Cap andTrade

Cap and Trade

Cap and trade is an environmental policy tool that delivers results with a mandatory cap on emissions while providing sources flexibility in how they comply. Successful cap and trade programs reward innovation, efficiency, and early action and provide strict environmental accountability without inhibiting economic growth.

Examples of successful cap and trade programs include the nationwide Acid Rain Program and the regional NOx Budget Trading Program in the Northeast. Additionally, EPA issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) on March 10, 2005, to build on the success of these programs and achieve significant additional emission reductions.

"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." -- Barack Obama, January 17, 2008, San Francisco Chronicle.

President Obama was honest about cap and trade during the campaign. I guess nobody was listening.

The following are some excerpts from the Testimony of James E. Hansen NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies to The Committee on Ways and Means United States House of Representatives on Cap and Trade

"Tax & Trade (a.k.a., ‘Cap & Trade’, pseudonymously and sometimes disingenuously)

‘Cap & Trade’ increases costs to the public as does ‘Tax & Dividend’, but without the dividend. Thus it should be termed ‘Tax & Trade’. Part of the reason for the pseudonym is to avoid the stigma of a tax, under the presumption that the public is too gullible to figure it out. Other parties support ‘Cap & Trade’ because they hope to profit – it is a give-away to special interests, who feel, based on extensive empirical evidence, that they will be able to manipulate the program through their lobbyists. Except for its stealth approach to taxing the public, and its attraction to special interests, ‘Cap & Trade’ seems to have little merit."

Cap&Trade does not have a prayer of phasing out fossil fuel emissions fast enough to save the planet, e.g., allowing us to phase-out coal-fired power plants. Clearly there must be people in the Obama administration who understand that. Yet Cap&Trade is still talked about as if it were something good. One wonders: do they really believe we have "a planet in peril"?

In my testimony I noted that a "Cap" raises the price of energy, just as does a simple honest carbon tax on oil, gas and coal at the first sale at the mine or port of entry. "Cap" is a pseudonym, disguising the fact that it is a tax, assuming that the public is a bunch of dummies, who will never catch on. With all its hooks and eyes, Cap&Trade will allow a lot of funny business. At least we would get a few Wall Street millionaires back in business, via speculation and gaming the Cap&Trade system (funded by John Q. Public, of course).

On the train I read on politico.com that the number of lobbyists in DC working to influence federal policy on climate change increased in the past few years by 300% to 2,340 lobbyists -- four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress. At least the alligator shoe business is doing well. Not too good for alligators, though."

Full Testimony of James E. Hansen Click Here

New cap-and-trade climate legislation offers Wall Street a new opportunity to make money

Banks like Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse have formed New York climate desks ahead of U.S. regulations, in part because the country could be a big buyer of global credits if world carbon markets eventually link up.

H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES)

On May 15,2009 U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) introduced H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, in the House of Representatives.H.R. 2454 contains provisions that would amend the Clean Air Act to establish a cap-and-trade system designed to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. The market-based approach would establish an absolute cap on the emissions and would allow trading of emissions permits (“allowances”). The bill achieves its broad coverage through an upstream compliance mandate on petroleum and most fluorinated gas producers and importers, and a downstream mandate on electric generators, industrial sources, and natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs). The bill allocates a substantial percentage of the allowances for the benefit of energy consumers and low-income households. As the program proceeds through the mid-2020s it shifts to more government auctioning with most of the proceeds returned to households.

The bill’s allocation scheme includes free allowance allocations to energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries, merchant coal-fired electric generators, and petroleum refiners. An important cost control mechanism in the cap-and-trade program is the availability of domestic and international offsets. The bill contains energy efficiency provisions that cover grants, standards, rebates and other programs for buildings, lighting and commercial equipment, water-using equipment, wood stoves, industrial equipment, and healthcare facilities.

H.R. 2454 contains several provisions related to vehicles and fuels, including incentives to produce plug-in vehicles and other advanced technology vehicles. Three percent of allowances from the greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program would be allocated to the automotive sector to provide grants to refit or establish plants to build plug-ins and other advanced vehicles. The bill would also establish a “cash-for-clunkers” program, providing new vehicle purchasers and lessees with vouchers worth up to $4,500 for a new, more efficient vehicle to replace an older, less efficient vehicle, and directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish greenhouse gas emissions standards for various transportation sectors.

