Smoking Papers On Global Warming
Posted 06:14 PM ET
Climate Change: A Treasury Department analysis says a cap-and-trade law
could cost American families more than $1,700 a year. No wonder
administrators tried to keep the study secret.
The House narrowly approved - by seven votes - the Waxman-Markey
cap-and-trade bill in June over complaints that it would be an undue
financial burden to American families. It passed after House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi strode to the chamber floor and claimed that "this legislation means
jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs. Let's vote for jobs."
Even some of the bill's supporters had to roll their eyes at the assertion.
It was a talking point intended to convince those who have not been paying
attention to the legislation's severe shortcomings, not wise and experienced
lawmakers who know better.
Throughout the debate, the bill's defenders said Waxman-Markey would cost
"less than the price of a postage stamp per day," a small price to pay, they
declared, for saving the Earth from global warming. Their evidence: a
Congressional Budget Office report that estimated the cost would be $175 per
household a year.
But, as is often the case in Washington, it's what they didn't say that was
more important.
While the House debated and eventually voted, filed away within the walls of
the Treasury Department was an internal estimate that projected a
cap-and-trade law would cost Americans up to $200 billion a year in new
taxes. These taxes won't be levied directly but will be paid when power
providers and other carbon dioxide producers buy CO2 emission allowances
from the federal government and then pass the costs on to customers - as
will inevitably happen.
Overall, the costs would be "the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes
by about 15%," Declan McCullagh reports on his "Taking Liberties" blog on
CBSnews.com.
"At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American
household would be an extra $1,761 a year," McCullagh wrote.
Had it not been for the efforts of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the
analysis would have likely remained a guarded secret.
A handful of Treasury documents related to cap-and-trade, carbon dioxide and
greenhouse gases were made public Tuesday, but only after CEI's Christopher
Horner used the Freedom of Information Act to force its disclosure.
"In short," Horner wrote on National Review's "Planet Gore" blog, the
Treasury documents are "a candid snapshot of what they're admitting to each
other, while telling you a, ah, different story - to your face." |
