"Cap-and-trade as we know it is dead, but the issue of cleaning up the air and energy independence should not die -- and you will never have energy independence without pricing carbon." Sen. Lindsey Graham (Republican-S.Carolina) reflected the reality that Congress now faces as it negotiates a comprehensive climate and energy package that might get voted on before this November's congressional elections. One alternative to cap-and-trade has been a cap-and-dividend bill sponsored by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). The leading solution, though, appears to be coming from a bipartisan group of senators led by John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut), and Graham that would put a price on carbon emissions that targets only the electric utility, transportation, and industrial sectors of the economy.
The Senate is where the current debate lies because the House of Representatives already passed its bill in June 2009 (the "ACES Act" or the "Markey-Waxman" bill). The Kerry-Graham-Lieberman climate bill will join an energy bill written by Sen. Jeff Bingaman last Fall as the main vehicle for a new national policy. The House of Representatives must then decide what to do about its own bill and the Senate's before President Obama signs anything into law. "It will be a very different mix of a bill from where we were at the end of the House effort," Kerry said. "It will be simpler, and hopefully, capable of attracting support."
Make no mistake about the post-health care debate. The oil companies, right-wingers, and climate change deniers will attack anything -- absolutely anything -- that arises in Congress as a threat to the economy. So now is the time to begin arming yourselves for a fight to create a brand new economy in our country (and catch up with the Europeans and the Chinese), to get ourselves out from under the thumbs of the oil dictators overseas, and to create jobs to go with the newly turned-around economy.
I. HOUSE CLIMATE & ENERGY BILL ("ACES Act" / "Waxman-Markey bill")
Key Date: Passed June 2009 by House (219 to 212)
Authors: Rep. Henry Waxman, Chairman of House Energy & Commerce Cmte; Rep. Ed Markey, Chairman of Cmte on Energy Independence & Global Warming
More Info:
www.pewclimate.org/acesa
http://globalwarming.house.gov/files/ACES/
Key Elements:
Key Elements:
III. SENATE ENERGY BILL ("American Clean Energy Leadership Act" / "Bingaman bill")
Key Date: legislation passed by Energy Committee June 2009; additional amendments and new pieces of legislation are being debated in the Energy Committee in 2010
Author: Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Chairman of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee
Key Elements:
Donnie Fowler
Silicon Valley, California
www.dogpatchstrategies.com
Seriously, I don't understand our tax system. It is well known that taxing something is a disincentive (discouraging it's use or production). So we tax income? Why do we not want people to make money?
Other than a few "sin taxes," on alchohol and tobacco, and a fuel tax that only pays for highway construction and maintenance, US revenues come from taxing income.
I am pretty sure that if you offered Americans a 2% cut in payroll taxes (from 7.65 to 5.65%) and made up the difference with a carbon tax you would get little screaming except from power companies and importers!
Note the importers though, a carbon tax would discourage shipping goods from China, making those goods more expensive, and making American made goods cheaper! It isn't protectionism though, China is free to try to figure out a way to ship goods without using fuel (grin).
So how about it, trade one tax (that you see in every paycheck and which reduces your income) for another that you can avoid by shopping locally?
Water might begin to replace oil in the not-too-distant future.
Future cars can become substantial power plants when suitably parked, ending any need to build coal or nuclear plants - demonstrating that there are far less expensive alternatives to all fossil fuels.
See: http://www.aesopinstitute.org
To read about about water as fuel, see the “hydrinos” story at: www.american-reporter.com
Scientists understandably have a hard time accepting the claims of radically new science.
More laboratories should repeat the fractional Hydrogen experiment published by Rowan University, which has also been successfully performed by GEN3 Partners, who advise Fortune 100 firms.
National labs and universities should repeat the experiment and design their own.
As new technology, using water as fuel, is demonstrated and reaches the market, it will become increasingly difficult to ridicule, ignore or deny.
Following the Pearl Harbor attack, within a few months bombers rolled off the assembly line at Willow Run every 59 minutes.
These radically new technologies are inherently far less complex and cost-competitive.
Imagine an all out effort to develop them rapidly!
Support to end the rising cost of imported oil will clearly be widespread.
Rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuel need not remain a political football!