Washington Examiner: Cap and Farce provision cancels carbon credits
Washington Examiner
Sen. David Vitter: Cap and Farce provision cancels carbon credits
By: Sen. David Vitter
OpEd Contributor
November 13, 2009
Much has been said about the potential negative impact of cap and trade legislation on our economy. But both the House and Senate cap and trade bills contain an unnoticed provision that could have far more devastating effects on our economy than any of us had envisioned.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-WY, and I are both members of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over any cap and trade legislation. The committee is chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA.
As we prepared for the committee markup of the Kerry-Boxer legislation, we discovered a provision that would require federal agencies to terminate permits and render carbon credits meaningless once an atmospheric parts per million (carbon dioxide equivalent) trigger is reached.
Under the mandates in sections 705 and 707 of the bill, the president will be required to direct federal agencies to use existing authority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere below 450 parts-per-million (ppm).
Scientific lingo aside, this provision states that, if the concentration of carbon dioxide or its equivalent gets to a certain measurement point, a trigger goes into effect that will unleash every arm of the octopus that is our federal government.
Because climate change touches almost every agency of the federal monolith, this provision does not ask, but requires the president to direct every tool imaginable to bring down measurements below the trigger number. Most importantly, this language changes authority that is at present discretionary to a presidential mandate tying the hands of future presidents.
And there is no doubt that this trigger of 450 ppm will be activated. Various climate models produced by reputable laboratories, like the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which performs climate modeling analyses for the Department of Energy, have all agreed that, regardless of what the United States does to compensate for the ever-growing production from India, China and Russia, the emergency conditions laid out in both bills would be triggered within months of its enactment.
Beginning in July 2015, the president will have to terminate further economic development requiring any form of federal permits, as well as plan for reducing emissions based on the economic growth of China, India and Russia. The administration will be forced to shrink the U.S. economy while economic expansion occurs overseas.
This provision mandates that the president direct federal agencies to use all authority to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and it applies to all agencies and to all statutes.
In short, purchasing or receiving all the credits in the world won’t matter because the government won’t be allowed to issue permits.
The rapid nature at which these cap and trade bills are being forced onto the American people has allowed for provisions like this to remain unnoticed in the bills.
Barrasso and I planned to raise awareness about this provision in the markup of Kerry-Boxer, but Boxer moved the bill without allowing for Republican analysis and debate.
Provisions like these illustrate that this cap and trade bill is a direct threat to our struggling economy. The president should not be forced to unleash the leviathan of federal regulations when we’re already struggling to get our economy back on its feet.
The result of such action will be vast job losses and crippling energy prices with no real environmental benefit as long as other producers like China, India and Russia continue to not play by the same rules.
Republican David Vitter is the junior senator from Louisiana.
Tags: cap and tax, energy tax, Obama, Vitter
