authorities are still pushing ahead with sinister plans to mandate that individuals and businesses get government allowances and permits to emit carbon dioxide.

KLBJ radio reports that Austin Energy, which powers the city, presented to the Austin City Council “Austin Energy’s Carbon Reduction Plan,” which goes even further than the federal cap and trade bill in calling for CO2 emissions to be reduced by 20% by 2025.

The fact that energy companies are behind this again disproves the flawed notion that oil and electricity companies oppose the global warming movement, when in fact they are its major adherents. The climate change scam is a goldmine for them because effectively licensing CO2 emissions only drives up utility prices – the costs are passed on to the consumer and their profits soar.

Austin Energy head Roger Duncan told the Austin City Council that the program would cost around $2.6 billion, but since the cost such initiatives is routinely underestimated, expect a final figure that is significantly higher. He admitted that the plan would cause energy prices to rise.

This will of course result in much higher energy bills for the general public because they will be forced to buy permits from the government to emit the deadly life-giving gas carbon dioxide.

The program will also include a Energy Conservation Audit and Disclosure Ordinance, which will empower environmental goons to perform energy audits on every house over ten years old when it is put up for sale. The new enforcement would also require “an energy audit/rating for all non-industrial commercial buildings with 5,000 square feet or more and multifamily properties with five or more units, aged 10 years or older.”

A similar system was introduced in 2007 in the UK amidst widespread derision and loathing. Known as Home Information Packs, shortly after they were introduced the British property market crashed as sellers refused to pay the fee, which was mandatory for all home sales. The system has since become notorious as nothing more than an odious new tax ...