Results tagged “climate bill”

On Tuesday, yet another voice spoke out against the proposed climate legislation under consideration in Congress. This time it was Margo Thorning, senior vice president and chief economist at the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF), speaking before the Senate Finance Committee.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today voted to send the Kerry-Boxer climate bill to the Senate floor without amendments. Only Democrats were in attendance for the vote, and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mt.) voted against the bill, saying he would withhold his support contingent on the adoption of some pro-agriculture amendments.

A recent poll shows that the more Americans learn about climate legislation, the less they like it. Especially when they realize that it will take money out of their pockets.

How much money? About $2,300 per year per average U.S. household, according to the American Farm Bureau. That's nearly $200 a month.

The ongoing debate over the Kerry-Boxer climate bill has tended to focus primarily on two issues: the bill's potential costs and its proposed environmental benefits. But there are at least two other critically important items that have not been addressed adequately by the bill's sponsors. Both were mentioned briefly at yesterday's hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.

One of America's largest refiners told a Senate panel yesterday that climate legislation could force his company to shutter some U.S. refineries. Bill Kleese, president and CEO of Valero Energy Corp. (not a member of API) made his comments during the second day of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearings on the Kerry-Boxer bill which proposes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent in 2020. The Kerry-Boxer bill would likely reduce U.S. refining jobs because refiners would be forced to pay billions of dollars for carbon credits.

This week, the National Journal's Energy & Environment Blog posed several questions about the Kerry-Boxer climate bill. Among them, "What's your take on the chairman's mark and EPA's analysis?" The blog also invited a number of individuals, including API's Jack Gerard, to discuss the bill's strong points, weak points and provide an overall perspective on the legislation.

In the first of a series of Senate hearings about the Kerry-Boxer climate bill today, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mt.) said he has "serious reservations" about the bill's "overall direction."

Speaking at today's Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, Baucus encouraged Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to compromise with Republican members of the committee, who have expressed strong opposition to the bill. As Politico reported today, Republicans "see the legislation...as a nonstarter."

Friday night, Sen. Barbara Boxer issued an updated version of the Kerry-Boxer climate bill, and the more we learn about this bill, the more it resembles Waxman-Markey--only worse.

More voices are speaking out against the climate legislation being considered on Capitol Hill. Here's a sampling of some of the statements and studies that have been in the news during the past couple of days.

House and Senate leaders are continuing to push for climate legislation despite the fact that far fewer people believe that global warming is a serious problem, according to a new survey released today by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The survey, conducted among 1,500 adults from Sept. 30-Oct. 4, shows that 35 percent of respondents believe global warming is very serious as compared with 44 percent in April 2008.

As we've explained in this blog, there's no doubt that the Waxman-Markey climate bill would be very expensive for American consumers. According to studies, it could increase fuel costs, kill millions of jobs and increase the amount of refined fuels imported from overseas. An issue we have not yet discussed is that there is another provision that could result in a massive transfer of wealth from the United States to other countries.

The provision allows for international offsets, which means companies that are having difficulty meeting their U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emission allowance obligations can pay to reduce emissions elsewhere in the world by purchasing international offsets. On the surface, this might appear to be a reasonable--and altruistic--way to recognize that climate change is a global problem. But in actuality, it is an extremely costly experiment that could fall on the backs of American consumers.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee held a hearing this morning to examine the Waxman-Markey climate bill's potential costs and benefits. But when the senators asked direct questions about the bill's impact, the government witnesses often had difficulty answering. As one witness said, "There's a significant degree of uncertainty."

Although it appears that the Senate climate bill won't come to the floor for a few weeks, work continues on climate legislation in Washington. According to an AP news report, the White House has stepped up its lobbying efforts to push for a bill, and administration officials have met with more than half of the senators as well as mayors and governors to drum up support. The report also quotes Carol Browner, the president's assistant for energy and climate change, as saying the goal "is to get the bill moving and keep it moving."

Thank you to my friend and fellow blogger James for allowing us to feature his commentary here. This was originally posted at his own blog, Observations.

Our government still has not figured out what to do about the dependence on foreign oil that everybody agrees is an unacceptable situation.

Cecilia "Ceci" Leonard describes herself as an "oil brat" from the oil patch. She is a second-generation petroleum worker who has come to Washington today to meet with members of Congress.

"We have an image problem," Ceci says about the oil and natural gas industry. "I want everyone--including Congress--to know that we are regular, responsible and educated people. We are active in our community. We are professional. We recycle. We want what's best for our kids. We are good citizens."

The Boxer-Kerry Kerry-Boxer climate change bill leaves unaddressed key elements of how it intends to constrain carbon emissions. Unfortunately, it appears to be following the pattern the House followed, which resulted in a political bidding process that picked winners and losers.

The losers would be millions of Americans and American companies who rely on gasoline, diesel fuel and other petroleum products to get to work and to school and to run their businesses. As we've talked about on this blog, analysis shows that Waxman-Markey would kill more than two million American jobs, drive fuel prices up to between $4 and $5 a gallon and make our nation more dependent on imports of gasoline and other fuels.

Sens. Barbara Boxer and John Kerry are expected to release their version of a climate bill tomorrow. News reports say the bill is meant to be a starting point for the Senate's deliberations.

Although reports say it will be based on the Waxman-Markey bill that passed narrowly through the House, it will lack detail on many of the key issues. For example, it will not prescribe how carbon allowances are supposed to be distributed among various industries. And unlike the House bill, the Senate version will contain nuclear power and clean coal provisions.

They wore hardhats and fluorescent orange safety vests, and their message was clear. These workers who demonstrated at yesterday's Energy Citizens rally in Anchorage, Alaska, want affordable energy and jobs.

The 49th state in the Union is marked by its uniqueness. Alaska is the largest of all 50 states. It is the only state where the sun doesn't set in summer and doesn't rise far above the horizon in the winter. It contains some of America's largest oil and natural gas deposits, many of which remain untapped. And its residents could be more affected by the Waxman-Markey climate bill than many other U.S. citizens.

As I've mentioned numerous times in this blog, the Waxman-Markey bill could sharply raise energy costs and kill jobs, according to studies. In Alaska, it also could have a severe impact on the purchasing power of each household, lowering it by as much as $3,890 a year by 2030.

If you ever want to see democracy in action, attend an Energy Citizens rally for jobs and affordable energy. Thursday, at the rally in Tampa, Florida, 175 people of all ages came together in hopes of sending a message to their elected officials in Tallahassee and Washington.