The main talking point seems to be this, from an e-mail blast going out from House Minority Leader John Boehner's office: "Indeed, America can lower energy costs, create jobs, and protect the environment at the same time."
We should totally do that then. Then send someone to the Kroger on Tom Hill Sr. Blvd. in Macon, because I want all my groceries to fit in one bag, and I don't want that bag to be heavy.
Interestingly enough, Cap and Trade was a big part of environmental policy for the H.W. Bush White House, according to The New York Times:
A month later, the Bush White House sent Congress a cap-and-trade plan for sulfur dioxide emissions that 18 months later became the linchpin of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, considered by many to be the most successful domestic environmental legislation ever enacted.I mention all that to mention this: I had to cut, for space, U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall's thoughts on Cap and Trade policy from a Q&A we ran in yesterday's paper. And I feel bad about that:
TELEGRAPH: What about cap and trade? Will it help the environment? Will it significantly increase the cost of energy?Cong. Marshall thinks carefully before he speaks, and more so before he votes. But it sounds like he's hinting toward a no vote on this legislation.
MARSHALL: Both, I suspect. ... Will cap and trade cause, improve the environment and cause energy costs to go up, yeah, I think it would. It would have the effect in the long run of diminishing the use of fossil fuels for energy, which the vast majority of expert scientists assert as a major cause of global warming. ... There are minority voices out there who say it's not. ... I don't know who's right. I just know that the consensus seems to be greater and greater and greater and greater that we do have a problem with fossil fuels. ... And the stakes seem to be pretty high. So I think some action should be taken. I just don't want to... put us at a competitive disadvantage, or impose unnecessary costs. And I don't know whether this bill does that. You certainly hear a lot of critics saying it does exactly that. ... Four friends of mine, who I often vote with... were on the committee, and who sat through all of this... they voted no. Four Democratic friends of mine.
1 comment:
I'd be surprised if any of them even know how this works. We studied it for about four weeks in my public finance class, and I still don't get the entire thing.
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