Obama's plan to bankrupt energy providers

Christopher Horner:

Undermining access to abundant conventional energy sources has proved to be a key component of Barack Obama's promised "fundamental transformation" of America. To be fair, he was uniquely candid when vowing that "under my plan of a cap-and-trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." This interview received limited coverage despite also revealing plans to "bankrupt" politically disfavored industry while also raising “billions of dollars."

Now, as the Senate prepares to debate the latest mislabeled "comprehensive energy legislation," and amid the unfolding revolt over the realities of this fundamental transformation, such radical propositions warrant revisiting.

Modern environmentalism of the sort reflected in Obama's rhetoric and policies is staunchly anti-energy. It seeks to use the state to create scarcity as a means of imposing the environmentalists' will on your lives. Congress, smarting from the 1993 "BTU" tax debacle that even Al Gore says led to Democrats losing control of Congress, is reluctant to vote on transparent energy tax hikes. So the desired scarcity is created instead by the opaque "cap-and-trade".

This scheme is undergoing its fourth Senate incarnation in seven years, driven by a classic if collapsing "Bootlegger and Baptist" coalition among rent-seeking industry and green pressure groups. Last June, they managed to drag the (immediately doomed) House version of the scheme over the finish line on a close vote that will cost lawmaker jobs just as surely as BTU did.

The House bill's requirement of energy use "allowances"—uncomfortably close to World War II-style ration coupons—was economy-wide. Although styled as "market-based," the market for the politically allocated allowances only began with a secondary market of those operations whose growth, or less formidable lobbying budgets, left them wanting.

To Obama's credit, his preferred approach sold all of the ration coupons ab initio, raising the promised billions immediately. Doling out free ice cream proved irresistible to the House Democrat leadership, however, who delayed the revenue gusher for a decade or so.

But no matter how the scheme is designed, energy and other costs will rise, harming competitiveness, chasing jobs and growth offshore and hurting lower income house-holds worst. So on the advice of Democrat pollsters like Stanley Greenberg, the energy-scarcity regime is now sold as a "jobs" program. As, it seems, is every measure presently before Congress, with equal plausibility.

...
There is much more.

The scheme is one of blatant market manipulation to increase the cost of the most efficient energy to make the least efficient more competitive. It is the kind of scheme that would make those who market fraudulent securities blush. It will wind up creating scarcity of all forms of energy, and lower our standard of living.

The suggestion that green jobs will make us better off is without merit. The number of jobs created will be more than offset by the number of jobs lost in traditional energy sectors. We will also wind up having to import more foreign oil because of the restrictions on domestic production.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains