Cap and Trade

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by classicman

Today’s environmental movement behind global warming hysteria is a direct descendant of the movement that defeated the possibility of nuclear power in the United States 30 years ago. In a typical fashion these environmental activists have declared the debate closed and will accept no further questions on the subject. They prattle on about sustainable living with ingenious ideas like the no flush toilet. They brag about living “off the grid” in houses with solar panels without giving a second thought to how the glass, steel and tiles of those solar panels require the very factories and refineries that they wish to see shut down. These people have no idea how the industrial world works. Our lives depend on what fossil fuels can do for us. Our lives depend on the manufacturing of plastic, steel glass, paper plants and pharmaceutical plants. The environmentalists want our lives to depend on what windmills can do for us. That’s right windmills which can’t even produce enough energy to manufacture more windmills are supposed to give us everything else we depend on to live our lives.

[Undertoad]

National Review finds 50 things to object to with Waxman-Markey

Good work by them. This one, for example, blew me away:

14. Naturally, Big Labor gets its piece of the pie, too. Projects receiving grants and financing under Waxman-Markey provisions will be required to implement Davis-Bacon union-wage rules, making it hard for non-union firms to compete — and ensuring that these "investments" pay out inflated union wages. And it’s not just the big research-and-development contracts, since Waxman-Markey forces union-wage rules all the way down to the plumbing-repair and light-bulb-changing level.

Why are union rules forced in a bill about cleaner energy?

From the looks of the 50, everyone who had lobbyists in Washington got a finger in the pie. The big energy companies all now support it because they get, basically, free money. Labor supports it because of the above.

Monsanto supports it because there are farming regulations that will promote weed growth, thus more need for Roundup herbicides in farming. I shit you not.

There are rules about televisions. Faucets. Candelabras. Nuclear energy is not counted as renewable. It continues the ethanol madness. It's full of corporate welfare.

This bill is a major fuck. If it passes, it will be the first thing to really anger me about Obama, because I did think he would make more of an effort to remove lobbying from the Washington culture. As of now, the lobbyists have won... they are more powerful than ever.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Projects receiving grants and financing under Waxman-Markey provisions will be required to implement Davis-Bacon union-wage rules, making it hard for non-union firms to compete — and ensuring that these "investments" pay out inflated union wages.

Makes it harder for non-union firms to compete, by forcing them to pay a decent wage and cuts out under the table illegals. Boo Hoo.

There's a lot of things I don't like about this bill, but that's not one of them.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

National Review finds 50 things to object to with Waxman-Markey

Good work by them. This one, for example, blew me away:

Quote:
14. Naturally, Big Labor gets its piece of the pie, too. Projects receiving grants and financing under Waxman-Markey provisions will be required to implement Davis-Bacon union-wage rules, making it hard for non-union firms to compete — and ensuring that these "investments" pay out inflated union wages. And it’s not just the big research-and-development contracts, since Waxman-Markey forces union-wage rules all the way down to the plumbing-repair and light-bulb-changing level.

Why are union rules forced in a bill about cleaner energy?...

Why is it some people get pissed off about workers getting paid fairly, but they never say ANYTHING about inflated executive wages... You do see the hypocrisy, do you not?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Nuclear energy is not counted as renewable.

Well, it's not renewable. It just uses a nonrenewable resource that isn't a fossil fuel.

That being said, I do support it and think it ought to be a big part of our energy plan. As long as we follow something like the French model.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

National Review finds 50 things to object to with Waxman-Markey

Good work by them. This one, for example, blew me away:



Why are union rules forced in a bill about cleaner energy?

From the looks of the 50, everyone who had lobbyists in Washington got a finger in the pie. The big energy companies all now support it because they get, basically, free money. Labor supports it because of the above.

Monsanto supports it because there are farming regulations that will promote weed growth, thus more need for Roundup herbicides in farming. I shit you not.

There are rules about televisions. Faucets. Candelabras. Nuclear energy is not counted as renewable. It continues the ethanol madness. It's full of corporate welfare.

This bill is a major fuck. If it passes, it will be the first thing to really anger me about Obama, because I did think he would make more of an effort to remove lobbying from the Washington culture. As of now, the lobbyists have won... they are more powerful than ever.

Absolutely. Obama's little Halo is going to be progressively tarnished if this one goes into law. If nothing else is exposes the Demoncrats in Congress as nothing worse than the Republickins they displaced.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

This bill is a major fuck. If it passes, it will be the first thing to really anger me about Obama, because I did think he would make more of an effort to remove lobbying from the Washington culture.

