Saving nature is the central issue. Carbon fuels destroy nature. The Gulf Death Gusher is the most visible sign. But signs are everywhere. Overall global warming increases hurricanes and floods, destroys habitats for plants, fish, birds, and ground animals, spreads deserts, causes deadly waves, and destroys glaciers and our polar ice caps. The use of carbon fuels has been destroying nature. Our job now is to save it.
Interestingly, there is a short, 39-page bill before the Senate that would allow us to save nature and get paid substantially for doing it. It is the CLEAR bill, first suggested by Peter Barnes, and introduced by Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME). It is simple, it works, and it pays you!
The principle behind it is this: We US citizens own the air over the US equally. Carbon-fuel sellers are dumping pollution in our air, not just poisoning the air, but destroying nature. At least they should pay for permits to dump, poison, and destroy, and should be forced year-by-year to stop. Who should the sellers pay for permits? All of us, the citizens who live here, should be paid handsomely. And there should be predictably fewer permits every year, till the practice ends or reaches tolerable levels.
Here's how cap-and-cash works. Carbon-fuel profiteers introduce polluting fuels at only 2,000 distribution points in the US. The EPA already monitors how much polluting fuel each seller distributes. The CLEAR Act requires sellers to compete at auction each year to buy pollution-permits to sell their poisonous fuel, with a minimum and maximum price per permit set each year. Every year, for 40 years, the number of permits is reduced, until the 80% of the carbon pollution has been eliminated.
Who gets the permit money? You do. The money goes into a trust. Twenty-five percent goes to developing nonpolluting fuels and mitigating existing environmental disasters. Most of it -- seventy-five percent -- is distributed equally to all citizen-residents every month via electronic bank transfers. A family of four, the first year would get between $1,000 and $1,500, and the amount would go up each year. Why? The law of supply and demand. As there are fewer permits to sell fuel, and as the air gets cleaner, the price rises and you get more cash.
We all get a double dividend: cleaner air while saving nature and a significant cash dividend for owning the air. The hundreds of billions of dollars going to citizens will be spent all over the country and will create jobs. Everyone wins except the polluting fuels companies -- the BP's of the world.
The Criteria for Success
Administratively Simple: It eliminates bureaucracy, and it brings credibility and transparency. It just requires computer programs. It can be publicly checked to see if it is working. There are no hidden deals or details.
Market-driven without government: The trust will be outside of government. Market mechanisms will determine the value of the permits and, hence, the money paid to citizens.
Gradual Transition: There would be no short-term market disruption. The transition would be gradual.
Market-driven and convenient: Businesses that use carbon fuels will not have to monitor their pollution. They will have a market-based incentive to switch gradually to non-polluting fuels.
Predictable: Business leaders will be able to plan for the future with no huge rush.
Encourages Entrepreneurship: It will create incentives for innovation and new energy industries.
Job-Creating: The cash going into new energy industries and being spent all over the country will create jobs.
The Opposite of Taxation
Anti-tax: The CLEAR bill puts money into the pockets of most citizens instead of taking money out.
Saves money: The cost of polluting fuels will rise temporarily, while you get cash. Who gets more, you or the oil and coal companies that raise their prices?
You will, unless you're rich and can afford it! The richer you are, the more energy you use. If you are among the seventy percent of citizens in the lower and middle income brackets, you will get more in payments from the CLEAR bill than you will pay for increases in fuel prices.
Why will carbon fuel prices eventually fall? The prices depend on demand. Two factors will reduce demand over time.
First, the availability of non-carbon fuels. The CLEAR bill's 25% will help develop non-carbon alternatives, which will reduce demand.
Second, investment in not-needing-carbon-fuels through, say, insulation and energy-efficiency, will reduce demand cumulatively. A barrel of oil or ton of coal saved the first year through insulation or energy efficiency will also be saved year-after-year. This will cumulatively reduce demand for carbon fuels.
Double job-creation: Eliminating the need, and hence the demand for carbon-polluting fuels will create jobs in two ways. First, new energy and energy-efficiency industries will need employees. Second, money saved on energy can be invested in, or spent on, enterprises that will create jobs. Both are market mechanisms. The jobs will mostly be in the private sector.
Politically Achievable: Putting money in the pockets of people who will spend it will be politically popular, as will job creation.
Who Loses?
Any legislation that greatly reduces the use of carbon fuels -- whether the CLEAR bill or the current cap-and-trade bills -- will create "losers."
The carbon-polluting industries -- the BP's of the world -- will lose, unless they invest their vast profits in non-polluting energy and in energy-efficiency: in industries that lower or eliminate the need for energy use. Those industries that are committed to the continued destruction of nature should lose, unless they change their commitment to saving nature.
