Obama Plans to Sneak Through Carbon Tax By Stealth

A carbon tax would impact almost every aspect of Americans’ lives, from higher gas prices, to soaring utility bills, to exorbitant excesses related to the “energy efficiency” of their homes. It would be enforced by an army of environmental regulators and green police poking their noses into the private affairs of citizens.

EPA Finds Senate Climate Bill Affordable

June 15, 2010

Reuters - U.S. environmental regulators said on Tuesday the climate and energy bill in the Senate would only add slightly to average household costs, but the finding was not expected to boost chances for the legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions.

The climate bill unveiled last month by Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, and Joseph Lieberman, an independent, would cost households an average of $79 to $146 per year through 2050, the Environmental Protection Agency said in an economic analysis.



Through 2020 consumer energy costs would go down before picking up in following decades, the EPA said in the analysis that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised Republicans last year the bill would have to face.

The EPA's cost estimate of the Kerry-Lieberman bill was similar to the price tag it put last year on an analysis of the climate bill narrowly passed by the House of Representatives, which gained no traction in the Senate.

One analyst said the lack of a big change from last year's estimate limited how much the new analysis will boost support for the long-delayed Senate bill.

"The bottom line is the EPA analysis was not much different than last year's and the moderate result won't do much to change the calculus in the Senate," said Divya Reddy, an analyst at the Eurasia Group in Washington. "Many lawmakers from coal and manufacturing states still have reservations."

That could leave the bill's chances of passing largely up to President Barack Obama, who has made passing a broad energy bill to boost alternative energy and cut emissions one of his top priorities. In a speech to the nation later on Tuesday, Obama is expected to offer ambitious plans to cut U.S. dependence on fossil fuels in the wake of the BP Plc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The EPA analysis also showed that prices for carbon permits in the cap and trade market outlined in Kerry-Lieberman should hit $16 to $17 per tonne in 2013 and $23 to $24 per tonne in 2020. Those prices were well within range of the bill's initial floor and ceiling prices.

DID NOT FACTOR IN BENEFITS

For his part, Kerry centered on the part of the analysis that showed costs would fall at first.

"Well-designed climate change and energy legislation is good for American consumers," Kerry told reporters.

He also added the EPA analysis does not factor in other benefits to the U.S. economy that would be achieved from getting global warming under control. Those include, he said, avoiding lower crop yields, extreme weather-related deaths and more destructive storms.

Environmentalists were pleased with the analysis.

"The EPA's analysis removes the last excuse senators may have for not passing strong climate and energy legislation this session," Kevin Knobloch, the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a release.

But big industry has been skeptical of EPA analyses on previous climate bills. The American Petroleum Institute has said it would not make a decision on whether to support the bill until the Energy Information Administration does its own analysis. Some see the independent branch of the Department of Energy as freer of influence from the Obama administration.

Majority Leader Reid wants a broad energy bill to move to the Senate floor in coming weeks, though time is running short ahead of midterm elections in the fall and ideas for legislation are still being kicked around.

Obama Plans to Sneak Through Carbon Tax By Stealth

June 18, 2010

Prison Planet.com - President Obama is planning to sneak through his job-killing, economy wrecking carbon tax by stealth according to the Washington Post, by passing a weakened bill and then adding in cap and trade provisions after the heat is off following the November elections.

Described as the “lame duck climate strategy,” Obama is planning to secure enough votes in the Senate to pass a weakened energy bill and then drag out the conference long enough to ensure the stronger provisions contained in the original House version are added “after lawmakers have faced voters in November, thereby cushioning the vote’s political impact.”

“Several sources familiar with the administration’s thinking confirmed it has started pressing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to bring up a slimmed-down energy and climate bill next month. Such a measure would pass more easily than a comprehensive climate bill, and could still be negotiated with the broader bill the House passed a year ago,” reports the Washington Post.

Knowing that the “energy bill” represents nothing less than another massive plunder of the American taxpayer and is widely unpopular, Senators will only stab their constituents in the back and vote for the more nightmarish aspects of the legislation, including a tax on the very substance they exhale, after they have secured their seats in November.

As we highlighted last week, plans to impose a carbon tax on American citizens appeared to fade after Republican Senator Lindsey Graham shockingly reversed his views on climate change, telling a press conference that the science behind man-made global warming is in question and those pushing it are alarmists who have oversold the problem.

“The Senate is expected to try and push a watered down bill with the hope of moving towards a carbon tax later on,” we reported on June 10, which is exactly the approach now being adopted by Obama.

The elite are still desperate to impose a consumption tax on Americans as part of the move towards a “post-industrial revolution” and the kind of nightmare “green economy” that has left Spain with a 20 per cent unemployment rate. In a so-called green economy, over 2.2 jobs are lost for every “green job” created.

The EPA has been busy floating propaganda about how Obama’s cap and trade legislation would cost Americans an average of $79 to $146 per year. In reality, as we have documented, the stronger provisions of the bill would see around $2.9 trillion shaved off the economy by the year 2050 if enacted. The legislation would also reduce GDP by 6.9 percent – a figure comparable with the economic meltdown of 1929 and 1930.

A carbon tax would impact almost every aspect of Americans’ lives, from higher gas prices, to soaring utility bills, to exorbitant excesses related to the “energy efficiency” of their homes. It would be enforced by an army of environmental regulators and green police poking their noses into the private affairs of citizens.

The government has aggressively exploited the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to manufacture an artificial urgency in an effort to speed the passage of cap and trade, an agenda firmly supported by the transnational oil corporations Obama is claiming to be reigning in. British Petroleum is one of the founding members of the cap and trade lobby, and has consistently “lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.”

Yesterday, White House spokesman Ben LaBolt invoked the oil spill disaster to justify passage of the carbon tax bill.

“The tragedy in the gulf underscores the need to move quickly, and the president is committed to finding the votes for comprehensive energy legislation this year,” said LaBolt.

Obama himself even went to the extreme of comparing the oil spill to 9/11, proving that he is perfectly willing to exploit the horror of nearly 3,000 dead Americans in a completely unrelated event nine years ago to underhandedly push his political agenda.