You thought what? Keerist, Undertoad. I never thought that. 'S why I didn't vote for the guy -- why I'm standing in TEA parties these days.

You were expecting such a thing from a machine-politician Democrat? Oh please.

The Dems are sowing the seeds of their destruction.

[Undertoad]

Let's compromise and say partly renewable, because the fuel can be reprocessed and part of it used again to generate electricity.

[Undertoad]

Yes, but the difference is, as a strictly partisan if you're "right" about this, it's in a stopped clock sort of way. Here's wagering you never thought Obama would conduct Iraq and Afghanistan by listening to the Generals, as opposed to by his campaign rhetoric on the topic. I did, capice?

And furthermore the problem in this bill so far is the D House, not the D Senate or D President, so at the moment you are complaining about nothing. How stupid is that?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

And furthermore the problem in this bill so far is the D House, not the D Senate or D President, so at the moment you are complaining about nothing. How stupid is that?

True statement. But is there any doubt about what will happen in the Senate or whether or not the president will sign it? No.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Your first sentence is difficult to understand clearly.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Yes, but the difference is, as a strictly partisan if you're "right" about this, it's in a stopped clock sort of way. Here's wagering you never thought Obama would conduct Iraq and Afghanistan by listening to the Generals, as opposed to by his campaign rhetoric on the topic. I did, capice?

I am pleased he is listening to generals, particularly as it gives me hope the Dems will increasingly turn back towards sense, instead of away from contending for democracy and the beneficent effects of globalization. I also recall no indication during his candidacy he actually would behave as cagily as he has, and his party still can't bring itself to behave like it might be quite all right to win a war with anti-democrats even today, when they own the War-that-they're-not-calling-On Terror. With the usual conspicuous exception of Senator Joe Lieberman. The Republicans had and I think still have vision, while the Democrat myopia is still much in evidence.

They've been this feckless for a whole generation, UT, and unsuccessful at breaking totalitarianism for two. Winning this war with a Democratic President would constitute the first time that's happened since Truman. Truman left office three years and four months before I was born, and I'm going gray.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

And furthermore the problem in this bill so far is the D House, not the D Senate or D President, so at the moment you are complaining about nothing. How stupid is that?

When's the best time to stop a bad law? Back when it's still a Bill. Now how stupid is that?

[classicman]

President Obama will vow to cut US carbon emissions by 17% by 2020, when he attends the climate summit in Copenhagen.

Link
Just a thought here.... He won't be president in 2020. I know its just poorly written, but still.

President Barack Obama is to pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the US in several stages, beginning with a 17% cut by 2020, the White House has said.

The offer will be made at December's UN climate talks in Copenhagen, which Mr Obama will attend.

But he does not plan to be there for the crucial last days, when delegates including other world leaders are hoping to pull together a deal.

OK so the scenario goes like this. We cut our emissions and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. Heck lets say at some point, hopefully, we aren't at the mercy of these countries that hate the US. What then? What happens to the price of oil when we aren't buying it anymore?
If they cannot command the rates they currently are getting how will they support their "friends"? Are they going to simply go away? Will they be less powerful or more determined than ever and take even more drastic measures?

Originally Posted by classicman

Link
Just a thought here.... He won't be president in 2020. I know its just poorly written, but still.

Many bills are enacted that impose standards and goals well beyond the Congress or the president who enacted those bills. That is how policies that require long-term action work. The environmental laws of the early 70s set emission (water and air borne) goals and standards for the 80s..then further refined and, in some cases, extended the standards when the bills came up for reauthorization.

Most affected businesses would tel you that they prefer long-term government policies that they can plan for (even if they oppose) rather than year-to-year government policy-making, in which business decisions are much difficult to make.

OK so the scenario goes like this. We cut our emissions and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. Heck lets say at some point, hopefully, we aren't at the mercy of these countries that hate the US. What then? What happens to the price of oil when we aren't buying it anymore?
If they cannot command the rates they currently are getting how will they support their "friends"? Are they going to simply go away? Will they be less powerful or more determined than ever and take even more drastic measures?

Any loss of the US market for Mideast oil will be easily replaced by the growing market in China and India..even if both impose the same emission standards as the US.

[classicman]

Radar, I was talking more so about the choice of verbiage in my first quote.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The Arabs are already pouring those billions into other businesses that will sustain their income stream if/when oil is less lucrative. Airlines and aircraft leasing are two of them. Travel between the West and Far East, is another.