The pollution dumping industries (e.g., electric power companies) will no longer be able to save money by not cleaning up their pollution and dumping it in our air instead. Having to switch to nonpolluting energy or pay more for polluting energy will count as a "loss," since they will make less short-term profit. In the long run, if they make the switch to nonpolluting energy and energy efficiency, those profits will be made up. But the short-term "losses" are what will count to investors.
Right-wing politicians, supported by those industries, will also lose if they cannot deliver to their nature-destroying supporters a defeat of any nature-saving legislation. Those politicians will also lose because their anti-environmental ideology, which says that nature is to be indefinitely exploited for profit, will be defeated.
The Lies
Not surprisingly, those who stand to lose are spreading lies about carbon-cutting legislation.
The Tax Lie: Suppose there was a direct tax on carbon. At the gas pump, the gas companies would list this as a tax and add it to the price of gas at the pump. Now suppose that nature-saving legislation results in a sort-term rise in gas prices because oil companies want to preserve their previously astronomical level of profits. In both cases, the price of gas would rise. So, the argument goes, nature-saving legislation has the same result as a tax, and therefore it is a tax.
In the case of the CLEAR bill, the lie would be clear: Seventy percent of the population would be making more than enough extra money to offset the rise in prices. But what is not said, is that the prices at the pump would not rise if the oil companies made ordinary profits rather than excessive profits. The rise at the pump would, to a large extent, come from making sure that wealthy oil executives and investors insisting on outrageously high profits.
Also not figured in is the cost of continuing to destroy nature indefinitely into the future: the costs of more oil spills; more mountain tops blown into streams; of more glacial sources of water as glaciers and snowcaps melt; of more and more hurricanes, floods, and fires; of the loss of arable land to the spread of deserts; of the loss of fish and forests -- and most of all, the cost of the quality of life on earth.
At the heart of the Tax Lie is the failure to figure in systemic costs, the real costs -- both financial costs, life costs, and quality of life costs -- and the failure to count greed.
The Job Lie: As we have seen the CLEAR bill would create jobs, as would any legislation seriously reducing or ending the use of polluting fuels. A certain number of jobs would indeed be lost gradually in the nature-destroying industries as demand for polluting fuels declined, but those would more than be made up for as nature-saving fuels and nature-saving energy efficiencies more than made up for the jobs lost.
The Simple Truths
We need to save nature, not destroy it. We can start to do so while making money, stimulating the economy, and creating jobs.
Tell everyone you know about the Clear Act.
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How bout we just try the CLEAR thing for a few years. See how much sky falls. Then re-evaluate. I'll bet, after a few years, you will find that-nobody has even noticed its effects. One way or the other. At all. Period.
Wall Street and the big banks were handled badly but as they say, “that ship has sailed.” When Obama came into office he was inexperienced and needed to surround himself with smart people who knew finances and had experience. But he chose ones who were Wall Street friendly instead of Wall Street savvy. Dealing with people who earn gigantic amounts of money yet produce no tangible product and trusting them to do the right thing now that they were found out to do the wrong moral thing with other people’s moneys, was a gigantic mistake. That mistake not only multiplied our national debt, it invited more misconduct. The word was out, the president wants to make nice with the big economic players who brought us to the brink of national disaster. Making deals with the Pharmaceutical companies who had cheated the public out of billions of dollars is a problem ready to happen. Instead of forcing the Big Insurance companies to mend their fraudulent ways, it would have been far better to first nationalize the big banks on the verge of failure, nationalize the big investment houses, clean up the crooks at the top of the economic food chain, expand Social Security to include all citizens after you get back the money back we robbed out of the SS trust fund. Then pass legislation to produce jobs. That may have required creating emergency legislation to extricate the billions now held by the big investors. Too late, sorry.
You would be wrong if you concluded I am against Business or earning a living. You would also be mistaken if you concluded I am a vegetarian. As much as I like animals, I also like meat. But the rise of huge commercial farms and butchering facilities is a far cry from the small farms that raised chickens out doors, butchered animals humanely and allowed them to live most of their lives peacefully. The introduction of large commercial fishing vessels is a far cry from small fishing boats making a living but also giving the sea life a fighting chance to escape. Our big business adventures, be it in the areas of hauling in, butchering animals, or in the areas of energy production reflects profit over people as nothing can. Oil exploration is dangerous. It is dangerous for those searching for it and the environment where the oil is found. It destroys human and animal life, natural resources and future livelihoods for those who depend on the sea. Coal exploration is dangerous for miners and the earth out of which this resource comes. People who depend on their livelihood for exploration of Oil and Coal are afraid to criticize their overlords for economic reasons. So upper management holds a “gun” to their heads and goes on with their plea that we need this energy resource. That’s not true. It is true we can wean ourselves off of Oil and Coal but that takes political courage.
