Joe Barton: Try going back to 1875

An opinion piece by Republican Representative Joe L. Barton on the consequences of the Waxman-Markey global warming legislation was published in the Washington Times on Sunday 10 May 2009 which was very interesting. Barton is the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Barton notes that those who back the Waxman-Markey global warming bill call it "back to the future." This is because the bill requires that Americans use no more fossil fuels in 2050 than we did in 1875! Or that we generate as much CO2 each as the people of Haiti do now. Barton says:

Radical environmentalists think such a CO2 level will be heaven on Earth, but the place that has actually achieved it is a nation swimming in bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, typhoid fever, dengue fever and malaria, with 47 percent illiteracy and a life expectancy of 49 years. So excuse me if I remain unconvinced.

He says that despite the mounting realizations of the awful impact of the Democrat cap and trade carbon bill, the Obama administration still wants it badly as a means to fund its programs with between $646 billion and $2 trillion of revenues over a ten year period. Of course, they plan to pretend that only the rich are paying this tax, which they will pretend is not a tax.

Republicans asked the Congressional Budget Office to establish the cost of the bill, but they say they cannot do it because they have no "access to the actual numbers on permit allocations." So, no one really knows what it will cost, but some have tried to come up with estimates. It is thought that your electric bill will go up by 77 to 129%! Filling your gas tank will go up 60 - 144%. The cost of natural gas and home heating oil will about double.

The National Association of Manufacturers believes the cap and trade bill will cause the loss of 3 to 4 million net jobs. This allows for a few additional wind generator and solar power jobs. The Heritage Foundation believes the job loss will be between 1.8 and 5.3 million jobs. Charles River Associates estimates the loss of jobs to be as high as 7 million. Many of the lost jobs will appear in other countries who are wise enough not to pass cap and trade carbon emissions and energy tax bills.

If my electric and gas bills double at my laboratory, that is the equivalent of losing one-third of the money needed to pay an employee. Either a full time employee has to be released altogether or one has to become a two-thirds time employee. This is not going to make this good person's quality of life improve. Someone will have to thank the Democrats for their loss. Of course this is my loss also. Worse yet, this assumes that there will be enough power to keep my laboratory running at all. As I have pointed out, labs use and require lots of electricity and it must be dependable electricity. It does not look as though the Democrat-Socialist-Radical Environmentalist-Anti-Human Party wants us to have the electric and other power that we need to to have a civilization with continuing progress, an enriching choice of life options, and good health, security, and comfort. Life was a good deal more iffy and hard in 1875.