The bill requires EPA to develop a unified national strategy for addressing the key legal and regulatory barriers to deployment of commercial scale carbon capture and sequestration.

The legislation would amend the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) to create an integrated energy efficiency and renewable electricity standard starting in 2011, requiring retail electricity suppliers to meet 20% of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020.

The bill provides for smart grid technologies, including products that can be equipped with smart grid capability, requirements for electric power retailers to reduce their peak loads using smart grid and other energy efficient technologies, and requirements that power suppliers ensure that utility smart grid systems will be compatible with plug-in electric drive vehicles.

Starting in 2012, ACES phases in a cap on greenhouse gas emissions by large emitters. power plants, refineries, and large factories.

ACES would cut emissions 17% below 2005 levels in 2020
ACES would reduce emissions by 83% below 2005 levels by 2050.

How the cap works. Companies covered under the bill will need to have a permit called an "allowance" to emit greenhouse gases. Every year, the number of allowances for the covered sectors will shrink. If an individual firm cuts its emissions more deeply, it can either .bank. its excess allowances or sell them to other firms allowing companies to find the most cost effective solutions to reduce their emissions.

H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES Act) Major Provisions-Click Here

Al Gore

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American environmental activist who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He is an author, businessperson, and former journalist

Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit was written by Al Gore in 1992, the book explains the world's ecological predicament and describes a range of policies to deal with the most pressing problems. It includes a proposed "Global Marshall Plan" to address current ecological issues.

In 2006, Gore starred in the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, which won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. Director Davis Guggenheim asked Gore to join him and other members of the crew on stage, where Gore gave a brief speech, stating: "My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue; it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it." He also wrote the book An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, which won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in February, 2009.

In 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which was shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, headed by Rajendra K. Pachauri (Delhi, India). The award was given "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."Gore and Pachauri accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway on December 10, 2007. He also helped to organize the Live Earth benefit concerts.

Al Gore is the chairman of Generation Investment Management a private equity fund that has taken a 9.5 percent stake in a company that has one of the largest carbon credit portfolios in the world. He is also a partner in the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, heading that firm's climate change solutions group.

The Alliance for Climate Protection is an organization founded in the United States in 2006 aiming to "persuade people of the importance, urgency and feasibility of adopting and implementing effective and comprehensive solutions for the climate crisis". The founder and current chairman of the alliance is former US Vice President Al Gore. They have changed the main focus from from "we can solve it " to "Repower America".

In March 2008 the Alliance launched a three-year, $300 million campaign aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This campaign is one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history.

Cathy Zoi was the founding chief executive officer of the Alliance for Climate Protection. Cathy Zoi has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate for the post of Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy (DOE).

Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy In her role as Assistant Secretary, Ms. Zoi manages the U.S. Department of Energy's $2.1 billion applied science, research, development, and deployment portfolio, which promotes marketplace integration of renewable and environmentally sound energy technologies. Additionally, Ms. Zoi oversees EERE's $16.8 billion in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

What did Al Gore accomplish to solve the "climate crisis" as Vice President of the United States? Not very much ,he championed the Kyoto Protocol but that is about it. In fact Greenhouse emissions grew significantly while he was Vice President and Bill Clinton was President..

The William J. Clinton Foundation launched the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) to create and advance solutions to the core issues driving climate change. From their website-"We take a holistic approach, addressing the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions and the people, policies, and practices that impact them."

The charts below show the increase of green house gases from 1990 to 2007.

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Gas

Annual Percent Change in U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Cumulative Change in Annual U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Relative to 1990

Source: EPA 2009 U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report

Since Al Gore launched his global warming crusade, his net worth has increased 5,000 percent to more than $100 million, according to Investors Business Daily.

Commentators and think-tank policy analysts have suggested that Al Gore has created a conflict of interest by working with GIM and simultaneously being the spokesperson for action on global warming. The Competitive Enterprise Institute believes that the government policies Gore advocated to the U.S. Senate in January 2009 "will make him and his friends extremely wealthy at the expense of consumers."

The increased costs imposed by a cap-and-trade program would be passed down by companies to their consumers in the form of higher prices on energy products.

The estimates by people supporting Cap and Trade are that the average family will pay an extra $350.00 a year for increased costs associated with this program. The opponents estimate the amount to be over $3000.00.

Many companies and individuals will get very rich with cap and trade.

Everything in the United States will cost more to the end user -the consumer. And the effect on global warming and climate change will be minimal if at all.