Cruelty to domestic animals such as chickens and cows is both tolerated and hidden from the public eye. It is tolerated around the world because people need to eat and animals have a utilitarian function unrelated to their intrinsic value as living creatures in an interrelated global echo system. People in Korea eat dogs and cats. We eat beef and chicken to a degree that encourages animal butchers to increase productivity by forcing these poor creatures to a short life of misery and pain. Japanese kill porpoises because it is the traditional way to eat. Fishermen haul sharks into boats, cut off their fins and toss them back knowing they will die because shark fin is a restaurant delicacy. We are the ones who practice cruelty on a grand scale and we are the ones who will pay an ultimate price for abusing Nature. That price has already begun with what some call Global Warming. Our inability to cooperatively live with Nature will bring Nature to become our enemy. Some will survive, many will die from what Confucius called the effects of the Mandate of Heaven. While Confucius did not invent the concept of the Mandate of Heaven, he gave it a moral value. For Confucius heaven, the sum total of dead and preexisting beings in another state, grants a Mandate to leaders to do the right thing for those they are responsible for. If they fail, heaven lifts its mandate and Nature steps in.
“Money ahead of People,” is both the mantra of Republicans and Corporate America. Surprisingly, it is seldom mentioned by Democrats who could easily distinguish themselves were it not for the unfortunate fact many Democrats have taken money from Corporate America and no longer have clean hands to speak out against obvious bribery. Not all companies are committed to profit only. Computer companies, whose single clients are average citizens, often care about people issues. Companies that live on marginal profits and exist on public good will, such as the large Retail Grocery chains, do what they can to provide service that people can afford. But there are many distinct corporations that deal indirectly with the public, directly with government and have spent millions of lobbying dollars to insure they make as much money as possible, hide dangerous products and charge exorbitant prices for their services and products. They do because they can with impunity. Retooling to produce ecologically safe products cost money, more money that bites into profits, so is not done and even lobbied against. Fishing our oceans bare of fish is done because there is a market for sea life. Poaching animals that are endangered is done because money is involved. Only Man has both the inclination and motivation to destroy animal life on this planet and thus wind up destroying Himself in the process. All because of economic factors which out weigh survival issues. Governments don’t intervene because they believe the danger is imagined.
What we are experiencing today began a long time ago. It crept in without anyone doing something anything it, until FDR. He was branded a Socialist. Small wonder, since his brand of Capitalism tried to help people first. When Bill Clinton came into office, he saw a way of buying the support of Wall Street by proposing a business friendly policy. He tried to steal the Republican mantra without destroying the people’s ability to work. Republicans hated him for that and Corporate America saw him as a ally for making more money. The best friend Democrats had was organized labor. When Reagan destroyed their power, the way was open to provide big business with deregulation, tax breaks for the wealthy and a shift from production to service. Why did we shift from production to service? Because we could buy products, make money and not have to hire workers. Republican talking heads were quick to point out that low tax rates help business and therefore jobs. Investors like deregulation and low taxes. Investors, especially the big one with no names, control Wall Street, the big banks and certain of the large industries like Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, Defense Contractors and the Medical Cartel. They are the ones who mobilize at the mention of government interference or socialistic policies. Commercialism has become the cornerstone of American life. Commercialism drives business, creates markets that make money. Commercialism doesn’t care about animals, Nature or Ecology. It cares about short term profits exclusively.
No sports figures; no military leaders, no political candidates can win unless they understand their environment; their field of play. The Republicans from the time of Grant, the Industrial Revolution and the aftermath of the Civil War have had one central mantra: property ahead of people. The few Democrats before Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t have much of a central theme other than being the opposition party. With FDR they reversed that mantra to :people ahead of property. At least for awhile. Before the Civil War Democrats were the segregation party and mainly Southern. Republicans bonded early with rich industrialists, bankers and factory owners. They inherited the Federalist’s motivation for opportunity and an educated governing class. In time, they would modify their theme from “property” to “money.” Corporate America controls the enormous wealth of America and can sit on it if they don’t like what the Democrats are doing, or move the major investors to invest in growth. Since money ahead of people motivates them, national service does not. Charity didn’t make them wealthy. Service is but a ploy to sell, make money and control markets. They were isolationists in the early 20th century and therefore against war because war is bad for business and increases taxes. Dwight Eisenhower warned about the rise of the Military / Industrial complex (which came during WW II) and with the discovery they could have wars without raising taxes by charging the people with debt. War now served the purpose of making money.
It's a no-brainer for everyone except the no-brainers.
Whatever is most effective, as far as I'm concerned, but this idea might somewhat subdue the free market worshipers, and those who are environmentally conscious unless their electricity bill will go up.
Note the support of Snowe (R). Maine is very pro-environment and she knows it.
New England's 3 Republican Senators will "vote green" (bet ya).