Analysis of cap and trade provisions helps reveal why most Americans feel Congress is clueless
A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that only 29% of American voters are confident that Congress knows what it’s doing when it comes to the economy. Perhaps this stunning indictment also explains another Rasmussen finding, to wit, just 25% of voters nationwide would keep the current batch of legislators.
How does one explain such a lack of confidence in the Democratically-controlled Congress?
An analysis of the recent cap and trade folly passed by the House might help shed light on one of the reasons why so many voters feel Congress is clueless.
In his recent Newsweek column, George Will analyzes the sheer frivolity of that bill’s goal of maintaining the carbon-dioxide levels to a maximum of 450 ppm by 2050:
Steven Hayward and Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute do the math. The 450 level is less than the 2030 projected level for all countries other than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 30 developed nations. Which means the global goal would be unreachable even if in 2030 those 30 disappear—if they have zero emissions. Waxman–Markey endorses the goal of reducing all of this nation’s GHG emissions 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. In 2005, the United States’ carbon-dioxide emissions were 6 billion tons, so an 83 percent -reduction would permit about 1 billion tons—what America’s emissions were in 1910, when the population was 92 million and the economy was one twenty-fifth of today’s. But by 2050, the population probably will be about 420 million, so per capita carbon-dioxide emissions would have to be 2.4 tons—one quarter of 1910’s per capita emissions.
Hayward and Green say that historical data indicate that the last time emissions were that low was 1875. And even before that, before widespread use of fossil fuels, wood burning by Americans may have produced more than 2.4 tons per capita. Today France, which generates approximately 80 percent of its electricity by nuclear power, and Switzerland, which generates most of its electricity by nuclear or hydropower, have per capita emissions of 6.59 and 6.13 tons, respectively.
So what practical effect will the draconian energy rationing envisaged by the massive cap and trade bill have on reducing carbon dioxide levels worldwide?
The answer, is absolutely nothing. Firstly, since two of the world’s biggest polluters, China and India, are beyond the reach of the proposed cap and trade legislation, these countries will continue to spew massive amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. India has expressed no desire to hamstring its economy with Kyoto protocol cap and trade restrictions.
Secondly, even if all the target carbon dioxide emissions reduction levels anticipated by the legislation were met, the net effect of these lower levels would be negligible on lowering worldwide temperatures. As Peter Ferara of the American Spectator notes:
But even if the bill works exactly as envisioned, the most radical environmentalists admit that it will only slow temperature increases by 2050 by a ridiculous 9/100th of one degree Fahrenheit! Even after all the costs of reducing the use of fossil fuels by 83%, that is all that would result.
Yet, despite the mathematical impossibility of reaching the cap and trade carbon dioxide goals as noted above by Hayward and Green, there is no shortage of Democratic legislators who want to enshrine this patent nonsense into law. To what end, for what purpose?
If the drafters of the cap and trade legislation know full well the 2.4 ton per capita carbon dioxide reduction goal will never be seriously implemented, why as Will asks, “do the same politicians who want to radically expand government’s control of health care pretend otherwise? Because they are not serious people. Which is why so many Americans are seriously alarmed.”
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I too feel congress is clueless and my party’s representatives, democrats, gutless. But I doubt very much it is over cap and trade. I would be willingly to bet some money that if one where to ask the same sample to talk about what they dislike about cap and trade they wouldn’t have a clue. I, too dislike the bill, but no doubt different reasons than say, George Will. I will point out that the argument that we should not do something about pollution because China and India won’t come along is a bit silly. I mean they dump raw sewage into their rivers should we not have some laws against polluting our rivers because they don’t care? The Chinese also wear face masks in their cities and China and India are suffocating and poisoning their citizens. I prefer we lead rather than follow these countries who ignore the industrial mistakes of the first world.
Mr. Kinsellagh,
You posting asks two entirely different questions, one is why is congress held in such low regard and the other the other goes to the efficacy of “Cap and Trade”. You of course suggest that the former it tied to the latter. However this highly unlikely, the survey in question was on how well the congress was handling the economy, not the environment. While it is indeed true that the two are linked in an important way, there is no evidence from the poll that this what the survey participants were concerned about. The survey result are more suggestive of concerns about job loses and foreclosures, which are current and observable, rather than about a bill that has not even been voted on and has no obvious immediate impacts. Perhaps more to the point, congress always gets low marks, whether it is controlled by Democrats or Republicans. As the report shrewdly notes “Despite these reviews, more than 90% of Congress routinely gets reelected every two years. One explanation for this phenomenon frequently heard in Washington, D.C. is that ‘people hate Congress but love their own congressman.’” So I would suggest that there is no connection between the Cap and Trade bill and the results of the Raumussen Poll.
The second half of your posting is unclear. Are you suggesting that GHG emissions are contributing to climatic change but that the proposed bill does not make a big enough impact on reductions? Or is it that GHG are not really an environmental problem in the first place so making any effort to reduce them is counter-productive?
Assuming the former, you seem to be asking “would the proposed Cap and Trade bill be effective? There is of course no way to know except to enact it. However, to suggest that because US legislation cannot control GHG emissions in other countries is hardly a reason to vote against it. If GHG emissions are a problem, congress can only vote to control emissions within the borders of the US, they cannot do anything more. Further, since there are no curbs on GHGs at all currently, surely even small reductions are better than no reductions at all.
If it is your position that GHGs do not contribute to global climatic change, then the entire second half of your blog is beside the point. A response on that point is far beyond the ability of this small venue to handle.
I don’t understand why our government is always trying to execute difficult and expensive solutions, rather than something simple.
It would be a lot more cost effective to just mandate that all roofing products need to be white or reflective, than implement this bureaucratic nightmare called cap and trade.