Keep Your Children Locked Up Safe--Climate Change Legislation Is Coming
EENews (subscription required) reported today that the organization "CO2 Is Green," a front organization for energy companies, published a particularly rabble rousing ad in today's Washington Post.
Because describing it is so much less satisfying, I reprint the ad in full here (you can see an image of the ad here):
The Kerry-Lieberman Cap and Trade Bill will drive the USA away from cheap efficient energy and permanently increase your cost of electricity, transportation fuel, and food.
• The bill is based on the false premise that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change. Real, empirical evidence indicates it is not. But even if CO2 was a major factor, using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's own formula and numbers, the bill would only reduce Earth's temperature by one tenth of one degree within the next 90 years!
• Wall Street, the Administration, green industries, environmental extremists, academia, and the media will love Kerry-Lieberman; you will not because you will pay for the costs.
• Passing Kerry-Lieberman will not stop the oil spill. Cost of the spill will be
paid for by BP. Don't let the President get the bill passed by riding the unrelated oil spill tragedy which will cost you money.
• The Obama Administration is touting energy independence by passing Cap and Trade. You cannot run your cars, planes, businesses, and homes on Wall Street's profits. Wind and Solar pr ovide less than one percent of our energy and that will not increase by a meaningful amount for decades. Fossil fuels provide 83% of our energy. Our economy will never recover if Obama's attack on this industry succeeds.
Cap and Trade proponents are buying support from industries on Wall Street with various corporate giveaways as he did with the very expensive Health Care Bill. Do not let this happen again with the Kerry-Lieberman Cap and Trade Bill.
If you are interested in who CO2 green is according to EENews,
Spokesman H. Leighton Steward sits on the board of directors of EOG Resources Inc., an oil and natural gas development company. He also is an honorary director at the industry trade group American Petroleum Institute, according to a biography on EOG's website...CO2 is Green is bankrolled by Corbin J. Robinson, chief executive of and leading shareholder in Natural Resource Partners, a Houston-based owner of coal resources.
According to Mother Jones
Natural Resource Partners is also a member of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), the scandal-plagued coal front group currently under investigation for its role in the forged letters sent to members of Congress criticizing the House climate bill.
What I am particularly amused by is the imaginary cabal of Wall Street bankers and the Obama administration against the unlikely pairing of energy companies and the common man. Last I checked (which was today), EOG Resources is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In their 2009 annual report, this scrappy upstart champion of the little guy stated:
For the three, five and 10-year periods ended December 31, 2009, EOG’s stock appreciation was 56 percent, 173 percent and 1,008 percent, respectively, significantly exceeding the performance of the S&P 500 Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Index for these three periods.
EOG’s persistence in managing costs and maximizing reserve recoveries has resulted in superior returns, year after year. Our average ROCE(2) for the 10-year period ended December 31, 2009 was 18 percent. EOG’s outperformance on stockholder returns and ROCE validates its long-term organic growth strategy.
That's right--for the past 10 years, stock of EOG has increased 1,008 percent. So Wall Street's profits are...EOG profits.
Moreover, let's take a brief look at the proposition that "Our economy will never recover if Obama's attack on this industry succeeds." Does this mean that the economy cannot afford even a slight reduction in EOG's 1,008 percent stock price increase? Let's play my favorite statistical game. If we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels by half, which in turn reduces EOG's profits by half, their stock will only have gained in value 504% over the last five years.
This doomsday conclusion also assumes that there will be a massive negative economic impact of weaning off fossil fuels, which evidence indicates is not the case.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of Cap & Trade to each American household on a net economywide basis would be...wait for it...
On that basis, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the net
annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be
$22 billion—or about $175 per household.
But we will never recover from this increase. To put it in perspective, $175 is less than the cost of an Amazon Kindle or about the cost of a subscription to cable, cell phone and internet access (cable is $71 and internet access about $45 and cell phone about $73) FOR A MONTH.
Shari focuses on energy, environmental and building code policy, representing international companies, non-profits and trade associations in their policy and communications campaigns
I thought 10 years ago when I started hearing about Cap and Trade that this was the middle ground. A market oriented solution to limiting CO2.
Half of the fossil fuels is not a direct correlation to half the profit. Businesses have base costs. The first barrel of oil goes to pay for the drilling and other infrastruture. The last barrel is mostly profit.
$175 per household is a numbers game to freak people out. The average home will not pay $175 more a year in energy bills. That $22 billion is across the whole economy. Residential uses 22% of our national energy. The number is closer to $3.21 per month or $38.5 per year per house. We'll all end up having to pay the rest of this cost in varous other ways. And yes, the Average cost will be $175 per household per year. But the manner they present this data people will think their home energy bill will skyrocket. Seems like the person who can frame the discussion wins and numbers are so easy to massage.